Live coverage: http://www.ktva.com/mt-marathon-race-live-stream/
http://mmr.seward.com/
Pre-race coverage on http://www.adn.com/section/sports
Pre-race coverage on http://www.irunfar.com/ (usually ultras, but this is basically a 5k with 3022 ft of uphill in 1 mi)
(pre-race coverage has several links for each, so those stories may move since I didn't permalnk them)
Somewhere in those links, there should be some great downhill footage. (we've just had so much coverage this week, it's hard to remember where it all is.)
Mt. Marathon is probably the premier human sporting event in Alaska (Iditarod is dog-lead). This is 100th year since it was first run. To us, it's the Olympics, World Series, and Super Bowl wrapped into one. This year, there's several international competitors including Kilian Jornet. Things are busting with excitement leading up to this. Should be some great competition.
(no, I won't be watching. I'll be helping at another race.)
Tim
I read Kilian Jornet is running it this year. That should be something to see.
“Paralysis-to-50k” training plan is underway!
I won't be able to watch it live so I'll have to try to find some of the footage to watch later.
Le professeur de trail
I'm not going to lie....that was fun to watch! Killian killed the downhill.
Thanks for sharing AK.
My favorite day of the week is RUNday
Wow. I'd never seen KTVA coverage of the race before. Really awesome. When I got home from volunteering, I caught the last 2/3 of the men's race. Later I was able to find the ful coverage and watched the whole thing - including the last part again.
i couldn't believe it when I saw some of the men running near the top. For perspective, the hill is 3022 ft up in about 1 mile, and averages about 55% slope. And that's running about 30 min into the race.
Connoisseur of Cookies
Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize they were doing TV coverage like this for this year's race.
Pretty amazing to watch Kilian's pace, really the paces of the leaders, when he (they) hit the last stretch back into town.
***************************************************************************************
"C" is for cookie. That's good enough for me.
"Protective gear such as helmets, gloves, goggles, knee and elbow pads are recommended".
I noticed Killian Jornet and the other front runners did not heed this advice. It was amazing to see them on the course. Not for me, though, thank you very much.
And thanks for sharing AK!
Are we there, yet?
I wasn't able to watch the coverage yesterday, but in checking the results this morning I was shocked to see Allie Ostrander as the second place woman, and from I could gather from my limited viewing, may also have bettered the old record. What is shocking about that is that she is one of the top high school runners in the country.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
Announcer - "It's irritating that he (Kilian) doesn't look worse". Great line as Kilian looked like it was a bit easy for him. He took about 3 steps to take the lead on the downhill. Man can he fly.
More goodies:
Kilian's Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/339783301
Insights from Clint McCool (commentator on men's race video) and Holly Brooks (last year's women's champ):
http://www.ktva.com/shows/frontiers/episode-10-dancing-with-the-mountain-546/
History: http://www.ktva.com/a-look-back-at-the-history-of-mount-marathon-339/
Women's race (no commentary except finish line interviews): http://www.ktva.com/2015-mount-marathon-womens-race-emelie-forsberg-allie-ostrander-take-1st-2nd-711/ (doesn't appear to be complete since she's finshed in <20min) but does give a good idea what it looked like)
irunfar.com also has post-race interviews
And one more: http://www.adn.com/article/20150705/mount-marathon-morphs-race-includes-worlds-best-can-alaskans-keep
yea, we've had lots of coverage up here. It's usually heavily covered, but this year is just outdoing itself. Of course, when you have Kilian and Emelie bubbling about the mountain and the crowds at the finish line, it's hard not to be excited.
I'm wondering how much of that is he just didn't need to push at the end and was having fun and how much was saving himself for HR100 - something the commentator never mentioned and may not have known.
The guy who said that has done the race about 16 times, but has been up it about 900 times (according to one of the commentaries). He's usually top 10 or thereabouts. IOW, knowledgeable commentator.
I'm assuming you're shocked that someone that young could take down a 25-yo record? Why haven't more experienced runners been able to take it down?
Pure speculation: she's good to be able to run under old record.. I believe Bill Spencer won his first adult race and set the record, that he kept for close to 40 yr, iirc (he broke his own record at least once).
But Allie doesn't have the strength or experience of a world class runner yet to run faster than Emelie. As Holly Brooks put it, Emelie gets paid to run up and down mountains, duh. That's another ball game from just getting out of hs. Look at the maturity in their running in the women's video.
One of the big questions we've had is the world class experience and conditioning enough to overcome local experience - the dance with the mountain as described by the veterans (see video in "more goodies" post. Apparently yes - at least if they have some locals show them the main ropes and have a few runs on the mountain before race day.
Something different about Allie relative to other top mtn runners - she plays basketball in winter rather than xc ski. Many of the other top mtn runners have been to a couple Olympics as xc skiers. Some have been World Champs in sprints. Also, mtn running is not a college sport.
Also, take a look at Nancy Pease's results: http://mmr.seward.com/results/historical-race-data/
It looks like she was about 23 when she set the record.
http://mmr.seward.com/results/trivia-facts/
I can't find the exact dates when things changed (been looking at too much trivia on too many pages), but originally everybody ran in the same race, then the women separated into their own race, and juniors (boys and girls together) had their own race. Part of this was to accommodate more racers by having 3 races, rather than 1. (Chamber of Commerce puts on the race, which is a big money maker for them. I believe the city either owns the property or has trail easements there so they're not subject to USFS or other limits.). Juniors only run half the mountain now. For Nancy Pease's early races - in jr. age group - it looks like they ran the whole mountain. IOW, Nancy had several years running the full mountain in the race before she would have not been a jr. She may have been the only one in that position, since it looks like she was the only jr in some of those years. I'm sure Allie has run the full mountain in training before this year, but just wouldn't have the competitiveness of the race. In her last jr race, she won outright - beating all the boys.
"Protective gear such as helmets, gloves, goggles, knee and elbow pads are recommended". I noticed Killian Jornet and the other front runners did not heed this advice. It was amazing to see them on the course. Not for me, though, thank you very much. And thanks for sharing AK!
Actually, many do wear gloves - usually mtn bike-type gloves so their fingers can grab.
Mat Kenny has been wearing a helmet since his almost-fatal fall 3 yrs ago. He's moving really well, considering his TMI and long rehab.
I think the verbage was CYA after the 2012 race.
Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize they were doing TV coverage like this for this year's race. Pretty amazing to watch Kilian's pace, really the paces of the leaders, when he (they) hit the last stretch back into town.
Apparently they've done it in the past also, but I didn't realize it. (I've usually snagged NBC, and they just had a couple cameras and the finish line announcer.) Better filming and commentary with KTVA. When you consider the size and weight of those cameras, it's an amazing amount of work for the tv crews. It sounded like they may have had helicopter support at the top.
I actually found myself, as I was watching the men's race, yelling at the coverage - telling them to change cameras because we lost sight of the leaders. Then I realized the camera people would have had to hike up since there are no roads. I calmed down a bit after that.
I think they could really start attracting non locals if they wanted to - especially after this year. Because it's such a short race, it may not attract too many but sure was fun to see the Killian and Ricky battle the locals.