Plot Summary:It's the 1953/54 school year at St. Magnus Catholic School in Hamilton, Ontario. Fourteen year old Ralph Walker is in many ways a typical teenager. He is experimenting with smoking and is openly preoccupied with the opposite sex, which makes him the brunt of jokes amongst his male classmates and which constantly gets him into trouble with the school's strict headmaster, Father Fitzpatrick. As penance and to redirect his energies, Father Fitzpatrick orders Ralph to join the school's cross country running team under the tutelage of the school's avant-garde thinking teacher, Father Hibbert. Some of the more unusual circumstances of Ralph's life are that he lives by himself in the family home, telling the authorities that he is living with his paternal grandparents (who are in reality deceased), and telling his widowed hospitalized mother (Ralph's father was killed in the war) that he is staying with a friend. Ralph's focus in life changes after his mother falls into a coma. It will take a miracle for her to come out of that coma. After two unrelated and somewhat innocent comments made to Ralph by Father Hibbert on prayer, purity and faith and running the Boston Marathon, Ralph believes that that miracle will be him winning the 1954 Boston Marathon for which he only has 180 days to train. To obtain the necessary physical and spiritual requirements to achieve this goal, Ralph receives some help from his friends Claire Collins and Chester Jones, and from one of the hospital's compassionate nurses named Alice. Although he believes Ralph's mission is misguided, Father Hibbert, who has his own secret past running history, becomes Ralph's personal trainer. These actions place Father Hibbert and Ralph at odds with Father Fitzpatrick, who sees his and other authority figures' roles as needing to show Ralph his place in life.
讲的是一个14岁的男孩相信他可以创造奇迹的故事。男孩的父亲去世，母亲昏迷在医院，似乎只有奇迹才能使其苏醒。他渴望创造奇迹。一次长跑惩罚使他喜欢上了这项运动，并坚信如果能完成一项不可能完成的任务，比如赢得波士顿马拉松比赛，就能够唤醒母亲。虽然最后他离冠军仅一步之遥，但他赢得了师长和同学的尊重，赢得了心仪女孩的热吻，赢得了母亲奇迹般的苏醒。奇迹每天都会发生。
