Don't know about the fitness of the athletes but sounds like a lot of people weren't running smart. Southwest runners and probably southeast ones too know to run by feel (not by a prescribed pace) but I'm guessing others might be shocked by how hot it can get. Weren't there a lot of coaches warning their runners to play it safe?
Good job by the coaches stressing hydration.
Just to make it clear, according to this article only the college races ran, it was canceled before any HS races. So this was not the ladies social club dropping like flies, this was apparently legitimate runners suffering.
http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-lehigh-cross-country-cancelled-heat-20131005,0,6393762.story
It's pretty annoying to read the typical lets run computer jockey's commenting on how athletes didn't train enough / do acclimatize work / hydrate enough. My women's team was in the brown race. We thew our race plan out because it was very warm and humid and tried to just focus on team running. Real feel was about 90 at 1pm during that race. Keep in mind August and September were both unseasonable cool in PA this year so runners got used to 70s and low humidity over the past 2 months. We hydrated heavily before the race dumped water on our athletes before and during the race and still one of our athletes overheated enough that she couldn't really see and dropped out. She didn't have to go the hospital but got dunked in the ice tube by the medical staff because they were worried about her. We did everything we could to help the situation. The woman on my team who dropped out ran 55-70 mpw all summer as an FYI. This was just a freak day. If you were heat senstive this was a terrible day. For all the folks on here suggesting that people were just being stupid / lazy / not tough enough...well i think you might just be mistaken is all of these assumptions. It was brutal out there.
Keep in mind that several years ago, they chopped down a ton of trees along that Lehigh course.
Used to be most of that stretch in back from like 4 miles to almost 6 miles was shaded trails, but now it's wide open.
Doesn't help on a day like today.
Who cares what a football team would have done or if people have raced in hotter conditions before. The bottom line is more people were requiring medical attention than local services could provide for. You don't just blindly bulldoze ahead and ignore the current circumstances.
Here's a video with one of the race directors. In it, she states that it wasn't called by Lehigh but instead both counties that are in that area told them to shut it down due to the strain on hospitals an other emergency services.
The weather was brutal. Period. Especially for the Brown races. The night before I directed my team to drink 3 Liters of water before bed. I had the women in the shade while the men raced. I made sure to get the men there only an hour before the race. I adjusted my kids paces by 20 seconds per mile across the boards and then at the race line told them to go our out tempo effort and that anyone felling distress should stop. All of my kids were ok except one who we iced ourselves and she was fine within the hour. Yes it was hot, yes coaches may not have stressed hydration, yes most of the northern teams have lost heat tolerance and yes, in the cornfields and in the direct sun it was more like 90. It was as bad as I have seen. So take that for what it is.
This meet- and this thread- clearly illustrate the ongoing pussification of America.
There are so many tough guys in this thread.
Shoot, I ran 5ks when temps were in the 90s with no shade and I never had to even see a trainer afterwords. However, this was late August.
Who cares what a football team would have done or if people have raced in hotter conditions before. The bottom line is more people were requiring medical attention than local services could provide for. You don't just blindly bulldoze ahead and ignore the current circumstances.
This posts pretty much sums it up. If the emergency rooms cant handle the runners coming in they had no choice but to stop the races. All that being said Lehigh University the host of the race did a poor job in getting runners off the course and getting them treatment. They were poorly prepared to handle the race. They had all week to get ready yet they treated it like it was a normal October Paul Short race. I would like them to name one thing extra they did to prepare for the heat.
ran and it was HOT wrote:
If you didn't run at the meet I really don't think you can comment on how bad the conditions really were.
Welcome to the internet! The parts of it that aren't pornography are primarily people discussing events for which they were not present.
ran and it was HOT wrote:
If you didn't run at the meet I really don't think you can comment on how bad the conditions really were. .
Blah blah blah blah blah
Every one of us has run or raced in extremely hot conditions. We all know what 96° and sunny feels like. Or 75 and 100% humidity. Or 30° or 50° dry and perfect running weather.
I was there it was a totally freaky day. That area in Pa is no stranger to high heat and humidity...California sissy weather it is NOT. It felt like 90 degrees with humidity, and no longer any shade on that course.
There were 150 runners treated - all D1, D2, D3 athletes..and 20 hospitalized. Whatever acclimating that was accomplished during the summer was clearly gone. I personally saw at least 10 runners capable of sub 25 staggering across the line in 27:30 - 28:30 and then falling over.
Pathetic
I did a 9 mile tempo run yesterday with no problems.
I was there and it was brutal weather. I had a strange observation & wondering if it impacted some runners. The water was brown & I heard some runners say they would not drink it. Wondering if this added to he dehydration issue.
Someone should've let the guys at the front of the race know that it was too hot. I'm excited to see James Leakos drop a 21:30 8k when he runs in cooler conditions.
1 James Leakos, Sr 23:13
2 Mike Biwott, So 23:26
3 Will Geoghegan, Sr 23:46
4 Andrew Springer, Sr 23:52
5 Alex Monroe, Sr 23:57
6 Tyler Mueller, Sr 23:58
7 Aaron Dinzeo, Jr 23:59
I also was in the race and did not run exceptionally well or poor, but I was up towards the front of the open race and personally turned a corner during the last mile and saw MULTIPLE people face down in the middle of the course as well as many many others crawling on the side. Yes Lehigh was not prepared and i think next year they will suffer from it.