Check out this article on the rather ill-fated 2007 Chicago Marathon in mid-August-like weather this weekend.
20% of the registered runners didn't show up for the race at all and of the approximately 36,000 who did show up, only 2/3 of them finished. There weren't enough cups or water to be had and the fire department opened hydrants and even stood on top of trucks with hoses to spray runners. Check out the photo gallery in this article (I wouldn't recommend reading the article - it's from the RedEye and is thus terrible) and you'll begin to see why more than 300 ambulances were pressed into service. After 3 1/2 hours with the temperatures in the high 80's, race officials effectively cancelled the race. Anyone who had not reached the halfway point was turned back to the start while those past mile 13 were strongly encouraged to walk.
Many runners complained about this decision, even with other runners collapsing left and right (one 35-year-old man was pronounced dead later that day. dead). A first-time marathoner from Chicago whined, "I put my whole summer into this. My entire marathon is gone. I'll never have another first marathon experience."
Now, I have my patience for joggers and even serious runners to a point, but this baffles me. Your marathon is gone? You still have your damn life! What they're saying to you is, if you go down, *they might not have an ambulance for you*! I'd say that's a pretty legit reason to cancel a race. If you want to run a marathon, honey, you can do it anytime you like. Including right now - the volunteers and half bananas are just to make you feel important.
If you want to know the truth, the whole scene (admittedly, I just saw it in photos meant to make it look dramatic, but I did play soccer yesterday - it was HOT) reminded me of some kind of mass cult suicide. People staggering through piles of cups and banana peels with ice packs on top of their heads, dousing each other with water bottles and being sprayed with fire hoses, keeping on in literally dangerous conditions (last year's winner, a *Kenyan*, complained about the weather) for no other reason than...what? Pride? Obstinacy? Absolute blankness of mind?
All we were missing was Jim Jones or David Koresh...
4 comments:
I think the whole core of the matter, when it comes to those that complain about the cancellation is that they invested "x" amount of months, and/or "x" amount of money to prepare and perform this one-time event and now whatever sacrifices that they made now go to "waste".
It's all a question of attitude and motivation. If you were perhaps doing it as a goal towards getting healthier, more disciplined, or just challenging yourself I generally think you'd be glad to come out of the whole experience without having to go to the hospital.
But if your motivations lay elsewhere, as in ones that involve being able to go around flashing your medal...then yeah, maybe you would be complaining a lot more.
That being said, the slower runners (5:00 hour pace group and later) were definitely getting shafted on water and gatorade. When friends of mine in the 4:00 pace group swung on by at the halfway point, there was still a orderly distribution of water. By the time my friends in the 5:30-ish pace group came along, it was a lot more chaotic with people barely getting anything to drink, much less throw on their heads. In the time I was waiting, there were at least 2-3 ambulances that were on the scene, and at least one person I personally saw being carted off.
I think the people at the biggest risk were people that had the least experience with listening to their bodies, and the most to try to "prove".
A marathon runner friend of mine mentioned a sign that spectator was holding during the second half of the course: "What were you thinking?"
To be absolutely fair, a lot of people had lost all ability to reason - they assumed that they could run in the heat because people do it all the time in warmer months and in hotter climates, they had no idea how hot it had gotten because they'd already started running before it had reached a dangerous point, and then they became disoriented which, almost by definition, means that they had lost the ability to make rational decisions - and it is, yes, obsessive and crazy, but also understandable in that before they forgot who they were, they were running, so the most logical thing for their addled brains to tell them to do was to keep running. As a society in which so much is regulated and monitored for us, we assume that something so organized and chaperoned like this is safe, even when simple logic tells us that it's really dangerous. Your cult analogy is spot on.
Oh, one more thing - in reading the Marion Jones coverage of late, something was brought up that I think provides an interesting correlation to your post: studies have been done on the mindsets of elite athletes in which they were asked if they would take a magic pill that would turn them into the best athlete in the world in their field but would kill them at forty. A shockingly high percentage of them said they'd take it. Clearly, the majority of marathon participants are not elite athletes, but it a marathon is an elite event and the training for it requires that you develop an elite-like mindset. And how many times have we seen Olympic crowds cheering an athlete who could barely stand, simply because they finished their race? This is the sort of mindset that tells you to keep running until you finish, or fall over. I'm not saying it's safe, but it ss something people have actively aspired to develop, because it's been glorified.
Your post is right on the money. I'm continually amazed - and disgusted - by people who have a problem with being told what to do, on one hand, while, on the other, they whine about the world not being set up to cushion and coddle them. You can bet those whiners about "their" marathon being canceled would have been the first to get hysterical (and litigious) had an ambulance not been there for them!
Priorities and personal responsibility are the keys to freedom and independence - and anathema to cults and, apparently, herd-like sporting events. How anyone can complain about "wasted" investment (didn't you do it for yourself, bozo?) or ruined experience under these circumstances is beyond me.
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