Great read: Outstanding commentary on the Chicago Marathon in today's Tribune

just to be safe they probably shouldn't increase the field again. technically though i belive more people actually ran last year than this year due to the heat so this is basically a freak year. but just to be on the safe side it would make sense to not get any bigger.

Then perhaps if I am the race director and I cannot provide fluids for this many people on a freak day, then I should do as sweathog says and limit the field to 20 000 runners. Never once I have said they ran out of fluids on purpose and it should also be noted that this did not affect me one way or the other. There was plenty of water out there for guys like myself. But I disagree with a lot of you on the notion that just because there are slower runners out there that they somehow are not fully entitled to having fluids at the advertised aid stations. Like I said in my last post, silly me for not just saying that it was a freak day and nothing could be done about it. You're totally right, the race was completely free of any wrong doing and those stupid turtles at the back of the back of the pack should just be grateful that elites like ourselves allow them to even run on the same courses we do. If they weren't so bloody slow and ill prepared than they would have had plenty of water to drink. Is that better?

HHH wrote:

Then perhaps if I am the race director and I cannot provide fluids for this many people on a freak day, then I should do as sweathog says and limit the field to 20 000 runners.

You didn't answer his question. How would you, as the race director, know you cannot provide fluid for that many people? On what basis are you making your decision on how much water to order, how to get it to runners and how many volunteers you will therefore need to train and show up?

How on earth could you have known before the start just how much demand there would be at the first few stations?

Once they realized the extent of the demand, they took the necessary precautions and shut the race down.

you missed the whole point of my comment. how do they know how much is enough. how were they supposed to know the water increase wasn't going to be enough.

Lets take a look at this from a smaller point of view. Ther is a race with 3 runners. they usually have 1 water per stop for each runner. They hear its going to be hot so they double it and now there is 6 cups of water at each stop. The first person through drinks 2 cups and pours 2 on his head. The second person drinks 1 and pours 1 on his head. The third person has no water.

How were they supposed to know that their increase in water wouldnt be enough are they supposed to ask each individual how much they will take or should they just tell them that they only can take so many. Neither, its a guess. It doesnt matter if its him or you or me making the decision we are all estimating how much will be used not knowing if we plan on each person taking 2 or 3 or 4 waters that someone in the pack is going to take 7 or 8 and knock 2 cups over in the process.

Im not saying that you ignore the people in the back im just saying tell me how you come up with how much water to put out there. The answer is there is no way of knowing how much will be enough so even if you overshot your estimate theres still a chance that it wont be enough.

HHH wrote:

Like I said in my last post, silly me for not just saying that it was a freak day and nothing could be done about it. You're totally right, the race was completely free of any wrong doing and those stupid turtles at the back of the back of the pack should just be grateful that elites like ourselves allow them to even run on the same courses we do. If they weren't so bloody slow and ill prepared than they would have had plenty of water to drink. Is that better?

Ft. Worth wrote:

OK, I'll ignore the martyr act, but you still haven't offered any concrete solutions.

Please tell, how many gallons do you have at each station? Do you estimate from last years consumption? How much more for 70 degrees, how much for 80 degrees, how much for 50 degrees?

What steps do you take to get that water there when you realize you are going to be short? How do you get it there on race day? Where do you get the manpower to do this on short notice? Where do you get the cups on short notice? How do you get it from station to another if one is short? How many people work the stations? How many do you recruit for emergency distribution?

I know you can offer suggestions based on 20/20 hindsight, now tell me how you accomplish your solutions in real life.

Head hurts wrote:

OK, I'll ignore the martyr act, but you still haven't offered any concrete solutions.

Please tell, how many gallons do you have at each station? Do you estimate from last years consumption? How much more for 70 degrees, how much for 80 degrees, how much for 50 degrees?

What steps do you take to get that water there when you realize you are going to be short? How do you get it there on race day? Where do you get the manpower to do this on short notice? Where do you get the cups on short notice? How do you get it from station to another if one is short? How many people work the stations? How many do you recruit for emergency distribution?

I know you can offer suggestions based on 20/20 hindsight, now tell me how you accomplish your solutions in real life.

