What does it mean for running?

Does four more years of Obama and certain partisan gridlock make running better, worse, or is it irrelevant?

I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but I did have a fear if Romney won: the DC-area Latter-Day Saints Temple is on my normal Sunday morning bike route. No idea where (or whether) Romney might have chosen to worship, but in case it was there I was concerned for motorcades interrupting a good ride. So in that sense this result removes at least the transaction costs of adjusting my routine.

Public Service Announcement -- Vote!

I know this is off topic for this blog, but, well, _run_, don't walk to your polling lace and VOTE!!

If you need help planning your running route to the appropriate polling place, here's a very useful (if slightly inappropriate) site.

Marathon of Relief 2012

Okay, so there was no Marathon on Sunday.  For what it's worth, it's not entirely a bad thing to wake up in the morning and _not_ have to run 26.2 miles. Instead, I decided to join the army of marathoners who were doing what they could to join in the relief efforts. Luckily a gang of Brooklyn Tri Club members had been working all week to put together a group to help out -- Marathon of Relief 2012.  They were organizing groups heading out to various places throughout the city, including a group that was going to run or bike to Coney Island.  A friend (Jeb Singer) and I ran a few miles beforehand and then met the group at Grand Army Plaza.   The group consisted of Brooklynites, and a fair number of out of towners who had come to run the marathon, but had stayed to help.

We ran through Prospect Park, and then down Ocean Parkway, basically retracing the route of the Brooklyn Half Marathon.  When we arrived at the Boardwalk we found it covered with sand and debris, but not by any means destroyed: 

Then we found our way to the volunteer station, where they were fully booked.

This did not come as a complete surprise.  It took two more sites before we found a center that needed help.  We were divided up into groups and sent door to door through Seagate, looking for folks who might need food and water.  We took blankets, MREs and water, and wandered off. 

What we found on this first foray was a lot of damage, but not many people in need of help.  The neighborhood was a series of blocks of one and two family houses with water but no electricity.  Most had evacuated, and many houses had work crews pumping out basements and pulling out debris.  We handed out a lot of water to work crews, but nobody we saw was in extremis.  They were happy to see us, though, and that made it worthwhile.  

After finishing our wander through Seagate, we started back for another tour of the volunteer sites to see what help was needed.   When we came to the Red Cross truck, they wanted "marathoners" to help carry food and water to the top floors of the blacked out NYCHA apartment buildings.  This was precisely the sort of work I'd hoped we would do.  We split into groups of 3-5, carrying water, self heating hot meals, bananas, snacks, and blankets.  The apartment buildings were 14-16 stories each.  Apparently the city does not require emergency lighting in the stairwells or hallways of its own buildings.  Walking into each building was surreal.  As soon as the door closed behind you, the stairwells were pitch black.  Each group had a few flashlights, so we stayed together, and worked our way up the stairs in the dark.  We walked to the top floor, and then worked our way down.  On each floor we would knock on doors and announce ourselves as Red Cross.  On almost every floor there were one or two families stuck in their apartments for one reason or another.  Some were diabetic, some on walkers, some just hunkered down and waiting for the power to come back on.  Again, all were happy for the help, and many were truly in need.  We took down the names and apartment numbers of those who appeared to be in trouble, and gave those to the police at the end of each run.  We managed to complete three buildings before dark.  

There's nothing particularly unique about this story, marathoners and non-marathoners were pitching in all over the city.  Each of our contributions was only a small drop in the bucket.  But at the end of the day, I'm glad the marathon was cancelled, so that we could all turn our personal resources to the recovery effort.  

