If a marathon in Orlando doesn't produce slow times due to the heat, how do you explain the 5:48:43 average finishing time at the Disney Marathon in January? ;)
So much whining and complaining. Oh no it's at noon! Oh no it's not a perfect course!
This is why our Marathoners suck at Olympics...they race in perfect conditions and courses and are totally unprepared for a hot race on a less than ideal course. Most Olympic marathons have a ton of turns and are hot as sh*t.
100% agree - US runners stop your whining. Nobody is forcing you to race. Don't like the starting time, don't like the course? DON'T RUN
Also born in Orlando, though I haven’t lived there in a long time.
it would be great if they could do it through Disney, I think that would be great for general interest and views but I don’t know if there would be a dispute with Disney/ESPN vs NBC
Absolute temperatures in Central Florida don't really mean anything. It's never been 100 degrees (ever) in Tampa, but this time of year 88 routinely feels like 115. High 70s can be very bad, high 80s are always bad, and once it's in the low 90s, just stay inside.
Orlando is nicer than Tampa in February, but it can still be pretty awful. If you've ever run the Disney Marathon or Gasparilla Road Race, you know that it can get pretty miserable. If the temperature when the gun goes off is in the low 80s, it is going to be very, very miserable for the competitors, especially if they have not acclimated to humidity.
If it's 73 that day (which I guess is the average high), it will be uncomfortable but not too bad. But I'd guess there's a 40% chance it's pretty bad and maybe a 15% chance it's really bad.
But I guess thank God it's Orlando. Doing a noon race on any day of the year in Tampa or Miami would be a total nonstarter.
Summer in FL sucks everywhere. A little less so on the beach vs. Orlando.
I’ve done hard 20 milers at noon in Tampa (in the winter). It’s rare, but we do get days where the high is in the high 50s/low 60s and dry for FL standards.
Most likely it will be low 70s with manageable dew point. It will all depend on how much direct sun the runners get, and unfortunately it will probably be pretty clear. That’s pretty miserable but not dangerous.
If it is a particularly hot day in the low 80s, that may bring some carnage.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
The humidity isn’t typically insufferable in Orlando in February, so that should be a non issue.
We could get lucky and have a perfect bright and dry 50° day.
It could be a a sweltering 80° and humid at the gun.
The course itself is pretty decent though - I’ve run that stretch near the expressway too many times to count. It’s not a bad road to run. The expressway is elevated and it isn’t unsightly, but it does make it impossible to cut across the course except for the underpasses (which are every 1/4 mile except for a stretch where they’re 3/4 mile apart). I think the crowd support will actually be decent, even along Anderson Street (the most isolated part of the course)
It will not be that hot. High temps don't happen until 3 or 4 that time of year. You're claiming you're from Orlando but don't know this. I will take your bet and double down that it won't be nowhere near 80. Especially when the average high is 74.
You guys are mentioning highs. My post is also about the course. But i will argue that it will often hit 80 by noon throughout winter. I never said 80 was the high. But obviously it can hit 85-87 later in the day as it did this past winter.
But since you’re so smart, you knew the official temps are taken 20 miles away at the airport which will not have the same temps or humidity that running through the suburbs of a small city will.
That average high doesn’t mean sh!!t when you get a cold front (rain event) and it drops the temps to high 30’s at night and 3 days later it’s 84 in the afternoon.
Anyway since you guys are just thread highjacking with temp spec, lets bring it back to the course. I believe they could have had a more scenic and challenging course if the went north. By going south it would stay fairly cooler since those neighborhoods have more trees. Heading west would have been fun. There’s some landmarks. Personally I would draw a course north. But still happy it didn’t happen in Lake Nona as some troll here specualted months ago.
So much whining and complaining. Oh no it's at noon! Oh no it's not a perfect course!
This is why our Marathoners suck at Olympics...they race in perfect conditions and courses and are totally unprepared for a hot race on a less than ideal course. Most Olympic marathons have a ton of turns and are hot as sh*t.
You do realize that the US has the third most medals of any country in the world in the Oly Games since 2000 (behind Kenya and Ethiopia) - by a lot mind you but still I wouldn’t describe that as “suck”.
uhhh we've had an American medalist in the 2016 and 2020 games that had races with less than ideal conditions. Not sure what marathoners you're watching
So much whining and complaining. Oh no it's at noon! Oh no it's not a perfect course!
This is why our Marathoners suck at Olympics...they race in perfect conditions and courses and are totally unprepared for a hot race on a less than ideal course. Most Olympic marathons have a ton of turns and are hot as sh*t.
Seems like this course leaves the runners unprepared for the hills coming in the Olympic marathon. Hills, the things that even the GOAT doesn't want to race over.
It does (mostly) avoid the brick streets, and allows spectators to see numerous places (although the underpasses of the expressway where you can cut back and forth are probably going to be crowded, if they even let people in there at all). It also does have a bit of shade for some stretches. But overall, yeah it’s not that great of a course.
They’ll need that shade since it will be 80 by noon. At least the dewpoint will be in the 50’s. The shade will make the course much more bearable. I would have taken it north or south through conway. Running along south street will guarantee no crowd support.
Crowds at the Olympic marathon trials? I doubt there will be many apart from close family, friends and coaches of the athletes. Sad but true.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
It bears mentioning not only that the weather will sometimes be terrible in early February but that the intensity of the sun in Florida, even in the winter, is hard to handle even with relatively low temps, and what distance runners struggle with in the late winter and spring is not the absolute temps but the lack of acclimation to warmer temperatures at that time of year. The same weather in November in Florida would feel much easier because you would have gone through hot summer weather already, whereas in February it is probably hotter than it has been in months.
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