Problem is we haven't heared from him and don't know his side of the story.

There are a lot of reasons why this could have been a plain accident, and not intended by him. Besides, why whould he voluntarily put himself in a position where he could get hurt? The normal reaction is to swerve away, if you can. No one would want to brush passed another person who was in the process of backing in the direction of his path, and who could take an even larger step back. That would result in a full collision. There's simply too much risk involved for him to intentionally make contact with her.

I think the time he had to make a choice is crucial. He could have been distracted for a second, then focused ahead but which time she had moved and he could neither stop nor avoid contact. These things happen. Could happen to anyone of us. Does that make him deservant of the kind of things people have been calling him?

For all we know there could have been not just the older guy but also more runners in the other lane just outside of the camera's range and who Blair would have hit if he crossed the line.

We simpy don't have the full picture.

There has got to be lots more shots out there of this incident.

Amen. I explained this entire story to my wife to which she exclaimed "Well, if she was walking backwards into oncoming traffic she totally deserved it". This is why I love her.

And another thing- all those spectators that watch this whole thing happen and even videotaped it- You are also to blame for not telling this woman to be careful because people will be running toward you. It's a race.... can't have people going every which way on the race course!

And a final thought- If I get tapped in the back of the head when walking backwards on a race course I will be the one apologizing.

A wonderful montage, missing only the Finman picture with the outboard motor on his back.

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Live long and surf!

Do we really know that he didn't complain or returned the medals without protest? The RD has said that her face was bruised. From the video, we can pretty much that if it was bruised, it wasn't from that bump.

I know that if a RD DQed me after the fact and sends me an email/letter asking for the returned of the product, I would put up some sort of protest even if I were to send back the medal. If doesn't make sense that the dude would just say, "ok, you're right. You caught me. Here's the medal back." I would engage in a bunch of emails professing my side of the story before I'd send back the medal. Most people would do the same.

At this point I do not believe the RD nor the woman. Both have credibility issues.

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Here is the thing.

We don't need to hear from him. It could have been an accident or he could have purposely barreled around/through her. What would it change?

The guy already accepted his consequence of his actions. It was over, no problem. But then the story had to be continued and mind you, I don't think we have heard his side of story. There doesn't really need to be his side of story. He moved on, took the penalty and now was I think unfortunately had unfounding details attached to his name. That's as unfortunate as the incident itself especially as the guy didn't fight the DQ.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

That's great, but I think this should go in the lower left hand corner: http://www.newyorkfamily.com/.../2013/08/berna-1.jpg

To put the photo in context, it's a photo of our back peddling runner (in a much different position) from an article in which she discusses paddleboarding.

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Mike Sparks


I have competed well, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Another question about the "bruise to the face"... wouldn't bruising to the face show up by the time she finished her HM? I mean, I've had plenty of collisions that have caused bruising that would show up within a matter of minutes. I don't see any bruising to the face in her finisher pics with her pack o' kids.

From RD post #307-
To the credit of the athlete in question he did handed back his awards without any issues.










Regardless of if he protested or not, I don't think gives anyone the right to add exaggerated details to prove their case.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Because here is where I think issues become. This was a racing incident, whether it could be prevented or not is all up for debate. This man bumped/shoved a woman in a race, for whatever reason or issue. Could be he meant to, could be he had no idea where she was going so he tried to "catch" her, we don't know. May never know and people may never believe/accept the truth if the guy said his side of story.

However, it got blown up by parties that made it into a bigger issue than what it needed to be. That I think is the worse transgression in all of this. It went from a race course incident to gossip room fodder where certain parties actively engaged in that exageration. That is why i think it has caused an even bigger rift.

So my point about not protesting is, why continue the story from the woman's and RD's point of view? To damage his reputation further?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

She deserved it, really? What if she had been disoriented due to a medical issue and stumbled into his path, would she have deserved it then? If you pull out into traffic at the wrong time do you deserve to get t-boned because the oncoming car chose not to hit their brakes?

This was clearly a case of road rage. The guy saw her and instead of avoiding her decided to make a statement. It's the same reason we get buzzed on an open road with zero traffic. The guy had a 100 yards of clear visibility and 10 feet on either side to work with. He made the decision not to avoid her, and for that, I'm glad he got DQ'd.

She deserved it, really? yes.

What if she had been disoriented due to a medical issue and stumbled into his path, would she have deserved it then? No

If you pull out into traffic at the wrong time do you deserve to get t-boned because the oncoming car chose not to hit their brakes? On the fence. I certainly wouldn't blame the driver though.

Awesome! Right click, save as....

You may not deserve it, but the police would surely find you at fault and not the driver that hit you.


