"this year's most popular NY crowd-pleaser!"

NY1 News - Tribeca Film Festival: Documentary Looks at Legend of NYC Marathon Founder

Variety - Run for Your Life
Emmy-nominated director Judd Ehrlich ("Mayor of the West Side") dishes up another character-driven Gotham docu with the story of Fred Lebow, shrewd mastermind of the New York City Marathon, who essentially ran running in the metropolis from late 1960s until his death in 1994. Genially told through interviews, archival footage, and photos, the history of this unlikely fitness maven from Transylvania forms part of a larger tale about the upturn in fortunes of his adopted city. Sure to be popular on home turf, pic should sprint through other fests before finding a second wind on cable and DVD.

The New York Sun - At Tribeca, Tales of City Top the Bill
In the end, however, Judd Ehrlich's "Run for Your Life" (Thurs., Fri., Sat.) might be this year's most popular New York crowd-pleaser. An intimate profile of the eccentric, endlessly optimistic, and defiantly unstoppable Fred Lebow, who founded the New York City Marathon, "Run for Your Life" evokes the day-to-day sense of community that unites New Yorkers. When Mr. Lebow founded the marathon in 1970, 27 runners paid the $1 entry fee to participate in a race that made several loops around Central Park. Thirty-six years later, 93,000 people applied to run in the race that now takes in all five boroughs.

Mr. Ehrlich has rescued archival footage depicting some of the earliest runners as they cut across the vast Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and trek into Queens, where organizers originally feared no crowds would turn out. This is the city at its very best: Strangers run next to strangers, winding through neighborhoods they wouldn't otherwise see, cheered on by people they would never otherwise meet.