Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

It was hot at this year’s marathon. The incredible heat lead to the death of one of the participants… well, that and the lack of water at the water stations. Sadly, most of the mainstream media is blaming the participants. Mark Iocchelli at Complete Running Network voices my reaction perfectly:

• Chicago Marathon: Defending Slow, Fat, Poorly Trained Runners » Complete Running Network

Chicago Marathon organizers say they were prepared for the heat and had plenty of water on the course, but marathoners say something completely different – that there wasn’t nearly enough water. Many runners have said some of the first water stations were dry very early on in the race.

While watching the Chicago Marathon organizers and media spin their spin, I’ve become compelled to speak out against what I think is a grossly inappropriate attack on the majority of people who took part in that marathon and, for that matter, all marathons.

I’m angry and disheartened to see attention being deflected away from the real issue – poor race organization – by suggesting that the runners were unprepared, poorly trained (even fat and out of shape), and had no business lacing up their shoes in the first place.

I have ran poorly organized races before, most notably, the first two years of the SLC 5K. It ran concurrently with the marathon, but they didn’t care about nor prepare for the crowd of 5K runners. When I finished, things were backed up behind the finish line with a huge crowd of people in front of me trying to get their running chips off their shoes. It took me an extra two minutes just to get to the finish line.

Not only that, I was suddenly stopped cold. Anyone who had ever run a hard race knows that if you stop suddenly, you will pass out because all the blood in your body pools in your legs. I literally had to run in place to prevent myself from losing consciousness. Unfortunately, not everyone knew this and their first aid station was packed with people who had been stopped by the crowd.

It took them TWO years of poor organization like this to fix the problem. TWO YEARS of filled first aid stations and fainting runners. Last year, they finally figured out that if they have us walk 500 yards away before they force us to take off our chips and have more than four people available to take them off, then we might be able to prevent huge crowds pushing past the finish line.

Race organizers are to blame for the death at the Chicago Marathon this year, not the runners.

Wendy Bumgardner at About.com has an EXCELLENT article about how to prevent becoming a statistic in poorly organized races:

• When a Marathon Goes Wrong – Chicago