jaguar1 wrote:
You can't place a dollar sign on someone's life.
Oh I'm sure the lawyers who sue on behalf of the guy that died will managed to come up with a number allright.
jaguar1 wrote:
You can't place a dollar sign on someone's life.
Oh I'm sure the lawyers who sue on behalf of the guy that died will managed to come up with a number allright.
Your assumptions are quite thoroughly screwed up. The entire field of 34,000 starters would not neatly file past the 2 mile table in a mere 22 minutes. The entire field cannot even cross the starintg line that fast. It would be more like an hour for most of the runners to pass this table.
No, you can't. So when marathon officials realised that they didn't have the resources to accomodate the 6hr+ marathoners, and decdied that conditions were too inhospitable, they cut it. And I think that was smart, given the cirumstances.
What I was arguing was that it's not smart to simply say: finish to 5 or 6hrs of fewer or don't participate.
Nice use of language... Looser... I'm glad you dropped out...
Let me preface this whole post with the saying that I'm very proud of the people that truly helped people in danger in Chicago and those people need to be given great thanks - but lets think about the big picture here, not even just about Chicago, but Marathon running in general.....................
Everybody's complaining about PREPARATION PREPARATION PREPARATION of how horrible the Chicago Marathon was this year w/ the director and water stations etc., but..........what about the PREPARATION that is the sole responsability of the person that enters and decides to run over 26 miles!
It's sad how large the gap is between people that call themselves marathon runners. Not everybody can or has the time to run the mileage (80-140 miles/week) to be really fast at the marathon - I understand that. Not everybody wants to even be really fast at the marathon - I understand that. Most people want to finish, or keep finishing marathons - accomplishment - that's totally fine - I understand that. This is what gets me...........as a whole society and culture, we want everything good out of something (fast times, glory, accomplishment, etc.) but we want to MINIMIZE the sacrifice. I know a ton of people just said - I didn't minimize the sacrifice when I did my 12-week or 18-week or 24-week training program to prepare for a marathon!!! Well, most of the training programs out there, you run 3-4 times/week building up to 5-6 miles, with one long run per week - THAT IS NOT GOOD MARATHON TRAINING!!!! That training will get you in moderate shape to do kind of ok in your local 5k/10k races. I'm not here to hurt anybody's feelings and stuff, but let's keep it real - if you run over 10 min./mile and can't run 30-50 miles/week - you are not good at running, now I think running is truly for EVERYBODY and that doesn't mean you shouldn't run or train for other events, but a marathon????? With the freaky uncharacteristic weather, the hydration issue was probably not preventable, but prepare for that! Anyway, that's my opinion - the marathon (and even ironmans and stuff) have become such a participatory event that the slower and under-trained 90% is bitching about everything under the sun (literally) because running 26.2 miles was hard and everybody got really fatigued - lets look in the mirror and take some responsability!
medical help from bystander wrote:
According to doctors on site, they appeared to have heat stroke, not dehydration, and according to friends and family they were well trained and well prepared.
1. "Heat stroke" means nothing at all. I'm surprised "doctors" would even use this term.
2. Family and friends' evaluation of runners' preparedness is not the most accurate gauge. These people were, obviously, NOT prepared to run the pace they tried to in those conditions.
chrisbikeman wrote:
Nice use of language... Looser... I'm glad you dropped out...
Nice use of spelling, Loser.
Its time to end this whole "marathon is a rite of passage crap" once and for all.
Running a 5 hr marathon and claiming "I did it", is like driving up to the top of Mt Washington and claiming the same. Get real people, if you need that long to run it, its hardly life altering. And yes I CAN speak for these idiots who waste their time proving NOTHING.
Its a combination of slick marketing by the organizers and a lack of a life by these so-called runners.
IF you really want to run it in 5 hrs then do it yourself with your friends and family supporting you on some back country road. Dont waste peoples time in a big city marathon.
Why wont someone tell these idiots that its so much better for them to run a hard fast 10k/15k instead?
Any marathon that calls itself legit should have a 4hr cut off...there, so you cant claim I'm elitist.
Chicago would not have been such a mess if they had eliminated the waddlers. What we saw there was proof positive that most people should not be running a marathon.
HTFU! wrote:
This whole thing is a joke. 70s-low 80s is not "dangerously hot." Get real!! If you were still out there at 1:00-2:00 in the afternoon (when it actually reached 88), you shouldn't be in a marathon anyway.
I agree that people who take over 5 hours should not be allowed to enter marathons. We live in a fatty, lazy, it's-all-about-me country where big, flabby, crybabies stomp their feet and threaten to sue just because they're out of shape and don't want to admit it.
All the 5+ hour waddlers in marathons is gross and embarrassing.
You are disgusted when they sit on the counch and contemptuous when they try to get some exercise. You sound like a really nice guy. BTW - My Dad ran his only marathon at the age of 61. He took over 5 hours. According to you I should feel annoyed and embarassed. I'm actually rather proud of him. Go figure.
anyone who finished yesterday was a winner in my book.
Another set of thoughts:
- Yeah, you have to be responsible for yourself. When you enter the race, you even sign something that attests that you are. But in the real world, some people will not be. And people will be dumber than any race planner could imagine. Example: the local TV webcast (the "free" one) did a feature on a guy who does not train a step, supposedly ran it in 3 hrs last year, and was wearing a chicken suit this year. This guy has to be protected from himself.
- On reason that water could run out is that many "runners" these days do not know the protocols and give a damn about anoyne else in the race, meanign the people behind them.
water supply I'll bet that (as the guy who did the math sevl posts ago indicated), some people hogged the water. One cup is good, two is OK too... but if half the field pours one over the head, drinks one, pours another over the head, and takes one more (drinks half, tosses half), all told the cups/water run out before a quarter of the field gets any.
- We can never know how many lives were saved by the decision to terminate the race. It's unknowable. That number could be zero, could be nonzero. But my guess is that it's several. And for that I commend the Pink Man and the LSBCM staff.
- I join the chorus offering special thanks to those who stepped in to help people in trouble yesterday. Decent chance that you saved some lives yesterday too.
Tommy2Nuts wrote:
Its time to end this whole "marathon is a rite of passage crap" once and for all.
You should have seen the news here in Chicago last night. Every interview done was with these 5 to 6 hour types. The reporter walked right onto the course and was walking with them. She asked one guy how he felt and he said "I didn't train enough." Fat women in cotton shirts complaining about the water and "runners" talking on their cell phone, the segment had it all.
Will anything be done about this? Nope. The races and their sponsors will be too scared to piss off this demographic.
Unfortunately, these "runners" aren't going away anytime soon.
BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
Yup, marathons are not just for the self claimed elite.
So here's my advice to the front runners who could care less about the back half of the pack. Learn to share. Don't be greedy and then cry when your race gets canceled while you're still running.
Give me a break. As if the front runners could really anticipate that the race would actually run out of water.
I ran the race yesterday. I certainly had no trouble with water, but I finished in 3 hours. It was just hot.
I think the race organizers should have changed the starting time to 7am. Everyone would have heard because we all had to get our packets from the expo on Friday or Saturday.
The bigger problem is the number of unprepared disasters who should not be running ANY marathon. Look at the people in these photos:
This was my first Chicago marathon. I got the impression that for a lot of people, it is an "event," a place to be and be seen, sort of like the inordinate number of sorority girls showing up on college football Saturday without knowing/caring anything about the team(s).[quote
Don't these marathons carry insurance to cover them if the race is canceled because of weather or other unforseen issues so that they can refund runners? Why do the runners have to take on ALL of the risk?
running hmmm wrote:
Don't these marathons carry insurance to cover them if the race is canceled because of weather or other unforseen issues so that they can refund runners? Why do the runners have to take on ALL of the risk?
Because they sign on the dotted line where it says that they take on the risk.
I agree that they sign on the dotted line, but my goodness, they make plenty of money, it would make them look much better if they refuned those that were not allowed to finish.
sad but true wrote:
jaguar1 wrote:You can't place a dollar sign on someone's life.
Oh I'm sure the lawyers who sue on behalf of the guy that died will managed to come up with a number allright.
unfortunately, a prerequisite of suing is that the death was actually related to the heat. people die running marathons when it's nice out, too.
Autopsy results show the MI man died of a heart condiion, not the heat.
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/7307538?MSNHPHMA
David
HTFU! wrote:
This whole thing is a joke. 70s-low 80s is not "dangerously hot." Get real!! If you were still out there at 1:00-2:00 in the afternoon (when it actually reached 88), you shouldn't be in a marathon anyway.
You obviously weren't there. Temperature was 88+ by 10:00 am. I passed a digital bank temperature display that was reading 92 ~10am. The last 10 miles were dagerously Hot even for the sub 2:30 guys.
It could have been worse but the weather was no joke and needed to be taken seriously.