Great read: Outstanding commentary on the Chicago Marathon in today's Tribune

oh boy, here we go.

And don't blame sponsor LaSalle Bank if you were weak from thirst and couldn't get enough to drink.

...

They begged runners to take extra precautions. They stocked more than 200,000 more servings of water than usual. They made as many of the necessary preparations as possible.

But when 35,000 people jump off a ledge, you can only catch so many in safety nets. The rest are going to fall.

I'll just disagree with the part about water and people jumping off a ledge. Providing water is one of the organizer's main jobs. No matter the conditions, as long as it's not a last second change in weather, they should have enough water on hand for everyone. And should have anticipated people dumping so much water over themselves in addition to drinking it.

As far as jumping off a ledge, I'd say that by not canceling the race before starting it, the organizers were in effect giving the go ahead to jump off the ledge. It's not like the 2003 Washington, DC Marathon where the race was canceled and people jumped off the ledge on their own, taking the entire risk into their own hands. If you give the go ahead to 35,000 people to make a jump that you were paid to organize and choose to go forward with, then you need to have enough safety nets in place.

Overall, from what I've read, I think Chicago did a good job with the situation that they faced. I don't think they should have canceled the entire race and I think they were right to stop it when they did. They just should have known to have more water. 200,000 extra servings is only about 6 extra cups per person over the entire race. In temps 20 degrees hotter than usual, of course runners will drink at every stop and likely take one to pour over themselves.

I agree with most everything he wrote. But the race should be moved to a later date. Otherwise, the RD will have to deal with all this BS again. And people will have to waste $120 just for the chance to run on a potentially cool day. Or have a backup race. My guess is that if people file lawsuits against the race, Cary Pinkowski will move the date.

Great? you must be easily impressed.

he's a lazy untalted journalist who takes the easy way to be "thought provoking". What a hack. If you are going to be a good respected columnist use facts and make a good argument. this guy does neithers. It's 5th grade journalism.

Duuder wrote:

he's a lazy untalted journalist who takes the easy way to be "thought provoking". What a hack. If you are going to be a good respected columnist use facts and make a good argument. this guy does neithers. It's 5th grade journalism.

And we, at letsrun are fortunate to have Pulitzer prize winning commentator of your caliber to enlighten us.

Your spelling impresses me the most.

Duuder wrote:

Great? you must be easily impressed.

he's a lazy untalted journalist who takes the easy way to be "thought provoking". What a hack. If you are going to be a good respected columnist use facts and make a good argument. this guy does neithers. It's 5th grade journalism.

No kidding. This guy should be (and probably is) on sports radio, not writing for a newspaper.

For the rocket scientists who are criticizing the article and its writer, here's an idea: back up your criticism with some reasons, logic, counterpoints, etc. Don't just bitch and moan.

I agree with the column. If it were a lightning storm, you would have had a lot more people never start the race. But HEAT is far more of a concern than lightning.

mostly right wrote:

I agree with most everything he wrote. But the race should be moved to a later date. Otherwise, the RD will have to deal with all this BS again. And people will have to waste $120 just for the chance to run on a potentially cool day. Or have a backup race. My guess is that if people file lawsuits against the race, Cary Pinkowski will move the date.

I am sure two or three idiots will file lawsuits, but they won't win. The marathon will not be moved to a later date. This year was unseasonably warm. It was the hottest race day temperature ever, and the hottest Oct. 7 in 60 years. It's called a bad break. I agree with the writer of the above article. People knew what they were getting into. I ran the race, I had to stop and walk, I didn't finish, but at no point did I blame the people in charge of the marathon. I had a friend at three spots on the course handing me a bottle of water, and I drank as much as I could in the early parts of the race. You have to be prepared. You practice all summer in that kind of heat. I did runs in hotter temps than Sunday. Other should have too. Prepare the body for the conditions, try your hardest, and if you don't succeed, at least you gave it your best shot.

To the above poster whom I quoted...the race cost $110 and Cary Pinkowski's first name is spelled Carey. Just FYI.

SVC wrote:

For the rocket scientists who are criticizing the article and its writer, here's an idea: back up your criticism with some reasons, logic, counterpoints, etc. Don't just bitch and moan.

OK, how about this: if you can't provide the supplies for a 45000 person race, don't hold one. It sounds like the race director (and this article writer) are blaming the weather as much or more than the competitors, and it is the competitors who suffered in it.

mostly right wrote:

I agree with most everything he wrote. But the race should be moved to a later date.

I also agree with almost everything in the article.

In 1993 the date was end of the month, October 31. I went with some buddies running the full, I did the 5km.

It snowed! Always a chance of nasty weather anytime in October. Boston April 2004 was 86 degrees at the start.

If you get decent marathon weather, be real happy!

WDC Runner wrote:

As far as jumping off a ledge, I'd say that by not canceling the race before starting it, the organizers were in effect giving the go ahead to jump off the ledge.

