Last spring, my friend Ryan Scura reached out about helping film a documentary about Des Linden’s retirement from professional marathon racing with one final Boston Marathon. I raced around from location to location with my dad and had a few glorious seconds of footage in the final film.

A few months later, Andy Cochrane asked if I wanted to help make a film about Des attempting the 50-mile world record, and, of course, I said yes. Andy produced the movie, and I got to film and edit it. Noah Keates and I flew out to Michigan to film training with her (and also snuck in a big trail run at Pictured Rocks). She ended up getting hurt later in the training block, but we still made the film and focused on her transition to the next part of her career. What we thought would just be a few seconds at the beginning became the bulk of the video.

We tied up the film with her embracing the fun side of running and joining Anthony Ramos at the New York City Marathon. I added in some fun new editing techniques like using a mapping tool to create animations in After Effects.

Here’s Ryan’s film on retiring from marathon racing: