quote:<HR>Originally posted by mep5555:
80s is NOT hot to many of us in the south where we long for months for even one day to be in the 80s. 80s in March is far worse than 80s in October...in October, we've been running in warmer temps than that for many many months now. In March, we've been running in cooler weather for the past few months. There's lots of runners from my state who ran Chicago...I doubt many of them saw those temperatures yesterday as being a big problem. They're certainly not "idiots"...they've probably run 15 or more long runs in a row in weather hotter than that and were glad to see it's finally cooling down to the 80s.

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Just took a quick look at about 300 female finishers from OK and at a quick glance, looked like about an 11-12 minute pace was an average. Again , just a quick look, but all I can say is that even the good runners were trashed, no mattter where they came from.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by tuscaloosarunner:
No, that's not my assumption ( I can't speak for others). Slow runner DOES NOT = unprepared runner. Unprepared runner is the novice who tries to tackle the marathon only after 2 or 3 5ks.

At the end of the day, anyone can pay his or her fee and run. But to say that everyone there was screwed because they simply ran out of supplies doesn't seem to tell the whole story.<HR>

I'll attest to be the person you speak of and totally agree. I had only been running for a year ( a couple 10ks and a couple HMs) and I got the opportunity to train/run Boston in 2004 under a sponsorship. I didn't train over 40 mpw and was not prepared to RUN 26.2 miles. I finished in 4:20, but I know had I been in the same situation as folks were in at Chicago (e.g. lack of fluids)...I would have been in trouble.

Chicago is an example of what a double- edged sword the marathon is as a race. You MUST have good preparation to run and the race director/support MUST give you the best means to display your preparation come race day. If either or both of these are not seen on race day... it is only inevitable.

It sounds like a chaotic day, and it makes me wonder how the marathon officials dropped the ball on having water/gatorade available in that size marathon. But I remember a 10-mile race in my area that was unseasonably hot several years back, where aid stations were out of water. Just as in Chicago, some folks were running into stores to buy bottles of water. I had a very, very slow race (although my training indicated about 8:40ish pace, I ended up doing about 1:40something), also got dizzy and needed med tent help at the end (fortunately, recovered fast). I was prepared for the distance, but not for the conditions. Since the race was only ten miles, and there weren't nearly as many people as in Chicago, it wasn't as disastrous an affair, but even there, I had to wonder how the race people didn't anticipate w/ the weather forecast the need for more water/Gatorade on the course.

Just IMHO, I won't even attempt a marathon in such weather. My hat's off to people who can run well or run at all, for that matter, in hot, humid marathons. And if I were one of those folks and had felt up to finishing, even if slowly, I would have been sorely disappointed to be ordered to stop and walk, especially if there had been no announcement made before the race that this was a possibility.

A better alternative that Ironman events and longer ultras use is to have certain checkpoints announced in advance that people have to reach at certain times and make the rules clear before everyone sets out. So, there could be checkpoints at, say, 10k, halfway, and 30k or something of the like, and people would KNOW before starting that they had to reach those checkpoints to be allowed to continue. It seems to me that would make a lot more sense than just wholesale stopping a race in the middle, which just seems to guarantee chaos. And how much safety does it ensure when suddenly people are told the race is canceled and maybe they are having trouble but are now on their own?

Just a few thoughts... .

Where I am having a problem with some of the posts here is with the direct correlation between marathon experience and dealing with the heat. I ran Steamtown Sunday and, while it was not as hot as Chicago, it was unseasonably warm. This was my first marathon. I readjusted my goal to account for the warm weather on race morning, hydrated well, and was fine. I did not have to take any walk breaks, and my 26th mile was the second fastest of the whole race (the fastest was mile 4, extreme downhill).

After running Steamtown and reading about Chicago, I decided that that weather in Scranton is as warm as I go. Any warmer and I bag the race. It's just not worth it.

I agree that your problems are compounded the longer that you are out there. But please let's not tie marathon inexperience to inexperience / unwillingness to take the heat into account. They are two separate issues.