Another weekend has come and gone and with it, my time away from the office. Even though I was here on Saturday for about three hours, I managed to take an entire day (Sunday) away from work, which was nice. This weekend coming up we’re flying to Cincinnati to do some wedding planning and generally to get out of Baltimore for a few days. It’ll be nice to have a long weekend away from work.
On a super awesome note, my Run to Cooperstown 5K technical t-shirt finally arrived on Saturday! After two and a half months of waiting and hounding the PR company, I finally got it. It looks totally awesome and I’ll be wearing it on Saturday for
Anyway, this weekend I really didn’t feel compelled to run that much. For some reason that escapes me right now, Friday night after work I decided to skip the gym. Then Saturday I was at work for part of the afternoon and then Annie and I went out for drinks that night, which of course led to no time for running. Sunday I did get some miles in, although I did not do my long run. Annie wants to start running, so I gave her some tips for starting slow (the walk/run combination) and by the time she was running, I had yet to start, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to do the 8 miles that I would have liked. So instead of did 4.25 (I am increasing my mileage this week) and was happy with that. I wasn’t too tired by the end and I ran the entire length at 6.0 mph or faster. The progress is slow, but it is noticeable, which is encouraging. With continued training, I hope I can drop some more time off my splits and increase the mileage as the end of the year approaches. I have about 5 months to train for the National Half (with other shorter races between now and then) so I’m looking forward to running a fast first half.
Sunday was also the Chicago Marathon. I’m sure most people have by now heard about the heat and humidity and how hundreds were affected by it and one runner died from it. Another runner died at the Army Ten Miler down in Arlington on Sunday, but they haven’t said if it was heat related or not. Certainly running a marathon in 88 degree heat with matching humidity is trouble. I think it was probably a good idea that they closed the course early after about 4 hours. I think that had I been within a few miles of the finish when that happened, however, I would have kept going and finished, albeit at a slower pace.
And while I haven’t really heard anyone saying that the organizers were to blame for letting the marathon go on that long, or anything like that, I think this brings up a good point about personal limits and where race organization policy intersect. Of the 45,000 runners who registered for the marathon, roughly 9,000 stayed home because it was too hot. I think that was probably the safest bet for those people. They probably assessed the weather, the distance, their own level of fitness, and their desire to run in such a miserable day, and said, “Eh, I can run it next year.” Chances are that the weather next year will be much more seasonable (this was the hottest marathon on record in Chicago by 4 degrees!) and thus safer. However, for at least 0.85% of the runners who ran in spite of the heat, it was a bad decision. It’s tough to tell if they over-exerted themselves, failed to follow a hydration plan, or simply weren’t in good enough shape to run a marathon in any conditions other than the most ideal (cloudy, mid 60’s sounds ideal to me personally). Or maybe a combination of those or something else entirely. Regardless, in choosing to run, they put themselves in danger. One man chose to risk his life and lost. With so many people running and completing marathons and half marathons (not to mention the ultras) each year, it’s easy to see that for the most part, running is a very safe sport. It’s also easy to see how some people who shouldn’t’ be running a marathon, feel and believe they can.
On one level, I firmly believe that the final decision to do most things such as to run a marathon, reside with the individual. In the end, you’re the one who has to train for months, run hundreds of miles, pay the entry fee, and finally actually run the race. You are the one who has to go through the trouble and pain and everything else involved in preparing and then running a marathon. Only you get to say that you did it, too. It’s only logical that the responsibility for running the race safely rests with you. People can advise you not to run due to the weather, but at the end it all, you step up to the starting line or you stay home.
Yet, race organizers tend to take a more caring approach (as well they should). Very few races will not have medical teams and water stations and volunteers along the course to help struggling runners. Very few will say, “Hey, you should have known better than to try this race. Now regain consciousness, and get up off the road before you trip someone else (which would also not be our fault.)” No, many races want every racer to complete the course, obviously. And the more runners who take part, the more popular a race might become in the future, which means more entries and more funds to help make the race better. However, where do race organizers draw the line between making a race accessible to anyone who wants to run it, and protecting runners from themselves and potentially killing themselves on the course?
The use of qualifying times at some races like the Boston Marathon could be one method of doing this. However, that creates the problem of keeping physically qualified runners (runners who could complete a marathon, but not within the given time parameters) out of too many races. Moving the marathon season to later in October might be another option, however then the problem is cramming so many races into a few weekends. Of course many marathons in hot climates (Houston, Disney, etc) hold their races in the winter. Maybe moving some of the big races like Chicago or Philadelphia or Baltimore to the spring would work to space out the calendar a little more?
I don’t know what a good solution would be. People will always want to run the big marathons; it’s part of the attraction of the races themselves. However, people who shouldn’t be running for one reason or another will always step onto the course and put their lives at risk unnecessarily. Perhaps in that way, running a marathon is not all that different from other risky sports.
For a more academic and articulate explanation of why smart people do seemingly stupid things (and often die as a result), I would heartily recommend Laurence Gonzalez’s, Deep Survival: Wo Lives, Who Dies, and Why. I’m just about 4 chapters into it right now, but I just got through the section that describes how people can have irrefutable evidence that the danger level of whatever activity they are about to undertake is abnormally high, and yet still go and do it and die. He gives real examples to back up his findings. One is an example of a river rafter who saw that the river was too high from snowmelt and rainfall and did not go down the river. As he and his friends sat in camp on the bank of the raging river, he saw trees with 18 inch trunks being tossed in the water like toothpicks. He also knew that the flow of the river was more than 4 times what it should be. As they sat there, they saw two groups come down the river. Later they’d find out that both expeditions had been flipped and one person from each group (both experienced guides with years of experience on that very river!) had drowned.
It’s an awesome read and helps to really analyze your own decision making, even if it’s just during your everyday training.
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