Chicago Marathon

[alison]

I hope everyone who ran today is alright...

According to cnn.com
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Organizers shut down the course four hours after the start of Sunday's Chicago Marathon because of 88-degree heat and sweltering humidity that left one runner dead and sent more than 300 people to area hospitals with heat-related ailments.

Too f-ing hot for a marathon.

[houseelf]

Re: Chicago Marathon

OMG, I hate, hate, hate to hear of people dying. I saw a guy die on the side of the road at the 2006 Twin Cities Marathon. It is awful.

I hope Ekreter did o.k.

Kelly

[DCJenn]

Re: Chicago Marathon

Someone apparently died in DC today doing the Army 10-miler.

Badness.

Jenn

[alison]

Re: Chicago Marathon

That is terrible, Kelly.
What should the organizers have done about today? They knew it was going to be awful weather. Should they have rescheduled? Far too many people fell ill from this, if you ask me. And one man too many lost his life.

[houseelf]

Re: Chicago Marathon

I wonder if they could have rolled back the start time??? It would be a major pita to coordinate thousands of volunteers to a new start time, communicate an earlier start time to runners and fans, and close down the streets at different times. Still, it would suck hard to train for 6 months to a year and then have the course closed down. Was there a revolt?

Kelly

Re: Chicago Marathon

This was just one line in a story but I saw that there wasn't enough water or water stations. Is that true? That might start a revolt.

[houseelf]

Re: Chicago Marathon

Oh holy mother. If they ran out of water, they would get dinged on http://www.marathonguide.com like crazy. I haven't seen anyone posting this yet, but I'll be on the lookout. Apparently the WDW marathon ran out of water a few years ago, and some of the runners about formed an angry mob scene.

Kelly

[houseelf]

Re: Chicago Marathon

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/5926 ... 07.article

Apparently, they closed the course to runners who haven't made it to the half way point (13.1) by the four hour mark. This seems reasonable because these runners wouldn't have finished in the six hour, thirty minute finishing requirement. Technically the sweeper bus was allowed to remove them from the course at this point. I was under the impression that they closed the course entirely.

Kelly

[Meenah]

Re: Chicago Marathon

This was so sad to read.

Re: Chicago Marathon

All I could think was how ticked I'd be if I'd done all that training and then it was shut down. But I understand why. Another article I read said there was plenty of water, but some runners were causing a log-jam. So perhaps the water wasn't dispersed well along the course.

My neighbor was there to run it & she'll be home tomorrow. We'll have to get the story from her. And hopefully ekreter will post soon.

[Phoebe]

Re: Chicago Marathon

I can't imagine running in that kind of heat. My neighbor ran the race today. I will check on him tomorrow.

Re: Chicago Marathon

Another article I read said there was plenty of water, but some runners were causing a log-jam. So perhaps the water wasn't dispersed well along the course.

Ah...maybe that was the problem. DH did a tri that had inadequate water -- the stations ran out and people went beserk (understandably).

[Stella]

Re: Chicago Marathon

Wow, I didn't hear anything about this at all! SO's sister ran this and got her best time - 3:31.

So I'm definitely going to ask her about that when she gets back!

[alison]

Re: Chicago Marathon

I wonder if they could have rolled back the start time??? It would be a major pita to coordinate thousands of volunteers to a new start time, communicate an earlier start time to runners and fans, and close down the streets at different times. Still, it would suck hard to train for 6 months to a year and then have the course closed down. Was there a revolt?

Kelly

I was just curious about what they could have done.... They knew for almost a week that it was going to be a scorcher. We were chatting about it here too! Couldn't they have just played it safe, even if it happened to cool down?

[poky]

Re: Chicago Marathon

Apparently the Tri-cities marathon had weather just about as bad as Chicago's. I'm sitting in the Minneapolis airport right now, waiting for my flight to Anchorage, and two people next to me are talking about it. The woman is from Alaska, and got her best time this weekend (3:00 - third in her age group, 4th in "masters", whatever that means, 14th (iirc?) overall for women). She doesn't understand why the heat and humidity didn't kill her, except that she got water every single time it was offered, and she started out pretty conservatively, speed-wise.

Another person I talked to the other day had a friend running in Portland this weekend, and they were worried it would be too cold, there.