Peachtree: The USA Championships I Technically Never Ran

OP I have no sympathy for you dude. Put up or shut up. You wanted to run with the elites, well you should have run faster. Do you know how hard it is to direct a race of fifty hundred people much less fifty thousand. You think you can do better than apply for his job. Just remember race directors aren't supposed to cater to you. You guys are one drop in the ocean.

theSausageKING wrote:

lol - how hard can it be collecting 30 to 50 USD and letting, calling city to close 5k route, hiring a timer who provides bibs and chip timing, giving out some water and bananas and t shirts, and probably buying some sort of insurance policy.

Remember to call 311, not 911 when requesting 5K route closures to avoid tying up vital emergency services.

stick with eharmony wrote:

OP I have no sympathy for you dude. Put up or shut up. You wanted to run with the elites, well you should have run faster. Do you know how hard it is to direct a race of fifty hundred people much less fifty thousand. You think you can do better than apply for his job. Just remember race directors aren't supposed to cater to you. You guys are one drop in the ocean.

This is a matter of communication. It was not communicated that they would be in a different race. If it had been communicated they would not be in the actual championship race, Joey would have most likely not gone at all.

Your lack of sympathy is a lack of ability to wrap your mind around the details and you have only proven your inability to use logic.

Joey, as an ATC member I'm sincerely sorry about the unfortunate mix-up at the start line on Friday. I hope you received Rich's email this morning (which went out to all male superseed runners) and can talk to him directly if you have more questions.

I'm a "tweener" like yourself and was also in the superseed division. I was also surprised by the split start but I'm honestly not competing for money in the US Championship so it didn't make a difference to me. I think the problem is that there were some guys in our division who should have been in the Championship race and one of the reasons for the superseed division is to develop emerging elites.

Unfortunately this is reminiscent of Wesley Korir at the 2008 Chicago Marathon where he started 5 minutes behind the elites in the "open" race and posted the 4th fastest time. I think they made it right for him and I'm sure every effort will be made for those affected by this situation.

Like I said, I don't know who actually decided to start this way but I'm sure Rich will take the blame for any problems that arose (and probably wouldn't tell us if someone at USATF made him do it at the last minute). Everyone here who wants distance running and track to be relevant sports and wants American distance runners to win more medals should be happy the ATC has Rich at the helm. I'm sure mistakes will be made but he's one of the good guys and has already had a very significant, positive impact on the club and the running community here.

Congrats on a great race and I'm glad you otherwise had a good experience at Peachtree. We hope you come back again.

Please share with us what Rich's email said.

All,

If you are receiving this email, you were one of the male athletes impacted by the confusion around our 7:29am and 7:30am start times on Friday.

Atlanta Track Club has been staging the AJC Peachtree Road Race for 45 years and our committee takes great pride in delivering a world-class experience to every single competitor. We did not deliver on expectations to a number of developing elites and masters men this year. On behalf of our Club, race sponsors, partners, volunteers and staff, I want to personally apologize for the impact the above confusion may have had on your race and on your result. In an effort to ensure an inclusive USA Championship race, we prevented many of you from the race experience you wanted.

We will be updating results this week. It will show two sets of results. The USA Championship race (7:29am start) and the Open race (7:30am start). While this is not what some of you expected when you committed to compete at this year’s event, this will at least reflect your performance accurately. I am available to speak to each of you should you want to better understand what happened. If you’d like to talk, please email me and we’ll set up a time that works for you.

Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.

Rich Kenah

Good for Rich Kenah to own the mistake and offer to talk to people affected. Maybe he should be running USATF.

Awwww my Richie. He is such a nice boy.

dkny64 wrote:

Maybe he should be running USATF.

"Anyone without their last name on their bib is now in the B heat."

Joey Nunes wrote:

"Were you an invited athlete? Maybe if you were faster you would be." I stood there in shock, as well as many other of my fellow runners (I was even more in shock to find out this young man pleading his case was a 13:40 5k runner). We decided that we would go off the gun regardless of what we were told. To this the gentleman replied, "You go off with the first race, you will be disqualified." So the first gun went off, we waited who knows how long, and then our gun went off and we ran our race.

It comes down to this: when the gun went off, you waited. You seriously think they would have disqualified you? The USATF is worse than the AAU, worse than the TAC. They can't afford any more bad publicity. You blinked. They won.

