Alaska Seward Mount Marathon 1988

Highlites from the 1988 Seward Mount Marathon. Dan Debenham, Kathy Day and our talented KIMO crew battle the elements and a quick turn-around time in covering this this truely unique Alaskan race. I ran the helicopter camera standing on the skids - then raced back and worked an all-nighter to get the show ready to air the next day.. . (from ADN) The KIMO crew wrapped up shooting the race in Seward at about 5 p.m. The tape was flown home, arriving at the station about 7 p.m. and then the editing began. A total of 10 people worked on the 30 minute show; Dave Bellamy was the chief editor and, with help from Terry Burge, worked on it Saturday night, the night of the race, and the nextday. In fact, they were putting the final touches on it up until a half hour before its 6:30 p.m. air time. The entire project was pulled off within a 24 hour time period that had the crew feeling like it had run the marathon instead of just covering it. "You get to a point where you're so burned out, you can't get going," said Kathy Day, one of the co-hosts of the show. The principal crew involved in the show slept about four hours Saturday night. The result was a slick, polished effort with good use of music intertwined with timely interviews with the frontrunners. The station chartered a helicopter and so had excellent footage of the runners trudging up the 3,022foot mountain. The film of the runners sliding down the snow was exhilarating. Spectators weren't allowed too far up the mountain so this was a part of the race few people got to see. In fact, the show is probably the only way to get an idea of the race as a whole.