have we seen the last chicago marathon?

[alocispepraluger102]

{for many years, the lasalle bank has considered this race a PR bonanza.

it has really blown up on them.

of course, folks who take off to run a marathon at 88 degrees have to respect their own bodies.}

chicagotribune.com

Man dies in heat-shortened marathon

By Josh Noel, Andrew L. Wang and Carlos Sadovi

Tribune staff reporters

11:13 PM CDT, October 7, 2007

Click here to find out more!

The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon was cut short for the first time in its history Sunday as hundreds of runners laboring across ovenlike streets were treated for heat-related illness.

The stoppage happened about 3 ½ hours after the start gun on an abnormally sweltering autumn day, amid complaints of insufficient water for more than 35,000 runners who had come from around the world to compete in one of its preeminent marathons.

One runner, a 35-year-old Michigan police officer, died after collapsing in the race's 19th mile, but it was not clear whether the death was heat-related.

Chad Schieber, of Midland, Mich., collapsed about 12 p.m. at 1500 S. Ashland Ave., and was pronounced dead on arrival at a West Side hospital at 12:50 p.m., the medical examiner's office said.

An autopsy will be performed Monday.

Despite the heat, executive race director Carey Pinkowski said race officials never considered canceling the race before it began because they believed the number of people running was manageable and that they could be cared for.

"In most cases they have trained for 25 weeks," he said. "Marathon runners are tough people. They train in difficult conditions."

Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said about 315 runners were taken from the course by ambulance with what he described as heat-related conditions. He said city and suburban ambulances took 146 people to hospitals, most in good condition, and the rest were taken to hospitals or medical aid stations along the route by private ambulances.

Five people remained hospitalized in serious or critical condition Sunday night, Langford said.

Runners described chaotic scenes of racers throwing up, passing out or being carted away on stretchers.

"There were people falling all over the place," said Rob Smith, 40, of Naperville, who was running his first marathon.

Though Schieber's death was not the first fatality in the race's 30-year history—the last was in 2003—it was the first time the event was cut short. Of 35,867 runners who started the race, just 24,933 finished, and by Sunday evening, the marathon's message board, along with Chicago hotels and restaurants, was buzzing with dissatisfaction.

"It was poorly done," said Mike Katz, 61, who has run 31 marathons, as he sat in the lounge of the Congress Plaza Hotel. Chicago officials "just didn't have it together," he said.

With temperatures heading toward an Oct. 7 record 88 degrees, officials enacted a contingency plan about 11:30 a.m. to end the race early, Pinkowski said. He said there was precedent for such action. In April, officials at the Rotterdam marathon in the Netherlands cut that event short, also because of warm weather.

Runners who had not reached the halfway point were diverted back to the start at Grant Park while the rest were told by police and firefighters that they should walk to the finish. Some racers simply went home and others caught rides, but the majority walked on, some with bags of ice on their heads or dousing each other with the contents of their water bottles.

A few stubborn competitors kept lumbering along.

Some runners chalked up the aborted race to bad luck, but many others seethed about a lack of fluids along the way.

"I had no water until Mile 8," said Blayne Rickles, 57, of Denver.

The most welcome relief came in the form of spectators buying bottles of water near Mile 13 and handing them to exhausted runners, she said.

"The city was fabulous, but the race was horrible," Rickles said.

Those complaints were echoed again and again, especially from the slower racers. They also said that on such a hot day, drinks should have been made available every mile along the 26.2-mile route, instead of only at the 15 stations sprinkled in every mile or two.

"The water stations were really depleted," said Nestor Benanidez, 40, of Maryland. "As much as they might have planned, it wasn't enough."

Erin Johnson, 24, of Kansas City, Mo., said the first several water stations "were out or really low" and that she ran with her wax cup because competition for fluids was so fierce.

"You're running thinking, 'Oh my God, I really need this water to get through this,' " she said.