If I give you the go-ahead to jump off a skyscraper. does that mean you have to? Does it mean you should?

sweathog wrote:

SVC wrote:

For the rocket scientists who are criticizing the article and its writer, here's an idea: back up your criticism with some reasons, logic, counterpoints, etc. Don't just bitch and moan.

OK, how about this: if you can't provide the supplies for a 45000 person race, don't hold one. It sounds like the race director (and this article writer) are blaming the weather as much or more than the competitors, and it is the competitors who suffered in it.

See, that wasn't so hard, was it? :)

I think that it all boils down to personal responsibility. If I can't handle 90 degrees, I won't run.

Bottom line:

When you pay to run a marathon and are promised fluids, there are several issues:

1. You can reasonably expect to be provided with enough fluids.

2. You can especially reasonably expect enough fluids when the marathon is run on an expected hot day.

3. You have formed a contract promising fluids.

4. It is the race\'s responsibility to fully provide the promised items.

5. There is at least a breach of contract here on the part of the marathon and a good case for gross negligence.

There were a few things that they organizers should have done considering they knew about the potential heat for a week:

-Moved up the start time to 7 AM or even 6 AM. The heat really started getting bad around 11 AM or so. They knew for a week that race day could possibly be in the high 80's.

-Made water stations every mile instead of every 1 1/2 mile. I was extrememly thirty at every stop.

-At the end made more exits at the post finish area for the runners so we weren't bottled up like cattle. People were passing out left and right waiting to get out.

- And finally limit the amount of runners by qualifying times- I know this goes against corporate greed but people who run marathons slower than 4.5 hours are a liability and the ones usually in trouble.

I wasn't effected by the water shortage but I am sure the slower runners were screwed.

idiot detector wrote:

I think that it all boils down to personal responsibility. If I can't handle 90 degrees, I won't run.

Agreed, but where it gets tricky is what if you can handle 90 degrees if there's proper support, but then the support is not there? I'd guess that just about all of the runners could have made it with a personal escort and fluid/cooling service. Most would have been fine if the support for each individual was at the normal levels for Chicago. Somewhere in between the race director's responsibility is to consider issues that come out of having thousands of runners out there simultaneously...

NO Way wrote:

1. You can reasonably expect to be provided with enough fluids.

2. You can especially reasonably expect enough fluids when the marathon is run on an expected hot day.

3. You have formed a contract promising fluids.

4. It is the race's responsibility to fully provide the promised items.

5. There is at least a breach of contract here on the part of the marathon and a good case for gross negligence.

There is no "contract" for fluids. There is no breach of it. There is no guarantee that fluids will be available for all, merely a good faith attempt to provide them. There is no guarantee that shit won't happen. There is no negligence.

Next time you run a race you need to actually READ that waiver you sign. Then come back and talk to us about breach of contract.

sweathog wrote:

OK, how about this: if you can't provide the supplies for a 45000 person race, don't hold one.

What does that mean, "the supplies for a 45000 person race"? Is there a manual you can cite that says exactly what the minimum number of water stops, minimum per capita allocation of cups, Gatorade, gels, bananas, sponges and so forth should be, indexed to temperature and humidity?

You expect that organizers should have anticipated every runner using up 5 - 6 cups at every water station? How about looking at the practicalities of snapping your fingers and making that happen:

45000 runners x 5 cups per aid station = 225,000 cups per aid station.

For most of the race distance the field will be constantly streaming past, so the opportunity to replenish supplies on the tables will be limited, but lets assume they can lay out half the allocation pre-race and then re-stock the other half once they start handing out the water.

What's the dimensions of a standard table? 1.5 x 2m sound good? Ballpark each cup taking up 10cm x 10cm (or about 3 inches for the metrically deficient). That allows for 300 cups to cover one table.

Now if they are good at careful setting up, they can put several levels, let's say 4. So now we're talking 1200 cups per table.

But to cover those 112,500 initially setup cups, that's over 90 tables - per water stop.

Then you want to replace that load with another 112,500 cups before all the runners come up, demanding water now. How many people is that going to take?

Let's say you've got magically filled barrels of water at each table for someone to scoop out water. If one person at each station scoops up one cup of water and gets it on their table every 5 seconds, it'll take them 6000 seconds or well over an hour and a half, non-stop, to restock those 1200 cups.

But you can't have only one person at each table, you need at least another 2 or 3 to be handing out the cups because you don't want some runner trying to pick up their cups on the fly and knocking over half a dozen more.

So, looking at overall manpower/logistics, you are saying that you expect over 90 tables at each water stop, requiring at a minimum 90 volunteers working completely non-stop to stock the tables for two hours, then replenish them non-stop for nearly another two hours (negating anyone to deliver the water to each table or clearup thousands of discarded cups piling up on the race course) plus 2 - 3 more per table for hand-outs times how many water stops? A dozen?

Yeah, it sure is easy to just snap your fingers and have the organizers say "more water? Sure! No problem!"