I haven’t seen anyone post a link so:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/3590166.stm#
Doesn’t have much info other than she has no clue why she ran out of energy.
I’m just glad someone found a way to blame America for it…
I know it’s not the first time the Olympic marathon was run in the evening. Am I wrong to say it’s usually run in the evening?
Rome - 1960, comes to mind …
I won’t go as far as to blame it on NBC. That seems a bit of a stretch, because historically NBC has shown little if any coverage of the marathon, so why would they worry about the timing. NBC’s prefered approach is to slice & dice it up into an multimedia show and then show it in prime-time and then only if an American factors in the results or their is some huge human interest story attached to one of the participants.
However, the timing of the start should be questioned. With out question, an early morning start would have been better. If they started at first light, they would have been done before it really started to heat up. The temperatures would have been more moderate.
I would be very interseted to know what was the honest answer to why the marathon start was at 6:00pm?
The triathletes do not get off much easier - their start is at 10:00am and by the time they reach the run 90 minutes later, the temps will be creeping up there for them.
I thought that was nice as well.
I was sad to see her DNF, but why is it necessary for fans to find a scapegoat? Sounds to me like she had an awful day and she’s doing her best to figure out why. But I guess this isn’t enough, it must be the U.S. that is to blame.
I dont think you were saying Radcliffe was blaming the Americans but just in case 
When the marathon in Athens was announced, there was large IAAF Hoopla over the running of it in the evening, whether it should have been or not and there was no doubt that broadcasting rights played a part in it, you pony up the dough the US networks pony up theres no question you want some say in what happens and when. As I recall the athletes were the most vocal and look at HGS saying there was no way he’d run the marathon in here simply because of when it was being run…
Personally I dont think it should have been run in the evening IF you wanted to see the best race BUT the olympics is not about the best race it is about the test on the day so the conditions were the same for everyone and if you were a lighter build you got lucky.
Clearly Kastor raced smart, Clearly Radcliffe suffered immeasurably mentally and physically and clearly the Japanese girl ran a rocking marathon.
For the record Radcliffe never mentioned the Americans or the time of day or conditions as a reason for her failing. In fact if anything in all the press she stated repeatedly that she could not explain her failure.
Folks, think how you feel every day at 6 pm, whether you worked out of not. Pretty fried eh ? Why, because we spend the entire day just sustaining our daily metabolism. The easiest time to run a marathon is right after breakfast when you have not spent too much time just “living”. This is why the Boston Marathon is so tough with a 12 noon start. Late enough that you have spent a good 4-7 hours awake, but not late enough that you have had time for lunch. Essentially you’ve had breakfast and a large snack. By the time most 3 hour marathoners approach heartbreak hill it is mid afternoon and everyone is entering their natural (low point) in the day. Incidently, around 2 pm is also when many age groupers start their Ironman marathon.
Now think about running a marathon at 6 pm. You’ve been up all day, had breakfast and lunch, but its too early for dinner. Now you start a marathon. Guess what. You’re gonna feel like you are on empty. I’m not sure how many of the marathoners changed their daily workout schedule to do their toughest workout of the day, daily at 6 pm, but if you want to perform between 6 pm and 8:20 pm, this is when you have to shift your training and stabilize your daily cycle around this regime. I’m not trying to say this is why Paula Radcliffe or anyone bonked, but a 6 pm start is a 6 pm start and running long and hard at that time of day is something that few runners rarely do. I don’t think I know of a single person who does their Ironman long run between 2 pm and 5 pm, but realistically, this is when you need to do it, to push through your body’s natural “low” cycle in the day.
Yeah, so if you are training for Boston next spring, do you last four long runs at twelve noon.
Dev,
I agree with you that morning is possibly better. However, these are professional athletes and ALL of their training for the past 6 months or longer was or should have been geared for 6:00pm start whether they liked it or not or whether or not it was the best time. Also many/most big European track meets are in the evening, so as a some time competitor in these events, PR, was no stranger to pushing hard for 5,000m or 10,000m at 6:00pm or later in the evening. In fact, she has probably had some of her best races late in the evening.
Fleck
In Reply To
Folks, think how you feel every day at 6 pm, whether you worked out of not. Pretty fried eh ? Why, because we spend the entire day just sustaining our daily metabolism. The easiest time to run a marathon is right after breakfast when you have not spent too much time just “living”.
For a marathon that makes sense, but if I want to go fast give me an evening work out any day. It’s sooo much easier, my body warms up all day and its now ready to go. Intervals in the morning suck; in the evening they’re fine. To the best of my knowledge, this has now been proven too, with swimmers going 1.5% faster in the evening than the morning.
duncan
Not a reasonable comparison, running 5000m or 10000m and running 42000m are vastly different.
Running in Munich, Paris, London or Gateshead in the evening are in no way comparable with running in Athens at 6pm.
Some of Radcliffes best races have, no doubt, taken place in evening. Munich in torrential rain is one example. Manchester commonwealth games, torrential rain if I recall.
Radcliffes has also run well in the day…in April in London twice and in Chicago once in mid October.
