A documentary at the St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) features a man who set out to run 300 miles in one of the most unforgiving parts of the planet: Northern Alaska in the dead of winter. Along the way, he suffered a medical event that changed the course of the run — and his documentary film.
Kevin Kline's new documentary is called Delivering Hope. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he's the nephew of Oscar-winning actor Kevin Kline — and he worked as a news writer at KMOX in the 1990s.
He told KMOX all about his documentary, and about his life as an "ultra runner."
"Anything longer than a marathon is considered an ultra run. So the next step up from 26.2 Miles is a 50k, which is 31 miles," he explained. "And then you go up to 100k — 62 miles — and 100 miles. But what I like to do is timed races — 12 hour, 24 hour, 48,72. I like to run mile loops for that long."
His first marathon, he explained, he completed after meeting a 15-year-old girl who had cancer and was given a 10% chance to live six more months to see her 16th birthday.
"She had marathon surgery — 27 hours. And I told her I was gonna run a marathon for her. 32 people said Chelsea Campbell's name that day, whether it was 'Go Chelsea, do it for Chelsea, Chelsea proud,'" Kline said. "And I told my wife Trish that that's how we were going to keep Chelsea alive. Because on the 364th day we would have been friends, I buried her."
So for his documentary, Kline decided to run in Northern Alaska, coming as close as he could to "the top of the world," carrying a backpack containing 1,856 playing card-sized papers with the names of kids who have fought cancer. And while running with the nine-pound backpack, Kline collapsed.
"I found how far I can push my body. And I mean, I collapsed, and I had to give the backpack to our backup runner," he said. "And that's why Scott was there — he was our medic and our backup runner. And we didn't talk about it, but that night after he ran with the backpack, I said, 'How did that feel?' And he goes 'Like a million pounds.'"
He said the feeling of that run has stuck with him more than the feeling of any other race he's run.
"I failed in my personal mission, the mission itself ultimately was triumphant. We got that backpack to the top of the world and we honored those kids and families," he said. "Anytime I DNF — or do not finish — an ultra race, I forget within an hour how I felt at that time, I will never forget how I felt when I fell and collapsed in the middle of the Dalton Highway. I could not take another step."
Hear more from Kevin Kline on his documentary Delivering Hope, and get tickets to see the film here.
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