Prospect Park 5K

Okay, so the NYC Marathon was cancelled, and I'm all tapered with no place to go.  There was really only one appropriate response.  The Prospect Park Alliance and Prospect Park Track Club (my club) were sponsoring a 5K in Prospect Park this morning.  I had to run it.  So I put on warm clothes ran three miles to the start and found an overflow crowd of marathoners making lemonade. The race was so full that they'd run out of chips, and were just handing out bibs in return for a donation to the park of $30.  It was now a fun run for most of us.  They also changed the distance from 5K to 3.375 (a full loop of the park).  Nobody cared.  This was the first event in Prospect Park since the hurricane.  The proceeds were to go to restoring the Park.  Pretty much everybody was from the area surrounding the Park.  It was an old fashioned community race with about 1000 people.  It was a perfect way to blow off steam.  I went out hard, held on for dear life, and, according to my GPS, held a 7:10 pace.  If Nike+ is to be believed I came within a few seconds of breaking my 5K PR from 2001.  I'm not sure where these times are coming from.  It must be the shoes.

Marathon Cancellation

Okay, so the NYC Marathon has been cancelled.  The NYT alert bleeped on my I-phone just as I was driving out of New Haven to go home and figure out (1) how to get to the expo; (2) how to get to the start; and (3) how to get home from Manhattan.  None of these adventures was looking to be easy, and I was a bit stressed.  I had just taught a makeup class, and ended up spending about half an hour afterwards chatting with some students (some runners) about the issue.  They generally took the view, as I did, that if the race was on, the thing to do was to run it.  We all wondered if the city was going to be able to pull it off.

When I got the message, I had mixed feelings.  I'm really well trained this year, and the taper has gone well, so I had hopes for a good result.  On the other hand, I felt tremendous relief at having all the uncertainties about the next couple of days resolved.  Even under the best of circumstances the expo and trip to Staten Island are a bit of an ordeal.  Not having to worry about that was a relief.  I was completely comfortable with the decision to cancel.  My main aggravation was that the decision was not made earlier.  The delay created a PR nightmare, but it also had real costs, and Mary Wittenberg deserves, I think, a fair amount of criticism here.  I'm lucky.  I live in New York, I didn't make major travel plans or move heaven and earth to get to NY to run.  I also signed up for another Marathon near my home.  Not everyone has that luxury.  For folks who needed to travel, delaying the decision ramped up their costs substantially (and their anger).  Even for me, the delay had costs. I'm now training for a marathon in two weeks.  If I'd known on Tuesday that the race was cancelled, I would not have tapered.  Now I need to revamp my training schedule in a way that makes fairly little sense: taper down, ramp up, retaper.   Oh well.  I'll live.  Tomorrow, I'll try to find something useful I can do to help with the recovery.

Now, there are still some interesting questions hanging out there.  One thing that I found particularly troubling about the announcement was the reason given.  It seems to me that there are a number of legitimate reasons to cancel the marathon: (1) the logistics were proving so difficult (or at least uncertain) that it was not clear that they would be able to put on a safe quality event; (2) the effort to put on the event would divert resources from or otherwise disrupt recovery.  As of the time of cancellation, both of those explanations were in play.  Both would require the NYRR to acknowledge that the damage caused by Sandy was worse than expected, but there's no dishonor in that.  Similarly, if neither of these were true, and they had the ability to pull it off without disrupting the recovery, they could have doubled down.  Neither was the explanation given.  The explanation was that the Marathon had become "divisive" rather than "unifying."  This, in a word, is blaming the critics without responding to the criticism.  If the goal is to heal the divisiveness, blame shifting is not the way to do it.

I was prepared to forgive this as a statement made in the heat of the moment, but today I got an e-mail from NYRR announcing the race's cancellation.  This is the explanatory paragraph:

The decision was made after it became increasingly apparent that the people of our city and the surrounding tri-state area were still struggling to recover from the damage wrought by the recent extreme weather conditions. That struggle, fueled by the resulting extensive and growing media coverage antagonistic to the marathon and its participants, created conditions that raised concern for the safety of both those working to produce the event and its participants. While holding the race would not have required diverting resources from the recovery effort, it became clear that the apparent widespread perception to the contrary had become the source of controversy and division. Neither NYRR nor the City could allow a controversy over the marathon to result in a dangerous situation or to distract attention from all the critically important work that is being done to help New York City recover from the storm.