I am fairly confident that they did gear their training to the conditions as best they could but why in gods name would you make what is arguably the hardest endurance event at the olympics take place at the worst time of the day. All the rowing was early morning, even the triathlon is occuring 8+ hours I think earlier than the marathon…
Fleck, its one thing to run 10,000 m (~30 something min) in the evening. This uses a different energy system . Another thing to run a full marathon. How many of the Olympians do you think have run a full marathon at that time of day in swealtering heat after potentially having lost electrolytes all day while just “standing around”? Mid morning is the optimal time of day when you are awake, had breakfast, but not spent too much time wasting energy on non running stuff.
I would think that most would have geared all heavy training to the evening, but I bet you many did not. I may be wrong though. All this to say that you might be a 2:15 marathoner in cooler temps in the mid morning time frame, but perhaps not as quick in the evening in the heat. To some extent, similar to the “Roth vs KONA” metabolism arguement.
The Oly Marathon has almost ALWAYS been in the evening. Remember Barcelona or Los Angeles, in suffering heat and humidity. It’s unusual for the race to be staged in the am. It has more to do with timing it for the closing ceremonies (in the case of the men) than it does anything else. Hot weather is generally the condition for the Oly race. The worst one was Mexico City at 7700’ elev. AND hot, ouch.
Paula went too hard (leading most of the way) for the conditions and course. Simple as that.
I don’t think Paula went too hard…if she did there wouldn’t have been ayone near her when she fell apart.
She simply had an off day, even the greats have them occasionally.
Did the rest of the field get to start in the morning or something?
Folks, think how you feel every day at 6 pm, whether you worked out of not. Pretty fried eh ? Why, because we spend the entire day just sustaining our daily metabolism. The easiest time to run a marathon is right after breakfast when you have not spent too much time just “living”. This is why the Boston Marathon is so tough with a 12 noon start. Late enough that you have spent a good 4-7 hours awake, but not late enough that you have had time for lunch. Essentially you’ve had breakfast and a large snack. By the time most 3 hour marathoners approach heartbreak hill it is mid afternoon and everyone is entering their natural (low point) in the day. Incidently, around 2 pm is also when many age groupers start their Ironman marathon.
Now think about running a marathon at 6 pm. You’ve been up all day, had breakfast and lunch, but its too early for dinner. Now you start a marathon. Guess what. You’re gonna feel like you are on empty. I’m not sure how many of the marathoners changed their daily workout schedule to do their toughest workout of the day, daily at 6 pm, but if you want to perform between 6 pm and 8:20 pm, this is when you have to shift your training and stabilize your daily cycle around this regime. I’m not trying to say this is why Paula Radcliffe or anyone bonked, but a 6 pm start is a 6 pm start and running long and hard at that time of day is something that few runners rarely do. I don’t think I know of a single person who does their Ironman long run between 2 pm and 5 pm, but realistically, this is when you need to do it, to push through your body’s natural “low” cycle in the day.
Yeah, so if you are training for Boston next spring, do you last four long runs at twelve noon.
I feel my best at 6 PM – in fact several studies have been done that show the majority of humans are at thier physical peak in the afternoon and not the morning. My best 10K was an early evening race – my best bike time trial – Friday evening (three day stage race) – and I know several people who have PR’s at evening races.
As for training between 2 and 5 pm – I know lots of people who train at this time – get off work at 3:30 PM or 4:00 PM – start running. Even on weekends – Sleep in and then start training – running off the bike at 1:00 Pm or even 2. Not just me – lots of people I know.
Train for the conditions you will be racing!! George Sheehan wrote about it – he was training for a hot weather marathon – he bundled up in sweatshirt and sweat pants and wore a wool cap, even though it was not cold out – he knew the race conditions. A friend in Colorado set his bike trainer up next to a sauna/steamroom – cause he knew Kona would be hot and humid.
If I find a marathon with a 6 PM start – I am signing up – that would be perfect to me. I am tired of waking up at 5 am trying to get used to racing at such an aweful early hour.
That’s what was thinking…
They all had to endure it, so why is it a good excuse?
Radcliffe had been among a group of athletes who had campaigned for the race to begin at 0600. --from the article
So… at this point in this thread, when we talk about “blame” or “excuses” are we talking about Radcliffe blaming NBC or the IOC or whoever, or some of us blaming them?
IN the quote above, it sounds to me like she lobbied before the Olympics for an earlier start, but as someone mentioned above, in the interview PR did not “blame” the Americans, nor did she blame the late start time. She didn’t blame anyone. She had no explanation, which seems fair enough to me.
I only wanted to point out that I think the Olympic marathon has always (I think) started late in the day. I’m guessing it’s a tradition, like the mid-day start of the Boston marathon??
For what it’s worth ($.02), I ran quite a bit of miles
last summer, not too far from there. I did
my best to start near dawn (5:30-6:00). As soon as the
sun shot up (remember the latitude), the thermometer
followed. Humidity is also a factor since you are near
a warm sea/ocean: I remember having to stop
to squeeze cups of sweat from my shorts/top (I guess
that could be entertaining on TV,… not a problem where
I was 