keefer wrote:
Shame on chicago Marathon for orchestrating this.
With Wejo at least he knew to stay out of the picture, can you imagine Wejo running and yelling at Paula the last mile!
I think personal pacemakers should be a no no unless the race explicitly oks them.
I ran with Paula for 25 miles and could have kept going with her the final mile but figured I should let her go on her own. I don't have as much of a problem with clint being with Deena during the final mile. I do think it makes for bad tv. I think also if he is with her he should not be relaying info about Dita. It just raises the question of "what is fair". Some say its unfair for Deena to have an escort at that time and not Dita. Others would say the pacer on the men's side is only with the leader and not 2nd place so its the same thing.
I think there are 3 questions raise in this thread:
1) should men pace women?
if yes:
2) how far should men's pacers go with women in a marathon?
3) should men's pacers do anything other than run on the side/in front of the women?
I think if a race is going to have pacers or escorts they should play as little a role as possible, especially the farther the race goes. Ideally they'd stop over the final 6 miles or so if it was a competitive race. In a men's race I get to see the leaders at the end, not some pacer right in front of them. I think it highlights the competition better.
If Paula wants to hire someone and say "I want to test how fast the body can go, he's going to run right in front of me every step" then fine, at least the race is saying so before hand that this is a 100% time trial for Paula.