Hollywood's portrayals of running are hilarious, but we* already have a running media for that
Enjoying another self-satisfied chuckle at the artistic license television writers invoke when distance running is involved
(Note: Despite the standard snark in the title, this entry is made in pure untainted fun.)
The main non-exercise-related pleasure I anticipate indulging in almost daily, and arguably the fundamental reason I bother waking up anymore, is accessing intentionally fictional stories in print, television, and film media. I’m grateful to the people who produce these (and even more so to my favorite musicians) for possessing the imagination, the will, and the soil to see the seeds of their creative visions and aspirations flower, thereby ensuring that if I pay about twenty dollars a month between a couple of streaming services, on any given day, I’ll have an undeniably compelling—if altogether passive—reason to continue living to the next one.
I started watching Criminal Minds for the first time back in May, and in addition to becoming an expert profiler in the course of absorbing an embarrassing number of imaginary FBI interventions all over the U.S., I’ve noticed that the characters often talk about running and fitness, and, being ultra-fit fighting machines with stratospheric IQs, are frequently shown exercising themselves.
In the clip below, from an episode that originally aired in early 2019 and set in Portland, Oregon, a kidnapping victim whose vision has been obliterated by the application of a butane torch held a strategic distance from his eyes has been freed by his captor for the purpose of cruel sport, and the FBI squad is analyzing his pell-mell evening dash along a neighborhood street, which, like every other key event in the show’s fifteen-year history, has been conveniently caught on film.
Agent Tara Lewis marvels that the victim is “still sprinting” after two miles across “open forest,” a kind of ecosystem I’ve never heard of and sounds a lot like a field with some trees in it. (I don’t recall the team is yet aware at this point that the man is also blind.) Agent Matt Simmons speculates that adrenalin could be a factor, but admires the terrified fugitive’s “perfect form.” Agent (and Bureau of Analysis Unit Chief) Emily Prentiss takes note of the man’s exercise watch, speculating that this means he “trains regularly.”
Agent Lewis then makes the natural intuitive leap that the unfortunate paragon of kinetic panache, who’s built like a professional tennis player, might be a runner from out of town, and asks the uniformed policeman listening in if there are any upcoming marathons. The cop replies in both the affirmative and the negative, stating that a half-marathon is scheduled for the next morning—one held to raise money for breast-cancer research, a run he’s done a few times himself in memory of his Aunt Joyce. Agent J.J. Jareau then instructs Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia, safely back at headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, to cross-reference the race entrants’ bib photos with still-shots of the missing man’s face, a process that instantly leads to identifying the man.
Other than the fact that the race-entrant photos required for this scene to work don’t actually exist—and leaving out the insane speed and unlikely reach and power of Garcia’s searches, as well as most of the agents’ resemblance to J. Crew models—the logical and deductive wizardry in this scene is entirely plausible within the Criminal Minds universe; to a typical viewer unfamiliar with distance running, all of it is probably unremarkable. But as a runner, you can’t help but have fun with it and all of the tropes it invokes: Trained runners are recognizable because they “look like runners” while running; a GPS watch is a sign of a committed athlete; anyone who runs is probably training for a marathon, and these are held often; any kind of running event qualifies as a marathon even when the name explicitly indicates otherwise.
But my favorite twist is the writers using approximately one-fourth of the time allotted to this segment to reveal that the respectfully quiet police officer in the corner has run a local charity half-marathon multiple times in honor of a relative who presumably died of cancer. These kinds of appeals always remind me of this Doug Stanhope take on “running for the cure”:
When I watch multiple seasons of what seems to be a well-researched police procedural, I, like most other people, pretend I'm learning at least a little genuine, deep-level cop stuff, like how data and profiling intersect. But whenever any of these shows explore a topic I know a lot more about than the average viewer, the writers reveal their sloppiness, which I am then forced to assume applies to everything else on the show. This makes me think that gardeners, electricians, bartenders, and so on routinely laugh at these shows for the same reasons runners do, but at different times. So, while during any given scene, only a low percentage of people are howling at the apparent stupidity of a much-admired show, after enough episodes have accumulated over the years, every single one of the show’s viewer with niche knowledge of anything has at one point pointed at the screen and blurted "Those dumbasses!" at an Emmy Award-nominated TV drama.
In all seriousness, or whatever amount is needed for mitigation of piss-taking, I’m probably mistaking simple, strategic decision-making on the part of the writers and editors for a lack of essential research. Watching the clip, it seems likely that even if an expert in distance running were consulted during the writing process, the scene could easily have gone exactly the same way. The guy had to be connected to a database somehow, and if looking enough like a serious runner was a way to move the plot, why not?
Lastly, if you thought I was going to spoil the ending, I won’t. But I will allow that the guy never did make it to his race, meaning that he probably wasted close to $100 even or especially if it was a charity event. But his money is still good for finding the cure. These crime-show victims are always depicted as either complete dirtbags or utter saints, much like everyone in real life is now understood to be.