As the facts about preparation continue to flow in, it's clear that accountability for what has happened is falling on both sides of the line.
Based on posts I have read (a couple hundred by now), I'd say the decision to cancel the race has about 80% approval, so I'd call that a success. The 20% that wanted to continue, I empathize with you (I really do), but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority are either 1. marathon newbies 2. running newbies 3. running for charities 4. traveling from afar 5. doing the only marathon they will ever attempt 6. fitness newbies in general 7. not as physically "in shape" as some of the faster runners (though no insult intended because I know how hard you have trained). Some people probably fall into more than one category. That said - here are the problems with letting the people in these categories continue:
Case 1. Despite having done 20 mile training runs or spent multiple hours training in hot weather, the second half of a real marathon and even the final 6.2 is dramatically more difficult than the first half or even your full 20 training run. This weather makes this even more true. I've been through enough marathons where people have died to be aware of the mortality impact of what I'm doing. There will be another marathon. You don't have to complete every single one, even your first.
Case 2. New runners are case 1 to even more of an extreme. They can read as much as they like, but there is something to be learned from being a runner for 10 years. Even simple things like carrying a gatorade bottles with you from the start as a spare, not wearing black shirts (I saw a ton!!!), not wearing anything more than shorts and a jersey on a hot day. Or less. These sorts of intangibles go a long way.
Case 3. Running for charities is a special and fantastic thing. The only downside is that the devotion is linked to a special desire to finish in the name of someone else. This can create a tunnel vision that while helpful and inspirational on a regular day, can cause people to ignore warning signs.
Case 4. See case number 3, and replace desire to finish in the name of a loved one with the desire to justify spending hundreds of dollars and hours spent traveling.
Case 5. See case 1. This creates a deadly fixation on finishing at all costs.
Case 6. The most troubling. While I am supportive of their new outlook on fitness, I'm worried b/c at the same time, their sense of control over their bodies as well as ability to survive on experience alone is not there yet. Personally, I am very in tune with my body and fitness level, and I can survive at least 8-10 miles at a hard pace without food or drink if I need to. I've been doing this for years and years, as opposed to several times during a 4-month window in advance of a marathon. The effort people put in isn't different, but the accumulated effort over time is.
Case 7. People in the back in many (but not all cases) are carrying a little extra. Not much in terms of versus the general population mind you, but enough to cause problems on a marathon course. More weight means more calories required to burn and more fluid expended moving that weight. I read somewhere once that an extra pound is about 2 seconds per mile. The fitter you are, the faster you can go at the same rate of energy expendiature, and your reserves of water and calories can sustain you further. This is why elite runners get so much more mileage out of their tiny bodies with the same amount of food and fluid intake as the rest of us. It's efficiency, pure and simple. Fitter people are done faster, which means fewer hours baking in the sun, leading in turn to fewer chances for problems.
I really do appreciate the effort people of all paces put in. I was in shape for a 2:45-2:50 this year before I broke my foot, and my Dad is one of the 5-6 hour guys. So I do have a range of perspective on this.
The other big point of course has been on hydration supply. We've heard the race upped supply by a couple hundred thousand cups, which was good but unfortunately not enough. You can make arguments for greedy runners (taking too much, cooling themselves with water cups instead of at cooling stations) or organizers. It's not up to the faster runners to determine how stocked the aid stations are. It's like Steve Bartman and that foul ball - looking at it from afar, you can say how could you not stay away? But closer to the action, everyone is doing the natural thing - reaching for the foul ball - or in this case, taking as much hydration as they can to finish. I can honestly say I wouldn't have thought twice, though I always prefer drinking to pouring on my head - I've never really found that to help.
My friend and I were at miles 11 and 21. We could tell by the changes in the elite pack (they were REALLY strung out and many leaders had dropped out) and even those trailing less than an hour behind that even the experienced runners
with full access to resources (compared with the back of the pack) stood no chance. That's why I camped at mile 21. Do as much good as you can before time runs out on people.
Now, if we use the more experienced runners as a baseline, like we should, then the race becomes more easy to disect. All the fluid wouldn't have made a difference. 7% of Boston dropped out in '04. I was thinking 25% on Sunday would be realistic...I was way under.
Lots of people across many message boards have speculated about possible fixes, but the execution of them isn't as easy in practice. Moving the start time up would be easy to tell runners, but means getting an army of thousands of volunteers to adjust, not to mention city personnel. Ramping up tables and fluid at aid stations means finding a thousand more volunteers on short notice. Same issue for bottlenecks at aid stations. Bringing in more ambulances means less for the non-running public.
The point that I am trying to make is that while I can definitely see where organizers could have done more, it's very hard to "turn the marathon on a dime," according to one message I read. At a marathon of this size, a simple decision such as moving the start ahead by an hour has huge ripple effects, many of which we may never know because we will never put on a race of this size.
If it were me, I would have applied a theory of construction - take the estimated cost to build it, then double it. If you aren't comfy with at least the doubled cost, don't build it, because it is likely to cost that much. In the marathon, in means whatever you think you need, be it cups, sponges, medics, water, gatorade, jack it up by a lot more than you think or what makes sense from extrapolation. You can't extrapolate demand for water, because it goes up exponentially, not linearly.
I don't want to let the race off the hook entirely, but I don't want to burn them at the stake either, because it was a perfect storm. Yes, I would have moved up the start time, tripled the hydration supply, called in more volunteers and medics, extended the aid stations, etc., but hindsight is 20/20. Bringing out the CTA cooling buses, reconfiguring the finish line layout look like good decisions now because we know what happened, and it's something I don't think I would have thought to change before the race, to be quite honest.
I think race management deserves a little detention for not thinking things through to a greater degree b/c they really did underestimate a lot of things, but expulsion isn't the answer either - these guys have done awesome work in every other marathon I've seen or run in.
Finally, a shout-out to the people of Chicago. Everyone did a great job of picking up the remaining slack and then some. Untold physical pain was prevented as well as lives saved because people stopped watching the race and played battlefield medic. Lots of people coughed up money to buy gatorade for strangers, buy ice and such. I gave a dry shirt of mine to a woman who had dropped out and was shivering. People were handing out popsicles, and the list goes on.