Running Away to Flagstaff

Eddie Izzard pushes her body and sense of humour to the limit for Sport Relief as she takes on an immense challenge - travelling to South Africa to run 27 marathons in 27 days to mark the 27 years that their hero Nelson Mandela spent in prison. It is a gruelling, uplifting and hilarious journey through baking heat, high roads and hospitals - but can Eddie make it to the final finish line?

Started as a class project in what was likely the first filmmaking course ever taught at Harvard, Marathon documents the running of the 1964 Boston Marathon.

1 day. 100 miles. The idea sounds impossible to most of us, but that's the challenge Ashley Lindsey faces in 'Solstice,' which documents her attempt to finish the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. The world's oldest and most prestigious 100 mile trail race, Western States runners travel from Squaw Valley to Auburn, battling bitter cold, stifling heat, and their own mental and physical limitations along the way. From mountain peaks to river canyons, runners climb over 18,000 vertical feet and descend nearly 23,000 feet on this ultimate challenge for long distance runners. 'Solstice' is the story of a rookie attempting to run 100 miles for the first time, and to prove that 'impossible' is just a word.

From the Alps to the Himalayas, living legend of mountain sports, Dawa Sherpa, has left his mark on the trail running world and the Olympic games. A top-level sportsman, yak keeper, mason and Buddhist monk, Dawa now organizes races for humanitarian purposes in the heart of his native mountains. One of them is the Solukhumbu Trail. A trail running race of approximately 300km, an adventure which takes place 5000m above sea level and a total amount of vertical drop kilometres equal to twice the ascent of Everest! Discover a wild and authentic Nepal, at the foot of the highest mountains in the world, while 60 running enthusiasts embark on a humanitarian adventure. Sometimes they have to sleep at the home of locals, in a refuge or in frozen tents. To exceed yourself while supporting a human cause that is the magic of the Solukhumbu Trail.

The story of Kenyan athlete David Rudisha, the greatest 800m runner the world has ever seen, and his unusual coach, the Irish Catholic missionary Brother Colm O'Connell.

After six months of scientifically advanced training, three of the world's most elite distance runners set out to break the two-hour marathon barrier. These pioneers go on a global trek to defy the unthinkable and break the two-hour feat, from testing in wind tunnels and running labs in the United States, to balancing training with their day-to- day lives in eastern Africa, to the final heart-pounding race in Italy.

Goshen is a documentary depicting the diet and active lifestyle of the indigenous Tarahumara, a light-footed running tribe, who are striving to maintain their ancient culture against all odds. The Tarahumara are renowned for their incredible long distance running endurance and prevention of modern chronic diseases. Featuring the Born to Run author Chris McDougall and health specialists.

Anton Krupicka’s running has evolved from trails to mountains to free-soloing. Filmed over a season “In the High Country” thin air, river baths, and itinerant mountain living.

"Finding Traction" presents the inspirational story of ultra runner Nikki Kimball and her quest to become the fastest person in history to run America's oldest hiking trail, the 273-mile Long Trail. The documentary asks what drives her to attempt such an incredible feat, and follows Nikki's journey from its beginning - training and racing in the Rocky mountains - to her actual record attempt through Vermont's beautiful but brutal Green Mountains.

Mladen Maticevic is a 40 year old Serbian film director. In the summer of 2005, he decided to try and run the full marathon race on the next Belgrade Marathon, in the spring of 2006. This film depicts his struggle to train, lose weight, learn the tactics and eventually win the race. His family doubts that such feat is possible while friends both encourage him and discourage him to pull it off. Suddenly the whole marathon run becomes a metaphor for everyday struggles in post-Communist Belgrade.

Zibeon Fielding, Aboriginal TSI man and long distance runner is preparing to run a crazy 62 kilometres. Driven by passion to help those he loves, Zibeon will run further than he ever has before in the heart of Australian desert.

Surrounded by the mountains and people who are his inspiration, in ‘Path to Everest’, the mountain athlete Kilian Jornet reveals his most intimate fears, contradictions and passions. Summits of My Life is the personal project of Kilian Jornet, in which for five years he has traveled to some of the most important peaks of the planet to try to establish FKT (fastest known time) of ascent and descent of some of the most emblematic mountains of the world. The project is closely linked to values and a way of understanding the purist and minimalist mountain. The experiences lived in each challenge have been captured in different films.

The Run is a feature length documentary film which follows Australian Pat Farmer’s test of human spirit and behind the scenes drama as he runs the length of India – 80 kilometres a day for 64 days with the backdrop of colourful, enchanting, challenging, organized chaos of India, which will saturate your senses.

History wonks and running buffs will vie for who loves this movie the most. "Everest on the Track" is as much an historical study of Britain's psychological, if not almost physical, need for something - anything - to erase the woes of World War II as it is a fresh look at the quest for the first sub-4:00 mile, the heretofore deemed physically impossible. Before the war, Britain had bloomed best in its Sporting Tradition, but the amateur accolades leading to Olympic accomplishments were blown off the podiums in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Roger Bannister was the epitome of that disappearing scholar-athlete ideal. Can the lunchtime-trained runner immersed in his medical school studies inject the booster shot into Britain's flagging but still flickering morale?

Thai singer Artiwara Kongmalai organises a 2215 kilometre marathon to raise money for much-needed hospital equipment, an event which takes 55 days.

American ultra running legend Micah True (Caballo Blanco, or the White Horse) lived and ran with the Tarahumara Indians in Northern Mexico. The Tarahumara (also known as the Rarámuri or the Running People) are some of the best long distance runners in the world. This award-winning feature-length documentary chronicles Micah's quest to promote and preserve Tarahumara running tradition by creating a 50-mile foot race known as the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, which was portrayed in Christopher McDougall’s best-selling book "Born to Run – A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen".

In 2010, four of the greatest undefeated mountain runners on earth toed the starting line at the Western States 100-mile endurance run, the oldest and most prestigious 100-mile foot race in the world. 'Unbreakable: The Western States 100' follows the four lead men on this amazing journey. Hal Koerner, two time defending Western States champion, and running store entrepreneur from Ashland, Oregon. Geoff Roes, undefeated at the 100-mile distance, an organic chef from Juneau, Alaska. Anton Krupicka, undefeated in every ultramarathon he has ever started, a graduate student living in Boulder, Colorado. Kilian Jornet, the young mountain runner and two time Ultra-trail du Mont-Blanc champion, from Spain.

The São Silvestre Road Race is a famous long-distance running event held yearly in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, on December 31st. The movie recreates the experience of running the race in 2011.

In 2009 started the hardest and longest footrace in the world: an average run of 43 miles/day, 64 total stages, no days off, for a total of 2,800 miles from southern Italy up to the North Cape in Norway. Nights were spent in gyms, kindergartens or swimming baths on own mats, there where no accompanying service teams, no closed streets during the racing day... The performance expectations were turned upside down. It's not just about physical fitness but also about who can master this huge challenge in their head. Women become dreaded opponents of men. Ideal age is 40 - that's when mind and body are equally strong.

As we run, the layers of responsibility and identity we have gathered in our lives, the father, mother, lawyer, teacher, Manchester United-supporter labels, all fall away, leaving us with the raw human being underneath. With nothing but our own two legs moving us, we begin to get a vague, tingling sense of who, or what, we really are.