I drafted a post reviewing stuff on the marathon and its cancellation but trashed it. I think cancellation was the right thing to do.
There’s a nice piece on Mary Wittenberg’s position/situation/dilemma in today’s Times. I’ve disagreed, sometimes vehemently, with some of the things NYRR has done over the years. Most recently it was about communication regarding the marathon. Criticism of communications is criticism on the margins. I do not for a moment think that NYRR’s decisions about the marathon were motivated by anything other than what it thought best for the City and for those who come to run in it.
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November 3, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Mark Thompson
Well, I’m sure that Luisa Lisiandrello can sleep easy and be proud that she has saved the city from the clutches of “The personification of greed and evil”.
November 9, 2012 at 8:39 pm
cg9m
joe, you’ve often made nyrr the whipping post for all you see wrong in the nyc running community. if you were mary wittenberg, what would you do differently? how would you conduct things? what would you prioritize?
from what i can tell, she’s made a huge effort to accommodate slower (or beginner) runners like me in the organization’s events. that’s caused a host of issues. it’s made the “races” too crowded. it’s alienated the “racers”. it’s excluded too many local runners from their home town events.
i’ve proposed some possible solutions in other comments, to allow all to participate in distinct events/races given what they hope to accomplish. what would you propose?
i was thinking per the “club series” that perhaps it should just be restricted to local clubs, and not allow the general running public or out-of-towners. and institute either a time cutoff, or allow the clubs to select a few members, or teams-of-members to run the races. that way, you’d allow the clubs to include a token few of the currently “slower” but rapacious/ambitious to whet their competitive appetites, and work to improve in order to be selected for the next race. this may go a long way to satisfying the competitive crowd.
i’m being redundant, but for those like me, the “fun run” style races are fine. i personally don’t like crowds and prefer “scenic” courses, so someone like me will stick with suburban community/charity races (and not having to commute to the city). but i did run the “women’s only” & “run for parks” races when i lived in the city. was willing to put up with crowds for causes. for those, it would be nice to have corrals and a start mat.
for the “in between” people, i don’t know. i said before that maybe there could be a separate race series for them. these are unaffiliated people who are both competitive and trying to run their “best”. maybe exclude the clubs from their races? exclude the faster and the joggers? the main issue i see w/excluding joggers is that you’d bar the disabled runners, and older runners from participating. eg, locally, i’ve seen some competitions from guys in their 90′s who are running 13mm’s. i think that’s pretty cool, and they should be allowed to race if they want to.
November 9, 2012 at 9:15 pm
JoeGarland
“joe, you’ve often made nyrr the whipping post for all you see wrong in the nyc running community. if you were mary wittenberg, what would you do differently? how would you conduct things? what would you prioritize?” I don’t think this is fair. When I criticize NYRR, I give my reasons. If you want to point to specifics, I’ll respond to them.
I thought I was pretty clear a few posts ago on what I would have done about communications in relation to the Marathon.
You say, “she’s made a huge effort to accommodate slower (or beginner) runners like me in the organization’s events. that’s caused a host of issues. it’s made the ‘races’ too crowded. it’s alienated the ‘racers’. it’s excluded too many local runners from their home town events.” I disagree. There have always been a large number of “slower (or beginner) runners” in NYRR races. They’ve always been accommodated. I remember volunteering at the Westchester HM in the 80s — it was a NYRRC race then and one of the top HMs in the area — as the split-reader at mile 13, just outside Iona College. I read out the time for every person who came by, no matter how fast or slow she was, and there were a lot of the “slower” runners way back then.
In fact, what has happened to make the fields crowded is not the accommodation you mention but the use of the 9 + 1 system. People are dying to get into the Marathon. By entering NYRR races, they can get in. This is what has filled the races and made them crowded and caused them to close early. This didn’t happen just a few years ago, but Marathon-mania, which I daresay you decry, has changed that. I’ve mentioned that I’ve slowed and the club races (which are deeper at the front than other NYRR races) have gotten nearly too crowded for me. I know people who don’t run them simply because they are too crowded, and I have long said that there are plenty of non-NYRR opportunities around and encouraged people to take advantage of them.
I would hope that a NYCRuns club series will give club members of all speeds — most club runners are not in the hunt for awards, AG or otherwise — the chance to compete under less difficult conditions.
I do not, though, think it fair — and I’ve said this numerous times — to blame NYRR for the popularity of its races. That’s just silly. And if I’m a competitive runner, I’ve no business complaining about crowds because the solution is for me to run faster.
November 9, 2012 at 10:11 pm
cg9m
i’ll leave the recent post alone and just respond here. you’re still not answering my main q, which i think you could write a post about, and that’s, “how would you run nyrr?”
i didn’t react re the marathon cancellation b/c i honestly think they were too busy with last minute planning to take a step back and see the woods for the trees: ie, um, there’s a catastrophic natural disaster approaching. what’s bad is that there was no plan in place. for that there should be a plan “a” and a plan “b” and arguably, a “c”. but you could say the same for the local power authorities, and particularly, the gas companies. it’s outrageous, in some senses.
anyway, by “accommodate” i guess i meant “recruit”. that seems to be the current theme for nyrr. i admit to being clueless when i first moved to the city & ran the mini just to check out central park. it was very different even then- about ten years ago. there were pace flags (that everyone ignored), no corrals, no start mat. i gave up any idea of “racing” (tho it hadn’t been my goal) after about a quarter mile b/c the crowd was too thick. but i enjoyed the experience nonetheless- particularly the spectator support- and did it again “for real” a couple years later, when they had corrals.
i don’t know what to say about “9 + 1″. except it seems like a system that isn’t working. i know they’ve started a series for automatic entry into the nyc half now. perhaps these should all be time-based? as in, you have to show an improvement over x races? i’m not sure how best to placate local runners getting to participate in their premier home event.
as for me “decrying” the marathon, that’s kind of a complicated q. i’ve never been a long distance runner. i think you have to specialize in that distance for several years to consider yourself one. hc and mt from sound shore come to mind. but i know others, too. on the other hand, i’m not opposed to people doing a marathon for personal reasons, charitable causes, or to challenge themselves. the problem seems to be that there are too many of the latter who want to run nycm (i’m NOT one, tho i would be if i did sign up/get in). the issue seems to be how to juggle them, the competitive locals, the out-of-towners, and the elites. the elites seem the least complicated of the bunch.
funny re “cow harbor”- it’s a renowned race, like the “shelter island 10k” (of which i am a fan) or falmouth, which i hope to run one day (uncharacteristically, yes)…but while it’s a well-run event, i still think it would be sad to see rye derby become like that. rye derby is an event to raise money for the ymca kids’ programs. for a “cow harbor” experience, it would be better to start a grass roots event in westchester. it should be sponsored by several westchester clubs, and have a race committee devoted to it.