Isn't this what competent race organizers do? Has there never been a marathon run in these conditions? Did the runners at this marathon behave differently than in those other marathons? If the organizers don't know how what kind of supplies they'll need given the conditions, they should cancel the race. The Chicago marathon race director is a full-time paid job. I don't know why you expect runners to come up with logistics solutions, it is the organizers' job. Should we also give you traffic re-routing solutions?

Personally, I can accept that it's hard to manage. If they had said something like it was record conditions, we underestimated a few things and we canceled the race before there was a major risk to public safety, then fine. But when the race director says this:

"Is there anything we could have done better? No."

then he has basically admitted that he cannot organize a race in these conditions. Unless you think the race was a success?

C'mon people this whole thread really has nothing to do with running a marathon. Is the Letsrun crowd really that worked up about the 4-hour plus marathon crowd not getting enough water? Is this "Letsjog" or "Lets Gallowwalk?"

sweathog wrote:

[quote]Head hurts wrote:

1 Isn't this what competent race organizers do?

2 Has there never been a marathon run in these conditions?

3 Did the runners at this marathon behave differently than in those other marathons?

4 If the organizers don't know how what kind of supplies they'll need given the conditions, they should cancel the race.

1 Yes and they did their job to the best of their knowledge. They were hit with a pefect storm that is an RD's worst nightmare. What do you think the chances of this happening again are?

2 This size? Not to my knowledge. The only one I can compare it to was Boston in 2004, but there were a lot fewer runners and though it was hot, the humidity was low and was no factor. The oppressive humidity combined with the heat was the killer.

3 Yes. Boston has those qualifying times that weeds out the large number of joggers and walkers that had the biggest problems on Sunday. Runners know that when you go to Boston, you've got to be ready for hills and it keeps the under prepared at other races.

4 Once they knew they didn't have the supplies, they did.

Another factor for the supplies is the course. All of the Chicago marathon is in the city and it isn't easy to move supplies around. On a point to point course like Boston, whole towns can respond if there is a problem with water or ambulances.

Why don't you answer the questions you posed now? Which other marathon, of this size ever had a weather event like this? Who has organized a race like this in the conditions on Sunday that they could have looked at and improved their preparation?

There have been several possible solutions offered up which in combination with each other would have helped the situation on Friday. But people like yourself and Asterix have dismissed them as impossible or impractical and are content to just say it wasn't possible to achieve what the race had stated they would.

So again, I agree with sweathog and say to just limit the size of the race. Whatever the amount of water is that they set on Sunday should do fine for a 25 000 person event. But that probably won't make you and Asterix happy either. So again I say you and Asterix are totally correct. People like myself are totally incorrect in thinking that there should have been fluids at the first couple of advertised aid stations. Does that make you happy?

Would it have been absolutely, unequivocally impossible to provide 'enough' water at ALL the water stops? No. In theory they could have mobilized the entire Illinois National Guard, commandeered every truck in a three state area, pulled up with guns drawn at every bottled water company within 500 miles, filled up their trucks and brought them under tank escort to the streets of Chicago, rounding up people by force to work at the stations.

Is that a practical solution? Obviously not. So HOW do you, as the all-knowing race director operating with 20/20 hindsight, figure out how much water and how to get it to the runners?

As you've discovered for yourself, it isn't as easy as saying "they should have got more/enough" since problems have been pointed out with every suggestion you've made, problems that should have been pretty obvious if you'd taken a moment to actually think about HOW you would implement it, not just WHAT you'd implement.

Why do you try and make this an all-or-nothing thing? You are still continuing to misunderstand what is being posted. Of course there should have been fluids at the first couple of advertised aid stations. Who on earth (let alone this thread) has said there shouldn't be?

But the questions you consistently have refused to answer is HOW do you know how much fluid there should be? Simply saying 'enough' is not an answer. Is there a manual somewhere that has a table one can look up where it says for X temperature and Y humidity, you should have Z servings of water for each runner at each water station?

One simple word to focus on: HOW.

"Honolulu Marathon officials had been closely tracking the weather conditions in the week prior to the 1995 race and had taken measures to ensure they could respond to heat-related emergencies on race day.

Because water for the aid stations was to be drawn from fire hydrants, runners were sure to have an ample supply of fluids, but the association also increased its order of the cups from which runners would drink to account for the greater demand. In addition, the association also chartered tour buses just in case large numbers of runners needed to be removed from the course."

