LetsRunners - Help Save The Pro NY Race - Where else can it be run and when?

I am here in nyc. central park is open as of 8am tomorrow morning.

d2xccoach wrote:

2) Can anyone think of any major "sporting events that are held completely outdoors" that have been cancelled due to weather. There have to be some, but I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with any and I'm a blank. I can think of smaller running races and some XC ski races where this has happened, but nothing near the scope of the NYC marathon.

Baseball games are rained out all the time. A World Series game between Oak & SF was cancelled due to an earthquake. Several college football games in Florida in the past several years have been postponed to later in the season due to hurricanes. Chicago cancelled their marathon halfway through due to high heat. The Country Music Marathon in Nashville cancelled its race halfway through a few years ago due to weather. Boston came very close to cancelling their marathon the year of that nor'easter. Was it Madison that cancelled their marathon recently due to heat?

All these events were cancelled during the event or ASAP before the event. Nothing like this fiasco where everyone is being told over and over that it's going to happen and then just as everyone arrives saying, "we changed our mind" it's cancelled.

If the NYRR's would have cancelled the race on Tuesday or Wednesday, that would have been fine (and appropriate given the circumstances), but to do it on Friday after letting everyone travel to NY is wrong!

chrisbikeman wrote:

Between this and the bag check issue earlier in the year, Mary Wittenberg is obviously NOT capable of managing things! Hopefully she realizes that and steps down!!!

i don't blame wittenberg. she has to do what the mayor tells her. if you saw her interview on the Today show on tuesday, you would see that she really didn't think they should hold the race but she had to stand by the official decision.

i feel for her.

That was the original course. Back in the 1970's.

20806 wrote:

The arguments that all the water and food used could go to victims are not based in reality. Kind of how if americans in general ate 10 percent less meat we could feed millions of africans. It relies on the fallacy that one group is taking from another and their is limit to supplies.

Your comparison is completely bogus.

Yes, extra food in America isn't much help to starving people elsewhere as there is usually no economical way to get it to them.

But in this case, the food and water -- and, more importantly, fuel for generators -- is in the same city as the disaster victims!

I repeat: same city. That's the key difference here (and the fact that we're talking about short-term disaster relief, rather than chronic food supply issues).

I mean, if your family gets one cake for a party, do you eat the whole thing and just tell the other people at the party that, "hey, it's a fallacy that supplies are limited and that one group is taking from another"? Because that's what your "logic" here is.

Learn to think.

did not read this whole thread so this may have been mentioned already but the hamilton marathon is an awesome fast course. the prize money would probly be a couple toonies but maybe wmm could figure something out, indinapolis has a nice marathon this weekend also.

In my opinion, if they put together a pro race this year, it would be a watered down event with a bunch of sub-world elite American runners and some local-living Kenyans and Ethiopians. A waste of time and effort.

You should probably be more worried about getting Bobby Mack his sponsorship money.

Wittenberg got too aggressive. Had the event gone forward and been an uplifting experience, she would've been a hero. I think she was motivated by that possibility and rolled the dice a little bit.

I hope she isn't fired. I understand and respect many of the anti-Wittenberg comments above. But, at the end of the day, I think her #1 ambition is to grow our sport in the US at all levels. And she has the skill to do it.

Man, what a week for her...

Fire Wittenberg , she blew it , plain and simple. As CEO she acted irresponsible on behalf of the NYRR club and marathon . No back up plan whatsoever.

Wishful thinking wrote:

Fire Wittenberg , she blew it , plain and simple. As CEO she acted irresponsible on behalf of the NYRR club and marathon . No back up plan whatsoever.

Right, and in the job description for her replacement, be sure to require "experience at dealing with once-in-a-generation natural disasters." Oh, and better add "telepathic mind control" too, since the big decisions in such circumstances are made by the mayor and other elected officials.

Look, I'm not the biggest Wittenberg fan, but this was a tough situation not of her own making. No matter what happened with the marathon, run it or not, a bunch of people were going to be pissed off.

