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Melt down or call for change?
Published on 07/01/08
by Maureen
Check out the February 2008 issue of Runner’s World, page 68 and read David Thigpen’s “Melt Down: What really happened in Chicago.” The story isn’t on the website yet, but I’ll post it in there when it is. Here’s the sites current coverage of Chicago: http://www.runnersworld.com/topic/0,7122,s6-239-365-0-0,00.html
The piece is a five-page investigation of what actually happened on October 7, 2007 at the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. In short, what should have been an unbelievable race because of two fantastic finishes for both the men and the women, turned out to be an unbelievable race because of the 185 runners that were hospitalized and the one who died. Many blame race organizers for the chaos that occurred on the 88-degree fall day, when water tables ran dry and police officers announced that the race was over for anyone who didn’t reach mile 13 by 11:35 a.m.
I’ve never run a marathon, but I volunteered at a water station at mile 12 in Greek Town for two races, and my brother ran two subsequent races. The organization, from that perspective, was usually close to perfect. Volunteers arrived at their stations hours before the start, which in our case was an hour before anyone reached our station. Both years I volunteered, temperatures were under 40 degrees and we usually ended up dumping half-full tables of water and Gatorade onto Halsted Street after the last runners straggled through. The marathon in and of itself, though, is chaos. Those who finish between three hours and five hours do so shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands of their closest friends. It’s like running on the rush-hour brown line. It’s not uncommon to see someone pulling over to pee in a fountain or vomit in a gutter and then keep on running. The most fun part of volunteering was raking the cups off the lemon-lime flavored asphalt after the race was over.
My point is, the people who started the marathon should have been prepared for what was going to happen. Race directors sent out two emails warning registrants of the heat one week and one day before the race. Checking the newspaper, internet or tv for weather forecasts is also an option. I would not have set foot outside the door that day without at least one fully stocked water belt. One of the disadvantages of the running boom is that it has put people on tilt. Not everyone is cut out to do a marathon. And at some point, each runner needs to figure out what the warning signs are for his or her upper limit. I don’t care how badly you want to finish: there’s going to be a next year. I love running, but it’s not worth going to the ER to finish ANY race. And it shouldn’t be someone else’s responsibility to tell you when to stop.
That being said, there needs to be an effective way to deal with emergency sitations such as what happened in October. Midland, Michigan runner Chad Schieber collapsed on the course and died, the article says, in a Village of Niles ambulance that got lost on the way to the hospital. Schieber’s cause of death was a heart-valve defect present in millions of Americans and usually harmless. While one out of 185 runners that went to the hospital is a pretty good track record, there needs to be a way to set up an adequate number of ambulances (that know the appropriate routes) every half-mile or at the very least every mile. Also, because there is no effective way of cancelling a race midstream, race officials should have avoided the late morning announcement which amibigiously left runners out on the course and made organizers look like they were trying to dodge responsibility mid-day. Runners understand the rules: the marathon is only six hours long, so if you’re running slower than that pace you risk water stations being closed or streets reopening, and runners know that and abide by it.
Race directors should also tell volunteers to distribute only one cup per runner per station, to avoid the clusterfuck of runners taking one cup to drink and one to dump on their head, thus leaving later runners cupless. But that’s as much the runners’ responsibilities. While as many people as possible should be allowed to run, maybe the 45,000 registrants, only some 36,000 of which actually started the race, was too much. Maybe race directors should lower the number to a less obscene figure so that it woud be impossible not to have enough cups to accomodate. Just throwing that out there
The interesting part of the article is that even runners who had a bad experience say they would run the race again. Chicago is a beautiful city to run in, and for 29 years it’s been one of America’s favorite marathons. Honestly, I was out as a spectator that day on Adams Street near Union Station and watched more from the window of the brown line. I didn’t see anything that looked like a debacle.
Did you run Chicago? Weigh in.
The run is over. Now what?
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