This race is a 5 star DUD!
Written: Jul 13 '01 (Updated Jul 16 '01)
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Product Rating:
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| Difficulty of Course |
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| Competition |
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Pros: None that I can think of.
Cons: Where do I start???????
The Bottom Line: The bottom line is that marathons are hard enough without having to put up with idiotic organizers too.
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| Mattog's Full Review: Chronicle Marathon |
This is actually my second review of the San Francisco "Chronicle" Marathon; I just deleted the first one which I wrote after running last year's race. I apologize if my previous recommendation resulted in any of you entering this year's fiasco!
I did not run the Chronicle Marathon this year because of an injury, and BOY, I have never been as happy to be hurt as I was last Sunday in Golden Gate Park. I've seen a lot of badly organized races in my time but this one takes the biscuit. No others come close. I hate to say this but as a longtime resident of San Francisco, this year's race was a complete embarassment.
The title sponsor of the marathon, is the SF Chronicle, so the day before the race I picked up a copy at the coffee shop to get some pre-race coverage. What was the Chronicle's idea of coverage? Buried in an obscure section of the paper was a little tiny map and a few lines telling people what parts of town to avoid so as not so get snarled up in the traffic caused by those damn pesky runners. Not a good sign.
To make matters worse the map was 4 years old and not even close to the current race course. Just shows you how much the title sponsor cares about this race.
After my coffee I head off on my morning run to the marathon expo. The expo location at Fort Mason, which by the way, was one of the most closely guarded secrets since Jimmy Hoffa popped his clogs. It was not announced until the last minute causing great confusion for runners arriving from out of town. As Expos go it was pretty disappointing; usual t-shirt stalls and folks promoting other marathons. Very little in the way of good freebies.
SUNDAY MORNING: race day
The course passes within a few blocks of my apartment at mile 2, so off I go at 7 am to see the leaders come by....only I had a 4 year old map from Saturday's paper and the leaders were passing by 3 blocks away. I knew this race was badly supported but it did feel more quiet than usual out there!
Off I go then to Golden Gate Park to see whats going on there. I stake out my place among the crowds at the 18 mile mark...thats me being facetious...and waited. All of a sudden a couple of guys came blasting by going pretty fast. I ask one of the race officials if these guys were the leaders, he said they might be, but then again they might be part of the half marathon which started at the 13.1 mark an hour after the marathon start....they mixed up the number colors and there was no way to tell who was running what...the 5K, the 4 person relay, the half marathon, the split the distance 2 person relay...all mixed up and none of the number colors meant a thing. I watched the runners go by the 18 mile mark for a while and had no idea what was going on, or who was running what so I went down to the finish line....which didn't even have a clock!
The finish line announcer was very confused indeed and he didn't know if the winner had finished because people who were wearing blue marathon numbers were streaming across the line having run in the half marathon. Eventually he heard from the course that the lead man was at mile 20. He updated the "crowd" of about 50 people every few minutes but didn't know the leader's name or if he was alone...nothing. He then started calling out the marathon time on the course as the half marathoners were finishing.
Then the winning relay team came across the line in about 2:24....and weren't announced!
Eventually the lead man came over the hill with someone riding a bike in front of him yelling at the slow half marathoners to get out of his way. This poor guy was winning the marathon and nobody knew it! He was in the middle of hundreds of finishing 2hr plus half marathoners and as he approached he raised his arms a bit and pumped his fists...one guy standing next to me said "Look at that guy, hes acting like he won or something!" "He did" I said. It was pathetic.
The first woman came in just over 3:12 which for those of you who know marathoning is a decent time alright, but it should NOT be winning races.
To top things off the folks at the finish gave all the mylar blankets and medals to the 5K, relay and Half Marathon runners and by the time the slower marathoners started to come in, nothing was left. They also ran out of food! There were a lot of very angry runners milling around, but there numbers were to grow! Yes more was in store for this small band of weary and abused athletes. The organizers had published a map of where it was OK to park around the finish area...only they didn't clear it with the Department of Parking and Traffic. Hundreds of $76 parking tickets greeted runners as they returned to their "legally" parked cars.
The Chronicle did have a bulletin board on the Marathon website for runners to comment on the race but they shut it down yesterday due to the deluge of complaints....what a surprise.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 75
Event Organization: Utterly chaotic
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Epinions.com ID:
Mattog
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Member: Matt R.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 72
Trusted by: 37 members
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