JimG wrote:
1. Janis Pierce works for the city handling numerous functions, of which the marathon is just one. Today she is busy w/ the Thanksgiving Day parade, and right after that it's on to Christmas stuff. So she is not a full-time RD.
That's great that she has such a busy and challenging life working for a burnt-out shitheap of a city, but not only wasn't she a full-time RD, she wasn't even a part-time RD or a titular RD or an RD emeritus; as far as I can tell, she wasn't affiliated with the race and its functioning at all. She did not reply, as far as I know, to a single e-mail sent to her by anyone needing information, and I've spoken to a number of entrants. And her lack of effort was reflected in the way the event stone cold soiled itself this year.
She did, however, find time to stand around at the finish while a loud and unusually brain-dead announcer (who was apparently trucked in from Colorado to make witty remarks like "don't you wonder about those male half-a-thoners in their pink race bibs, ha-ha winky-winky") sung her praises. He may as well have been congratulating her for her help with the Apollo missions or the spirit she showed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
On the technical side, the results, to be gentle, are screwy beyond relevance. Not only was the site a mess during and right after the race, it's still riddled with errors. I have to think they put the chip mats in places they originally didn't intend to put them, because the "10 mile" split was really at around 10.25, the "half" at around 14.3, and the "14 mile" at around 13.85. At least "finish" actually corresponds to runners' 26.2-mile times (I think).
The irony was rich as the announcer-hole continued insisting as marathoners streamed in that Philly was no longer in the minor league of big marathons. Maybe he was correctly asserting that it had been demoted to City Men's Thursday-Night Beer League status. Or to tee-ball standing. And piss on poor AMEX, which doesn't need to be affiliated with a colossal failure like this scrape of a road race when it already has problems.