I was there and the weather was rough. Bonked, recovered then bonked again. We were given the option to switch to the half marathon (the two are together until roughly 12 miles), if I could do it over again I would've only done the half.
Race director keeps his money! Wish i could run my business with volunteer help!
blue water wrote:
Race director keeps his money! Wish i could run my business with volunteer help!
I nominate this post as the most irrelevant post of the year.
Something like this happened to me at a two loop 1/2. The first loop has a pull out for 10k runners.
The temperatures soared to the 90s during the first loop. Everyone was suffering. Most the 1/2 runners pulled out and did the 10k, with the race director announcing to everyone that they were encouraged to drop out of the 1/2.
I felt hot but otherwise okay and ran the second loop. On my goodness.
What the race director evidently did was tell the water stop volunteers they could close things down. No water for loop 2. I ended up drinking out of garden hoses.
Race director profited nicely.
Global warming will be the death of marathon racing.
I ran my first marathon in 1961 and it was 92 degrees and it was also very humid!
They said the high was forecast to be 82. How hot was it when they pulled the plug. Boston last month kept going with highs in the mid to upper 80s, with no cloud cover, so very hot on the road. 80 is bad, but not so bad they need to panic & shut it down.
I ran 2:35 on a tough hilly course, 95 degrees the last mile, and it was my fastest marathon at the time.
OK, 95 is crazy hot for a marathon.
It was (only) 79 degrees at 9am, and they called it at 9:25.
(2:25 into the race).
They said the medical assistance was overwhelmed, and they had to call it.
This is different (to me) than black-flagging an event because the heat and humidity was too high for *everyone*.
In other words, some decent marathoners were still out there when the race was cancelled because of too many other unprepared runners. I'm calling that out as a trend of more and more unprepared runners toeing the line, and now it looks like this trend could result in the race being cancelled for everyone anytime it's too warm.
That sucks.
Race Director needs to take some of the responsibility. A race this size takes in big, big money. One needs to be willing to pay for medical services.
Lawsuits have killed America. We are officially wimps.
Aghast wrote:
Global whining will be the death of marathon racing.
Fixed
No wonder not many regular road marathoners run tough 100-milers. They'd be whining for refunds as soon as it got too hot, too hilly, too wet, etc.
For all the out of shape folk...
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fleet-of-ambulances-on-hand-for-41yearolds-touch-f,28225/
There was a TON of medical help out there, EVERY ambulance in Brown County (Green Bay's county) was either taking runners to local hospital's or on their way back. I was pissed when it was called but I kept going. Even though I'm an every day runner the conditions were tough, this was the hottest day we've had all year.
I was mad but it was the right call.
abandoned hot runner wrote:
Something like this happened to me at a two loop 1/2. The first loop has a pull out for 10k runners.
The temperatures soared to the 90s during the first loop. Everyone was suffering. Most the 1/2 runners pulled out and did the 10k, with the race director announcing to everyone that they were encouraged to drop out of the 1/2.
I felt hot but otherwise okay and ran the second loop. On my goodness.
What the race director evidently did was tell the water stop volunteers they could close things down. No water for loop 2. I ended up drinking out of garden hoses.
Race director profited nicely.
Is this fair to the 10K runners who ENTERED the 10K?
If you cancel a marathon because it gets to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit, there are many places in the world that would never have a marathon.
I agree with the person who worried that large numbers of untrained, unfit runners are causing races to be cancelled due to potential liabilities.
justme wrote:
Race Director needs to take some of the responsibility. A race this size takes in big, big money. One needs to be willing to pay for medical services.
It seems to me like the RD is in a no-win situation here.
If he lets people continue running, then he opens himself and the race up to potential lawsuits...all it takes is one undertrained person to get sick (heat stroke) and there is a lawsuit against everyone involved in the race. Think its funny? Look at the "Mud Run" participant thread from last week!
If he cancels the race like he did, people are pissed because they were running fine, or the heat didn't bother them, or they feel cheated because they put in all this training, they were on BQ pace, etc.
Should he have had more medical on the course? I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't know how much he had. At the same time, you can't get 1 medical personnel for every 1 runner.