Firing someone for failing to win in a no-win situation is dumb. Doing so when that no-win situation is extremely unlikely to happen again anytime soon is doubly dumb.

what happened here? wrote:

A marathon is hardly a professional sporting event anyway. The NYC marathon is a hobby race/walk that is able to generously support it's own charity called appearance fees only because 50,000 people pay $300 to run. How many of the 50,000 people running or thousands watching could name 5 professional runners in the race or even know who won a week after the race?

HOw many of the people paying $300 to sit in the upper deck of Dallas Cowboys stadium 10 times per year plus 75-200 per game for parking could name the starting conerback?

Why are runners so cheap? People complain about paying about $200+ to run down the streets of New York for 5-6 hours but have no problem paying $300+ per night for 4 nights to sleep in a room which requires zero work.

The NYRR is an amazing organization.

Yet Dwayne Wade will get publicity for donating 1/82nd of his salary after complaining about having to sit in 3 hrs of traffic - when his salary is greater than the entire New York pro field.

are you all so stupid?

i don't believe there is a single person in NY who is

lacking drinking water.

as for volunteers, a friend of mine was told yesterday, "we have too many people here already. please go home."

As for the generators, there are more than 100+ FEMA generators not being used as they have to be specifically used at the right places.

The guy who is ignoring his promise to financially support Bobby Mack if he ran under 28:06 is complaining about runners being cheap?

rojo wrote:

Why are runners so cheap? People complain about paying about $200+ to run down the streets of New York for 5-6 hours but have no problem paying $300+ per night for 4 nights to sleep in a room which requires zero work.

I hope you realize that a lot of runners paid a lot more to run in New York; those travelling from Europe paid at least $2000 each. For many of those, running New York is also a "once in a lifetime" experience, and many can't afford to come back next year.

That said, if I was in New York right now, with my race canceled, I would still like to watch some kind of Pro race going ahead (after my own long run on Sunday morning, to get over the frustration). The money paid out in prizes is often insured, but in any case, it would make up less than 10% of the money needed to refund recreational runners, and in addition, would be offset against broadcasting rights, so with all the pro athletes already in NYC, an elite only race would most likely pay for itself, and I would not feel cheated.

Sadly, this is not the time for rational decisions. NYRR and the Mayor tried, by making the argument that running the full marathon would not have impacted the relief effort in any substantial way, but would have created a lot of business for the area. Against the "outrage" on social media, fueled by TV stations trying to stir up a story, and amidst threats of violence, there was nothing they could do but cancel. For the same reason, there is nothing they can do now to hold a Pro race.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Location?

Date?

The location should be as far away from NYC as possible. Too much politics and too many complainers.

The date should be this weekend. Some runners will be in the USA on a limited visa and some will have other commitments. They just can't wait on standby while the same people that on Wednesday said the race was on, now decide on how to hold a watered down replacement.

Being practical, I think we know it isn't going to happen. Looking at the World Marathon Majors, they should declare Yokohama and Fukuoka to be the replacement points scoring marathons. Fukuoka in December is not ideal for those that tapered for NYC but perhaps the best that can be done at short notice.

In Europe there is the Turin marathon on 11 Nov, so that is another option.

Tokyo has just been announced as another WMM event:

http://news.runnersworld.com/2012/11/02/tokyo-becomes-6th-world-marathon-major/

However, Tokyo is in February, so that still doesn't solve the problem for the current season. Extending the season to February would bring up the question whether to allow runners not entered to NYC to score points, or whether to exclude runners that already ran in Berlin or Chicago. However, the fact that Tokyo is in as a paying member from 2013 makes it highly unlikely that the first WMM race in Japan will be held in Fukuoka in 2012, which could also deplete the field for Tokyo.

If New York is cancelled without replacement, it also messes up the 2012/2013 season for runners like Kipsang.

The cleanest solution now would be an Elite only race similar to the US trials, perhaps next weekend in Central Park. Maybe after the election, when people aren't trying to politicise every issue, it could actually be possible.

IMO running races don't get respect because they have turned into parades.