Chicago officials increased the amount of ambulances, added cups and water, and had buses out in case large numbers of runners needed to be removed from the course. When they decided on how much water and cups they couldn't look at the honolulu marathon for the exact answer, and it looks as if they did take most of the same precautions that the honolulu marathon took. So HOW MUCH water should they have put out there, there is no precident for that.

Once again we are not saying that it was a good thing that they ran out of water at the first couple stops. That would be crazy. We're just saying that its impossible to know exactly how much water they should have added. They did take measures once they heard about the weather. It wasn't enough but again. How did they know it wouldn't be enough. If they would have known they would have added more. They obviously thought they added enough and didn't have a race of this magnitude to look at for an example.

Asterix wrote:One simple word to focus on: HOW.

If I am the race director then it\'s my job to figure this out. But I\'m not. Both myself and sweathog have given a practical solution: Limit the field to 25 000 runners. They had enough water for 25000 so that\'s the limit. If it wasn\'t possible to have enough water out there for 35 000 runners as you contend, then they shouldn\'t have allowed so many runners to sign up. Thank goodness 45 000 didn\'t start.

zootame summed this thread up perfectly!

Delayed reply, but what the heck...

If you have no idea HOW they should have done things better (not just WHAT they should have done better), then how are you able to determine that they were incompetent?

Maybe that is a solution going forward, but HOW were they or anyone else supposed to know it wasn't enough before the race?

How do you know they had enough water for 25,000? Would they have had enough water for 25,000 if conditions had been Death Valley-like? Would they have had twice as much water as needed for 25,000 if conditions had been 50 degrees and overcast?

For that matter HOW do they (or you for that matter) determine how much water 25,000 need? If YOU can't figure out how much 35,000 need, who's to say you'll do any better when confronted with 25,000?

You still have not properly read and understood what has been posted and asked. HOW do you know how much water 35,000 needed in those conditions? Based on experience and knowledge, they made an educated guess. They guessed too low.

You haven't said HOW they should have guessed better, but simply sat on your high horse and said "more water".

Apparently you have a reading comprehension problem Asterix:

1. It's not my job to figure out how much water a race needs. That's the race directors job. If I ever put on a race, then it's my responsibility and if there isn't enough water out there then that's my fault. Personally I think there has been enough good suggestions that it can be done, you disagree and that's fine.

2. However much water they put out there last Sunday was sufficient for 25 000 runners. So next year, put out the same amount of water and aid stations but limit the field to 25 000 runners. If they want to have 50 000 runners then they need to double whatever they had on Sunday.

Do you actually know that doubling the water would be good for 50,000 or is that an estimate...see there is no way of knowing

1. Yes, once again. It is the race director's responsibility. They made an educated guess based on years of experience and knowledge of other events. They figured wrong and that is their fault. But if you are going to complain, HOW should they have done things differently? Not WHAT they should have done, but HOW?

HOW do they figure out they've only got water for 25,000 in hot and humid conditions? Short of running the race and finding out during the course of the event. I'll bet they had tons of data that said they had more than enough water for 25,000 people based on other similarly sized marathons (Chicago, New York, London).

2. It was apparently sufficient water for 25,000 people in conditions that were as hot and humid as what other big city marathons in the past? Wanna bet it would have been at least twice as much water as necessary for 25,000 people in much cooler and drier conditions?

Where is the manual that tells a race director that for 25,000 people with X temperature and Y humidity, they will need Z amount of water?

Asterix wrote:

1. Yes, once again. It is the race director's responsibility. They made an educated guess based on years of experience and knowledge of other events. They figured wrong and that is their fault. But if you are going to complain, HOW should they have done things differently? Not WHAT they should have done, but HOW?

As I've said before, when I'm a race director I'll worry about that. It doesn't matter what I suggest, you will dismiss it as either improbably or impossible. So why bother wasting my time?

Asterix wrote:HOW do they figure out they've only got water for 25,000 in hot and humid conditions? Short of running the race and finding out during the course of the event. I'll bet they had tons of data that said they had more than enough water for 25,000 people based on other similarly sized marathons (Chicago, New York, London).

They now know roughly how much water they need for 25 000 people in hot and humid weather. Keep that data for future use.