I just heard that a Marathon in St. Louis yesterday was cancelled because of heat?
WTH?
I’ve heard of things being scrubbed because of cold or wet (maybe lightning) but never heat.
It’s a sad day when race directors are more motivated by law suit potential than putting on a good show…
maybe we can counteract this lawsuits over safety bs by suing people for being so damn lame.
Lamesuit?
Not exactly. I didn’t run but my sis did and she said that there was an unscheduled mandatory cut off for the full distance folks if they weren’t making a certain time. I guess this happened at a turn around.
Word was they were so overloaded in the first aid tent they really felt like it was unsafe.
It was hot and humid yesterday, I did six miles in the afternoon to get some heat training in and it kicked my ass.
link to the papers article http://www.stltoday.com/sports/other/article_1047d2b8-0549-5b91-82d4-e11fcb6d82df.html
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Given the Chicago fiasco a few years back, I can kind of get it.
No.
Runners who did not reach the 9-10 miles point (where the half and full course split) after 2h5mn were diverted on the half course. Plenty of people got to finish. Only complain I would have at that point is that they should have added 1-2 water station on that stretch, I got thirsty. But survived.
The decision was sensible, even if it doesn’t compare with the Chicago heat few years ago (I was there too! I seem to be bad at choosing my battles). It’s notable that the 13-20miles stretch is difficult and people would have suffered more.
Too hot in St. L in April? That’s kind of odd.
normal?, no
but if you live here you know it can be anything this time of year, a snow or a hard frost is still not out of the question
used to be planting day was also tax day but I bumped it to may 1st after a couple late frosts
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I ran this yesterday with a friend. The combo of heat & humidity plus no cloud cover was pretty stifling so early in the season for many runners. For runners not past the 9 mile turnoff in 2 hours, they were turned back with all the half-marathoners at that juncture and told to run the half. They were credited with the half finish and not listed as DNF’s for the marathon.
The reality was that the race started out warm & humid and only got worse. If a runner/walker couldn’t make the 9 mile mark in two hours in the best conditions of the day and over the easiest part of the course (middle part has more rollers), HUGE odds were that they were going to be DNF’s due to the marathon time cut-off. A few people are going to grumble about it but from a medical and race directors perspective, it was smart. They should make that a permanent policy for the race, as many other races, running and triathlons have cut-off times at certain points.
Happened in Madison last year too: http://www.channel3000.com/sports/23741260/detail.html
-Scott
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I ran this yesterday with a friend. The combo of heat & humidity plus no cloud cover was pretty stifling so early in the season for many runners. For runners not past the 9 mile turnoff in 2 hours, they were turned back with all the half-marathoners at that juncture and told to run the half. They were credited with the half finish and not listed as DNF’s for the marathon.
The reality was that the race started out warm & humid and only got worse. If a runner/walker couldn’t make the 9 mile mark in two hours in the best conditions of the day and over the easiest part of the course (middle part has more rollers), HUGE odds were that they were going to be DNF’s due to the marathon time cut-off. A few people are going to grumble about it but from a medical and race directors perspective, it was smart. They should make that a permanent policy for the race, as many other races, running and triathlons have cut-off times at certain points.
Not only that, but people complain that people are wusses, when this kind of decision precisely penalized said wusses.
St. Louis diverted the late runners with a cut off but in Evansville,IN the marathon was outright cancelled.
I noticed lots of cramping going on beginning around the 20-mile mark, and saw a few very sick people being attended to by paramedics starting at around mile 13. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many ambulances during a race, and I’d wager that there would have been many more emergencies without the course closure. It was brutal. Combine a warm, humid day with the heat radiating off city asphalt streets (there wasn’t much shade at all), and you have a recipe for disaster–especially early in the season when few, if any, people are acclimated to it.
I give the race officials credit. They made a tough, but smart, call.
Jim
Excellent decision by the race director IMHO.
It’s outright stupid and dangerous to run a marathon under those conditions for a lot of people. I assume most of the people run because they want to stay healthy not the opposite.
As FLA Jill pointed out, the Chicago event may have set a tangible precedent for race conduct in the future. Insurance companies pay attention to this. If a director makes the decision to let an event go in conditions that could be argued as “extreme” he may be on the hook and out to dry with his insurance company swimming away from the ship.
As the sport grows, for better and for otherwise, there is a hefty element of least common denominator.
It was not hot, but it was warm and humid. The weather has been moody here in St. Louis. Two weeks ago there was 4 inches of snow on the ground, so high 70’s-low 80’s with ~60% humidity was enough to create mass carnage. I was working a hose at mile 15 and peeps were looking shit faced tired.
Glad I took this year off.
Philly tri last year cut off people at the 5k mark if they did not pass by a certain cutoff. Their med tent was filled to capacity also. Shitty thing isi think they still ranked all them as fininshing the whole race. At least that’s my excuse.
Heat has canceled many races in TX.
People need to HTFU.
I’m having trouble with people thinking that 73° F (22.8° C. I’m from Australia & like most of the developed world we have moved to the SI measurement system) is hot. I know this temperature was at 9 am but really this is not even close to warm. It was close to 38° C at 1 pm in 2009 at Ironman Western Australia and they didn’t stop the race. Nobody died either.
Diverting people onto the half-marathon course sounds sensible if they had taken longer than 2 hours to run 10 miles (switch to the SI system USA, it’s really easy to use). I would also say that regardless of the conditions if someone can’t run 10 miles in 2 hours they probably shouldn’t be running a marathon anyway.