3 guys go wrong way. 4th guy wins $1500 dollars.

Let's assume this email actually went out, if so, it is a whole new level of incompetence and mismanagement. You basically have the race director acknowledging IN ADVANCE that they have a confusing cluster**** of a finish area, and was still unable to prevent the top 3 runners from running off course. If I'm that race director, I would first explore changing the finish, if that's not possible, having known the finish is confusing, I would have the volunteers, lead vehicles, and city officials on high alert, as well as personally go stand at the split in the course with an orange vest, flag, bull horn, even a cattle prod, what ever the hell it took to get those guys to go the right direction.

Ironically they closed the streets 2 weeks ago so local runners could preview the course.

Ya had yer chance Peter Chebii.

What!!!!!! The race director knew of the horrible course 2 weeks in advance and did nothing to correct it??? Can the USATF uncertify courses? At the very least, they should find a new race director.

How many other ZILLION marathons EVERYWHERE have a split where the half goes one way to finish the course and the marathon continues?

https://www.mercedesmarathon.com/2012CourseMapHiRes.pdf

Go straight or turn right. If you can't handle that, stick to marathons on a track.

So wait, the race director talks about the finish line confusion, then 3 runners miss the finish? Sounds like a mess to me.

If one runner missed, he would probably be to blame, but 3, with a warning, yikes, this race has some work to do.

Next time the lead vehicle should memorize that map

I just revisited the article to see if it mentioned some of these things, it's pretty vague, only one quote from the race director, none from the athletes or managers involved, minus a copy of a tweet from Hansonsrun. If you glance down at the comments, you will notice that one of the runners involved, Mike Morgan, has posted his views of what happened, I'm a pretty big fan of what he has said, we should band together to do a helpfundme.com campaign to get these guys their deserved prize money! Take a look, it's pretty hard to blame those guys:

http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/course-confusion-leads-to-a-surprise-winner-in-half-marathon

I've run the Mercedes Marathon 3x (won it twice) and never felt like I could get lost/miss a turn. It's very well marked and easy to follow, esp. the last few miles. Mercedes does a really good job of marking the course! Maybe the lead vehicle had to get off the course before the runners turn to go towards the finish? There's a lot of signage-- I don't see how the runners could miss it.

Someone Smarter Than You wrote:

another guy in the race wrote:

I too saw on the map to stay to the left. If you are too dumb to not read the course map before the race, you don't deserve the money.

(I dont deserve any money because I was 10 minutes back of the winner)

Maybe if you weren't jogging the course then you would understand that it is not always easy to think clearly towards the end of a race?

This^ . Bolded for emphasis.

Maybe if you weren't jogging the course then you would understand that it is not always easy to think clearly towards the end of a race?

Trollus Maximus wrote:This^ . Bolded for emphasis.

See my post above. The last few miles are easy and well marked. Easy to follow no matter how fast or slow you're going. Where it splits to go towards the finish (or continue on the marathon course) has big signs and people there to direct the runners. Mercedes is one of the best marked marathons I've run.

jaguar1 wrote:

I've run the Mercedes Marathon 3x (won it twice) and never felt like I could get lost/miss a turn

.

Congrats on your two victories.

I mean no disrespect when I ask this but were you amongst the leaders or were you amongst the female leaders? It is not the same thing.

When you are not in tow with lead vehicles it all looks different.

No disrespect intended wrote:

Congrats on your two victories.

I mean no disrespect when I ask this but were you amongst the leaders or were you amongst the female leaders? It is not the same thing.

When you are not in tow with lead vehicles it all looks different.

I've always paced alone at Mercedes, and they give cyclists to guide the leaders on the second loop. However, I could have done it completely alone-- the signage and markings are great for Mercedes. It's baffling they could take a wrong turn in the last few miles because there's hardly any turns (it's mostly straight roads). When there are turns, it's clearly marked. They have a very distinct split sign where the course turns to go to the finish (or the marathoners continue on the second loop). I'm guessing the lead vehicle turned off at this point, rather than make the turn on the narrow/barricaded road towards the finish by the park. If this is where the problem happened, the runners should have noticed the signs. It's very straight forward.