He did not have 100 yards of visibility. She moves from the fence to the middle of the lane in about 2 seconds, so unless think he is covering 100 yards in 2 seconds he had much less time to react. I would also say that he did not have 10 feet on either side. The lane to the inside was partially blocked by a stroller seen in other photos and also you risk her suddenly moving forward. On the other side you have at least one runner coming from the other direction. So yes, maybe he could have jumped into the other lane and avoided contact with the woman then move backed into his lane before the other runner, but even when not exhausted at the end of a HIM it is difficult to judge your exact closing speed to an incoming runner.

Sure it is easy to say that he could have avoided contact sitting here at our computers, but I find it silly that people are saying that the man should have been paying 100% attention to these other runners (and not the runner he was chasing down that was 10 seconds ahead of him) and also be able to predict what two other runners are doing, but the its totally fine that the woman was not paying attention to anything.

I still can't agree with people claiming this is intentional or malicious. Let's do an experiment. You put some headphones on so you're completely clueless and start walking backwards. I'll come running at you from the other direction at a 7:00/mile pace and give you a truly intentional forearm to the shoulder. I'm not a big guy, but I'll put money on the fact that you don't take one stumbling step and then continue on the way the women in the video does. You'll be lucky if you're still standing.

If she was disoriented from a medical condition, she would have put that in her blog so she wan't and is moot.

The car accident senario is only assuming the other driver had the time to react. Research has shown that 90% of the driving population can react in 2.5 seconds or less and is dependent on age, experience and awareness. The brake reaction time normally used in design, therefore, is 2.5 seconds. At 60mph you travel 220 feet before you begin to apply he break.

He had a stroller to his right and at least one older gentleman to his left. A poster on LetsRun.com said they witnessed it and there were a handful of people taking up the whole lane to his left that never made it into the picture of video clip view.

How clear is it now with that additional info? Some people will still see black and call it white so you don't need to answer the question as I think I know what color you see.

If that was a punch, his arm should point more forward in the picture. Seems more like he put his arm and hand out to prevent her from going any further back and that's why you see his arm basically point backwards.

The assumption that the contact was forceful on the part of the runner needs better support than the still.

If you have ever had someone back into you, you might have noticed that there is some confusion and loss of balance at the time of contact.

If the runner misjudged the contact even a little, what results is what we see in the still.

here's what i think we can settle on:

1. she could have been more alert and cognizant of those also in the race, but nothing she did was deserving of the vitriol some have heaped on her.
2. he could have been less ardent and more considerate during his charge toward the finish, but he did not punch anybody.
3. the RD might have been better off waiting a day or two rather than casting about for the truth while in the fog of war.
4. ditto USAT.

i've issued at least one ban as a result of this thread, for remarks made about the RD. the fellow who produces this race is not an RD by trade. he makes no money from this race, at least hasn't so far. he does something else for a living. toughman is an up and coming brand and a labor of love by its producers. this race weekend in new jersey serviced about 700 kinds on saturday and 900 adults on sunday, and for a race not affiliated with a major brand i think that's quite an achievement. in fact, how many kids races anywhere featured 700 entrants this year?

therefore - and longtime slowtwitchers know how i feel about this - we aren't going to bash the RD here. in fact, i think i might be more inclined to enter a toughman race in 2014 than previously, because this thread has caused me to take a closer look at this race. these guys put on a pretty darned good show.

i'll let you all get in your last licks, but, be more respectful than you have been. as far as i can tell ALL parties - including the 2 who collided - are behaving reasonably well in the aftermath. i don't see that anybody is a demon here, so, let's dial back the demonizing. after another 5 or 10 posts i'll lock the thread, which will be doing you all a favor whether you realize it or not.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It's your sandbox and if you want to ban me for my remarks go right ahead. I don't think I've made any disparaging comments other than question the comments that have been made by the parties involved.

I take nothing away from the hard work they do, but if you can't question when they make a comment, that's a sad state of affairs. To not be able to question someone's avenue they went about making seems a bit interesting. So if my comments result in a ban, what does that say about your policy?

You've said in doping threads, you can't make claims without backing it up. Isn't that all this guy has done? Made a claim that seems to be untrue? As I said I find it interesting what is allowed and not allowed apparently.
ETA: you say a man punches a woman in the face shouldn't the evidence show that that event did in fact happen. So if it didn't happen like you say, that's a bit in bad form is it not. Especially when you are talking about man/woman physical violence.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Thank you Dan....

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I agree that we need to support the RDs more for the races we love. I presently do 3 volunteer sessions a year myself and I'm sure there are others that do far more. People who feel strongly about course mayhem, need to get into the trenches and do something positive about it.

I am just replying to make sure I did not get banned ;0)

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Official Polar Ambassador
http://www.google.com/...P7RiWyEVwpunlsc2JtQQ

I am post #5 - Lock it up Dan. I need to be looking for the free IM entries anyway. Cannot believe I am missing out on that good stuff.

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