I'm crabby today, so bear that in mind.
I'm listening to these stories about the Chicago marathon, and listening to the runners complaining about how the race officials screwed up.
Apparently the organizers stocked up on enough water for a normal October weekend in the Windy City, but it was very hot and humid instead. This there was not enough water--although from the footage I saw the runners were dumping the water over their heads instead of drinking it like they were intended to do.
Okay, forget that. I don't run so I don't know the mechanics.
But...
What about their OWN responsibility?
People, it was hot and humid, adding even more difficulty to an already tough event. Shouldn't the runners bear responsibility for knowing whether the added difficulty removed the marathon from their capabilities? Why is that the organizers' fault?
My soon to be daughter in law runs. I think she would have the common sense to realize when conditions would change a race from a challenge to a downright dangerous and potentially injurious and "out of my league" event.
Why didn't these runners simply step back and say "I can't do this today"? Is it just pride that they "made the cut" and they wanted to be able to say "I did it"? Some of them are in the hospital in payment of that attitude.
Hot--humid--long race--DANGEROUS. Some could handle it. Others could not. It wasn't the responsibility of the race organziers to penalize everyone by canceling the marathon. It was the responsibility of the runners to know what was beyond their capabilities.
Ah well, its not like I've never done something dumb like that--I have. One hopes that next time organizers will take such conditions into account and that participants will honestly face up to their own limitations.
My deepest sympathies to the family of the man who died. That is a tragedy that no one should have to go through.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This event is called a "MARATHON" look that up. The 1st person to run it died, but, the running and the finishing were such remarkable events that we remember them over 2000 years later. Apparently my history teachers were right, ignorrance of history IS it's own punishment.
Bos'n
I know what a marathon is, and I know what the first (single person) marathon was, and why they are 26 miles long.
Of course I'm not sure whether youre criticizing my post or what, because it doesn't make much sense.
I didn't say anything derogatory about marathons, just about the whiners at the Chicago Marathon who didn't have enough sense to come in out of the heat and humidity.
QP,
Approximately 10,000 of the preregistrants either didn't show up or opted for the "fun run" part. They knew their limitations. OTOH, some just had to test their ability against the limits. I blogged about my friend who had never done a road race before and finished. I really was proud of him but I was also very worried about him as well.
In my experience "fun" and "run" don't really go nicely into the same sentence but that's for another post.
I hope you do get your frequency of posting up because, when you do write something, it's always worthwhile.
Continued Success.
Post a Comment