Mike Morgan makes a good point in the RW article:

"A.) While I had followed the signs to the correct (left) side of the road, and run on that side for over a mile, I second guessed my position because I saw a Track Shack Blow up Archway & cheering section on the opposite side..."

This was absolutely true. I ran this portion mostly alone, in a netherworld between the top two women. You could easily fade to the right side of the road over the last 2 miles.

I caught Melissa Johnson-White with a half mile to go, and I swear she was confused. 20th street is divided by a median. We were on the left (correct side). but you could cross over to the right side between blocks and she was fading that way. She had run a gutsy race way out front and was falling apart so I don't think it was her responsibility to even think about where she was running at that point. As I passed her, I gave her some words of encouragement and as I said, I don't know if she just followed me in or she figured it out. But there was no one around us, no official, nobody on a bike or anybody shepherding her.

She seemed to be expressing some confusion to her coach at the end of the race as well.

I think this falls on the RD. How do you not account for the top woman on the course? How do you have a lead vehicle that goes the wrong way and doesn't stop once it sees the leaders going with him? Maybe he thought they were marathon runners, but the organizers should have known who their elites were and what event they were running.

Didn't Hanson's send a team manager or some non-runner to the race? Place them at the split if their runners are too brain-dead to negotiate a course on their own.

oab wrote:

Mike Morgan makes a good point in the RW article:

"A.) While I had followed the signs to the correct (left) side of the road, and run on that side for over a mile, I second guessed my position because I saw a Track Shack Blow up Archway & cheering section on the opposite side..."

This was absolutely true. I ran this portion mostly alone, in a netherworld between the top two women. You could easily fade to the right side of the road over the last 2 miles....

I asked Mario M. what he thinks because he's run Mercedes a few times as well-- he said he's never been confused at all and pointed out that the last 2-3 miles they literally have signs every 100m telling HMers to stay to the left and marathoners to the right. Then there's a big split sign for turning to the finish or marathoners continuing on (and then turning to do a second loop).

Again, Mercedes is super well marked and straight forward. I appreciate them splitting/coning the HM from the marathon (with lots of signs too). I've run a lot of marathons weaving around HMers and losing time. You get clear, open road at Mercedes and just follow the signs.

Melissa White Johnson who won the women's portion of the race and is also a member of Hansons-Brooks agrees that the signage was clear but admits that she did not have the decision of following the signage or the lead vehicles. Life goes on. Good luck to all involved.

1. Maybe lead vehicles should not be used in races......forcing racers to learn the course ahead of time.

2. Confusion will abound when you have multiple races on the same course. Back in the day, all runners ran the same race/distance.......you couldn't order from a menu.

I think the signage was pretty good. I didn't have a problem with it personally. They could have also had humans or a recording on loop giving you the verbal instructions as well. It was desolate in those last miles. But overall (and comparatively to other races) this was a really well run event. I'd do it again, absolutely.

I'm just saying that in a depleted state, with the absence of other runners to follow and not having anyone actually telling you what to do, it did create an environment that was ripe for confusion. Given the prize money and all else, I think they should have someone tracking the top women throughout. It was kind of eerie to witness the female leaders running unnoticed a half mile from the finish.

1. The runners screwed up because it is their job to know the course.

2. The pace car screwed up because it did not make it clear to the runners to NOT follow.

3. The race director screwed up because even though it was marked RUNNERS WENT THE WRONG WAY.

There is plenty of blame to go around but I have only heard #1 (a runner) take ANY responsibility. It is alarming that no one from the race is willing to accept even a little bit of fault. This finger pointing from employees of the race puts the race in an incredibly bad light. Own it or at least a part of it. Mistakes can be forgiven but blaming 100% on the runners puts the event and its sponsors in a bad light.