Sue CHICAGO Marathon

I wuz there wrote:

No one is wanting to sue because of the weather. It is because they organizers were ill-prepared.

What law entitles you to sue anyone for being "ill-prepared?"

Preperation?????????? wrote:

...I could get a crap about winning any money, that's not what I do for a living - I run 80-100 miles/week before and after work to train hard and smart and fast for something I love and am good at.

I repeat....BFD. Enjoy your finishers medal, because it's the same as the dude who crossed last.

The irony of your statement is that you aren't any good at it because you don't win anything. Oh wait, but winning isn't everything. You do it for you and your own satisfaction...hmmmm, sounds kinda familiar to the 5:00 guy...so yes, you are in the same class as them. Arrogant prick.

I really like how people skirt around what I actually said by commenting on my grammar and misspelled words - like it's the frikken dictionary we're talking about. Also, I'm not saying ANYTHING about myself to compare until Barry called me out assuming to know my time personally.

Yesssir wrote:

I wuz there wrote:

No one is wanting to sue because of the weather. It is because they organizers were ill-prepared.

What law entitles you to sue anyone for being "ill-prepared?"

not that i think this applies in this particular case but if you're ill-prepared to the point of negligence, there it is.

Midwest Swing wrote:

I would like to sue them for having the world's worst results page. Why can't these people have just a long list of the top 100 or something.

I disagree. Chicago has the 2nd worst results page in the world. Twin Cities has the worst! It's nice to have a name search, but 36 hours after the Chicago Marathon, it is still impossible to learn who were the top finishers beyond the top-5. Twin Cities is even worse. It is not possible from their "results" webpage to learn who finished in their races.

Twin Cities complete results (but not yet Chicago) were finally posted on

Monday morning. While MarathonGuide is very useful, they can't get things right either. One can only look a finishers 1-100, then 101-200, etc. It seems only NY Road Runners (NYRR) has applied some common sense here. With a few clicks, and a few seconds of time, I'm given a webpage by NYRR that lists all the finishers, even if that's 5000 or upwards. I can easily scroll down the list to see if anyone I know finished near the top. How the top females finished amoung the top men, etc. If I'm looking for results of a middle-of-the-pack friend, I simply select "edit" and then "find" on the Internet Explorer toolbar. That's it. No need for any name search.

Chicago and Twin Cities really need to look at what NYRR has done. Whoever programed their "results" webpages has no idea whatsoever of what fans of the sport want to look at. Being able to do a search on all finishers in a particular city/state is useful, but allowing one to see a list of all runners from a particular running club (like NYRR does) is even more useful. So is NYRR's showing every runner's age/gender adjusted performance as a % of world record time. This allows one to easily see who truely had the best performances (adjusted for age/gender).

So if you know someone involved with putting on Chicago or Twin Cities, please tell them that for not much money, they can turn their terrible results webpages into something that actually is interesting to browze. A good results page will generate more conversation amoung those that ran, and that can have a positive impact on participation the following year.

Not a specific law, per se. Just common law negligence. The organizers of a race have a duty to exercise a reasonable amount of care in providing for the safety and well being of the race's entrants.

I'm not arguing for any side, or even saying whether anybody should or shouldn't sue. I just explaining but the basis for any such lawsuit MIGHT be.

By what standard do you claim to be "good" at running marathons? Certainly not by Olympic standards... you are not near that, so who gets to choose the standard? If you train 80 miles weekly and work to break 3 hours, is that your standard? Why don't you try training 100 - 120 miles weekly and reach the olympic trials standard? Maybe those extra 20 - 40 miles would use up the time you waste ripping others and leave you a little more at peace. Let people decide there own reasons for loving the sport and be thankful that the masses provide the venue to pursue your challenges.

I didn't call you out personally...I called out all the c@ckbags on this board. You just happened to answer the call.

chuck d wrote:

not that i think this applies in this particular case but if you're ill-prepared to the point of negligence, there it is.

How would you ever prove negligence or damages in the first place?

Barry Barry Barry, now you're just making me laugh. I'll offer one last analogy:

Tiger Woods is amazing at golf - he loves it - he works hard - he can golf a freakin 62!

Guy A golfs twice a day - he works hard - he loves golf - he knows what to do to be as best he can - he golfs 75 regularly, so he's not on the PGA tour - he doesn't make money playing golf.

Guy B golfs twice a month - he loves golf - he has a dream of playing on the PGA tour - he's got the best golf equipment and reads tons of golf magazines! But when he golfs, he can't break 120 and it takes him 6 hours!