Sad story... Pathetic excuses - why not let them run? It's not a problem at Gate River, Falmouth, Bixx, Utica...

Even at the Boston Marathon sub-elites can start right behind the favorites.

This is reminiscent of the time I traveled from Trinidad & Tobago to compete in the NYC Marathon, and a series of mishaps led to my being late to the start.

malmo wrote:

Joey Nunes wrote:

"Were you an invited athlete? Maybe if you were faster you would be." I stood there in shock, as well as many other of my fellow runners (I was even more in shock to find out this young man pleading his case was a 13:40 5k runner). We decided that we would go off the gun regardless of what we were told. To this the gentleman replied, "You go off with the first race, you will be disqualified." So the first gun went off, we waited who knows how long, and then our gun went off and we ran our race.

It comes down to this: when the gun went off, you waited. You seriously think they would have disqualified you? The USATF is worse than the AAU, worse than the TAC. They can't afford any more bad publicity. You blinked. They won.

Read it again. He took off with the first group. He did not wait nor did he blink. If Kenah wants to make it right they should reinstate runners like Joey who went with the first wave and any runners that waited but placed high should be given the appropriate time and place. A 29:15 is a 29:15 and no race director or even a malmo cannot take that away.

Jean-Paul wrote:

This is reminiscent of the time I traveled from Trinidad & Tobago to compete in the NYC Marathon, and a series of mishaps led to my being late to the start.

hurr hurr

Ummmmm, maybe you should read it again. Carefully this time.

Oh on paragraph 11, not easy to follow such a long post on a phone.

In that case poor communication on ATCs part, but as long as they list the athlete's according to time, not by wave then they can still make it ok for this year. Fix it and be clear in the future and might as well let championship and emerging elite run together.

As I understand his email message, he's apologizing for some unspecified "confusion," acknowledging that the Atlanta Track Club did not "deliver on expectations," and saying that an update will show "two sets of results." But I don't see anything that explains what happened, why it happened, or what's going to be done about it. Although he doesn't actually say so, I gather that the recipients of the email message have simply been excluded from the U.S. Championships and any prize money or rankings that might be associated with the Championships, and those who were wrongfully excluded will just have to deal with it. If that's the real message, I would respect his communication much more if he had the guts to say so, and to explain precisely why these runners have been treated this way. (Perhaps he's concerned about certain liabilities. The message certainly reads like something that's been scrubbed by lawyers.)

By the way, I'm puzzled by this sentence: "In an effort to ensure an inclusive USA Championship race, we prevented many of you from the race experience you wanted." Could somebody explain to me how preventing these runners from "the race experience [they] wanted" served to "ensure an inclusive USA Championship race"? I would have thought quite the opposite.

It is the US CHAMPS wrote:

It is the US Championship, not a random road race. I have no problem during US Championships only United States citizens get money.

Any other type race I agree with you.

And I would expand what you wrote to add that if you're going to call a race a US Championship then you may not want to allow non-US runners to compete in the race, period. If Peachtree had done that then any excuse about International runners potentially finishing in a prize winning place, causing confusion, is a moot point. They could also have easily set their bib/wave system up to not permit any non-US runners to start in say the first x waves. The size of Peachtree, if you're not starting in the first wave, or say the first 2 waves if you want to really be safe, there is no way you can move up enough to finish in a prize winning place.

The other thing Peachtree could have done which would have worked is similar to what they did with the women's Championship division...start whoever they decided was going to be part of the Men's US Championship race more than 1:00 ahead of the rest of the field. 1:00 difference (and allowing all those guys to get all the other perks of the Elite race like warmup area, sweat transport, etc) is a lot more confusing for all involved than a 10-15-20 minute gap.

To the OP, sorry man that sucks. You guys got hosed. If I was in your position I'd be ticked off too. I'd be interested in hearing any updates you may get as the situation develops, in particular the reason why they made this change at the last minute.

Joey Nunes wrote:

This individual in charge (not the same individual who set up the entries), who I will not name nor will mention his title, held is ground. More and more runners, expressed their frustration. The young man who spoke out earlier yet again expressed his frustration, "We are all here to race the championship, we were all told we would be starting at 7:29!"

He didn't provide what he'd advertised and you'd paid for.

All of you who were treated this way should sue the guy for expenses and damages.

In addition to this, file complaints with the city.