First of all, it is incoherent.  I'm not sure what is meant by saying that the "struggle [to recover]," was "fueled by the resulting extensive and growing media coverage antagonistic to the marathon and its participants."  Second, it basically says that the race was killed by a bunch of potentially violent whiners.  If your goal is healing, then that is not a constructive thing to even suggest.  Lots of things get said on social media.  It seems to me, either you are able to put on a quality positive event at an acceptable cost or you're not.  You don't blame your audience.  You accept the fact that a casualty of Sandy is this year's marathon and you move on.

I don't think that this is going to harm the race in the long term.  Other Marathons have suffered from weather induced bad days.  Boston boiled its participants last year.  Chicago boiled its participants a few years back, and then cancelled mid-race.  People will still come to Boston and Chicago to race.  Next year's race will be doubly significant after this year's cancellation.  I do think that Mary Wittenberg deserves some very serious criticism, both for her lack of judgment and her communication skills.  I find myself wondering what Fred Lebo would have done under similar circumstances.  I wonder who the new face of New York running will be . . .
   

Worst race expo ever

As the reader knows, I really liked the Hot Chocolate 15K a lot.  Interesting distance, nice time of year, really good swag, and of course hot chocolate from Ghiradelli.  I had signed up some weeks ago long before I got hurt at the Chicago marathon.  So I am not running but at least wanted the winter technical running jacket with hoodie.

In past years, the packet pick up was in Union Station which was a short cab ride each way with easy bus options as well.  For whatever reason, they moved the expo to a tent in the parking lot between Soldier Field and McCormick Place.  So I schlepped over there in the car this afternoon only to find a 90 minute wait to get into to register and then get the goodies.  Apparently the wait was between 2-3 hours this morning.  I was never seen anything like this ever for any race or a bigger waste of time.  At least they didn't have the nerve to charge me for parking since I obviously didn't stick around.

That is one race we can scratch off for future years.

NYC Marathon -- A Puzzle

As I write this, the NYC Marathon has become a bit of a political football.  Mayor Bloomberg and the folks at NYRR have announced that the marathon is on, but they still haven't exactly told anybody what the course is, and it is not entirely clear how they plan to get everyone to the start.  I will admit that this came as a bit of a surprise. During the hurricane itself, I actually registered for the Brooklyn Marathon (November 18), on the assumption that the NYC Marathon simply would not happen.

 I am as ready to go as I've ever been.  I've done my 3 twenty milers, a nineteen miler, an Olympic Tri, and a Half Marathon in the run up.  I set a PR in the Half, so I'm feeling pretty excited.  That's the plus side.  So thank you Mayor Bloomberg and Mary Wittenberg for doing everything possible to make sure that my training doesn't go to waste. . .

On the minus side, well, New York City was decimated by the storm of the century four days ago, and is still shoveling out.  Everybody I know who isn't a runner thinks it's a scandal that resources are going to be diverted from the recovery to the Marathon.  I don't disagree.  I'm feeling like a bit of a pariah for planning to run anyway.  I see the point.  The subways aren't running and there's no power in lower Manhattan.  Lots of people are  really in difficult circumstances.  At best, on this view the Marathon is bread and circuses.

On the other hand, if they pull it off, it will be a truly moving experience to run through the five boroughs less than one week after the hurricane as a show of the city's pluck and resilience.

So, what to do?  Should I _not_ run as an act of protest?  I must say that this thought has not seriously crossed my mind.  I understand the criticism.  I think the better course might have been to postpone by a week.  But if the marathon is going forward, a boycott seems even worse.  All of the resources will be spent, and if the marathon is a flop, the city does not even get the benefit of a civic bounce.  So, logistics, weather and body permitting, I'll be out there Sunday, showing support for a remarkable city.