Now, clearly Guy B really sucks at golf and clearly all three are in different classes, but I don't feel sorry for Guy B cause he either naturally sucks or he doesn't practice enough to have my respect as a good golfer, that's just the way life is for him - or until he puts forth more effort. Running is even more of a pure sport than golf and you can't seriously humble yourself and admit that there's something different about the way a sub 2:30:00 guy runs and the way a 5:00:00 guy runs. You're funny.

chicago claims that there was enough fluids; they seem to concede, however, that the volunteers were not necessarily getting it in cups fast enough for distribution. is that negligence? probably not. now, on the other hand, we've heard anecdotal evidence that some aid stations didn't have fluids. is this the volunteers not getting it into cups? or were they really out of fluids? the latter would start getting towards negligence, especially if multiple stations ran out of water. obviously you'd need witnesses to testify this way.

as for damages, i'd say anyone who went to the hospital can prove damages pretty easily once they've proven negligence. the two who are still in the hospital have a real juicy case that i'm sure PI attorneys are circling over.

obviously you have the issue of the release and acts on the part of the runners (for example, not hydrating properly beforehand, not taking advantage of other stations - remember, lots of cameras/videos on the course, improper trainings, whatever).

based upon what we know right now, i don't think any lawsuit has much basis.

There's a big difference between telling someone they are selfish and calling some a moron.You simply don't get it. Use your brain and see if can tell the difference between the words.

hydrated wrote:

Well look who's talking. Just following your example, fellow troll.

Stronger Standards wrote:

I believe that every marathon should be over once the clock reaches double the winners time. Yesterday in Chicago the winning male was 2:11 at 4:22 no men should be allowed to finish. The womens winner was 2:33 so the women should be allowed on the course until 5:06.

Every Marathon already has a cutoff time. They don't want to keep the roads closed for some elderly runner to attempt to break 10 hours.

What would make sense here is to declare on the website where runners register a policy of shortening this time under bad weather conditions. If the temperature is 90 or more degrees a 10 hour cutoff might be shortened to 5-6 hours (7-8 hours cutoff for 80+ degree weather, etc.). Most would agree that almost no one should be trying to jog/walk a marathon for over 6 hours in 90+ degree temperatures. Just too risky when you have hundreds of thousands of people trying to do that. Some can die.

So cutoff times are needed for safety reasons in bad weather. But they must not be set so severe as to limit the race to only elites and sub-elites. Those that needed ambulance help at Chicago were just as likely be elites or sub-elites that pushed themselves too hard. Fortunately most recover. But when penguins push themselves too hard, some die. Generous cutoff times won't protect all runners who make stupid decisions, but such cutoffs can protect many of the least experienced runners.

The only other option in bad weather, is to post race marshals along the course who ask runners to stop that appear to be in unusual distress. Because the Marshall's judgements won't be perfect, I don't think they could force runners in distress to stop. (Mother Nature, or the Grim Reaper, will take care of that during the next few miles).

This will be my last post - I usually get really mad when I see bashing on message boards so I apologize if I've brought that here - this is really my only point:

Recreational runners are becoming what people perceive all runners as - even these huge marathons, the press is flooded with these dramatic life-stories about everyone and their dog running marathons rather than actual running-stories about actual runners that deserve the press. Everybody thinks it's not as big a deal to run a sub 3:00:00 or a sub 2:30:00 because everybody thinks they can do a marathon. I'm just saying, give respect where respect is due - and if you're doing everything you can do with your preparation to compete in your marathon races, then you deserve respect too no matter what the level - train hard people!

I wuz there wrote:

Cobblers wrote:

whoopdefrickindoooo

you were wrong. Admit it, instead of playing it off.

For starters qualifying for Boston is no longer a big deal so tooting your horn that you;ve done so exposes you for the pretender that you are.

Secondly, you're probably lying.

And thirdly, even if you are not, a sample size of one person hardly proves anything...except your stupidity of course for thinking that it does.

I was on the course yesterday to cheer on some friends and think the organizers made the right call in shutting it down. I feel truly bad for all involved, but blame no one but Mother Nature.

Here is a good article featuring the perspective of aid station captains:

www.chicagoaa.com/news/chicago07closed.html

So it was hot!!!

And????

And people in this race feel that it is the race coordinator's responsibility to tell them what's good for their own health?

I mean, where do I start? If I had relied on every race to tell me when I was feeling too hot or too cold, then what would I do with my brain???

Some race's use the "official medical" staff to make a call if the race is dangerous or not.

They did not in Chicago. So, some people fell over - what about 2%????

Boston has been very hot in the past. NYC has had very hot marathons in the past.

We all know the risks when we toe the line. Why train, then run, and claim to "not know any better."???

andre dawson wrote:

having it as the last chance to qualify for the trials also was a reason for moving the date up.

This race has been historicly run on Columbus day weekend, so it will fall betwwen 10/7 and 10/14, last year was the exception because there was a conflict with a big convention. The race was not "moved up".

Thanks for repeating the same idiot comments already posted by other idiots about 1,000 times already. Next time, try reading the thread you're posting too, genius.