Runners also said stations were not ready when runners came through; even if there was water or Gatorade, runners had to serve themselves.

"I had to open a bottle and pour my own," said Karen Orner, 42, of Minneapolis.

But race officials said they found no such problems. Each of the aid stations was outfitted with 50,000 to 70,000 servings of water and 37,000 servings of Gatorade, said Shawn Platt, a senior vice president of LaSalle Bank.

"We checked with all the aid stations and the amount of water was adequate," Platt said. "We had thousands of thousands of gallons of water."

He said there might have been distribution problems as runners created a bottleneck at the tables dispensing water and Gatorade, with runners taking two or three cups at a time, faster than volunteers could fill new ones.

Many runners learned of the race's stoppage about noon, near Mile 20 at Halsted Street and Cermak Avenue.

As firefighters sprayed runners, a paramedic repeated through the speaker in his ambulance, "Attention runners, the marathon has been canceled. You can stop running, now."

Most competitors heeded the advice amid streets flowing with water from open hydrants and littered with cups, sponges, bottles and discarded T-shirts.

Stephen Blight, 43, of Ware, England, costumed head to toe as the "Star Wars" character Yoda, said he had raised $22,000 for children back home with leukemia. He had also learned the previous night that his father had died of lung cancer.

"It's been a very emotional experience," he said. "I'm so very disappointed, but they have to look out for the safety of the runner. That's most important."

George Chiampas, the race's medical director, said Schieber was apparently unresponsive after falling.

"It sounds like he lost his pulse very fast and died on the racecourse," he said.

Schieber's father-in-law, Ken Dodge, said by phone from Midland that Schieber had been a police officer there for about 10 years and was named officer of the year this year.

He and his wife, Sarah, had three children and led a marriage ministry in their church, Dodge said.

"Just a wonderful man," Dodge said, his voice wavering. "He was more of a friend to me than a son-in-law."

Schieber had trained with his wife for six months, following a strict program. Sunday marked his first marathon, which he ran with his wife, brother and sister-in-law.

"Shocking is not the word," Dodge said. "I just cannot imagine this."

jbnoel@tribune.com

alwang@tribune.com

csadovi@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...479,print.story

Edited October 8, 2007 by alocispepraluger102

[ejp626]

LaSalle Bank is being bought by Bank of America, so this would have been the last one under the LaSalle Bank name anyway (way to go out on a bad note). I imagine there will still be a marathon next year, hopefully better organized. Some people have commented that this will further hurt Chicago's chances to get the 2016 Summer Olympics. Others say, no these things are isolated and it was freak weather conditions. Having spent some time around the world and realizing that in fact our perceptions of other places are based on shockingly little information, I tend to believe that yes this will hurt the chances of getting the Olympics (supposedly Chicago is only in 3 or 4th place and this might drop us to 5th). That's ok by me, since I think the Olympics coming to Chicago would be a bad thing overall. Let Rio or Tokyo have them.

[alocispepraluger102]

thanks for the info.

the olympics, just what the overloaded airports and hotels need!

[RDK]

Sorry to hear this. I ran the Chicago Marathon back in 2000 and had a blast. I thought it was very well organized. Marathons are run all the time in temps greater than 88, so I'd imagine the problems were due not so much to the heat per se but to the runners not expecting/training for those conditions and the organizers unprepared for the greater demands.

[MoGrubb]

88° doesn't seem all that hot unless there's 75%+ humidity to go along with it.

[T.D.]

I used to run a lot of marathons, though none since '94...

Actually, anything over 70 degrees gets uncomfortably warm for a marathon; you're already pushing your body to the limit, so incremental heat has a big effect. I ran one in 88 degree weather, Grandma's Marathon 1988 in Minnesota, and it was a really ugly experience, especially since it was early June and nobody was yet acclimated to the heat.

The NYC Marathon had a terribly hot 1984 (iirc, even hotter than yesterday's Chicago), and several hot ones thereafter, and wound up rescheduling the race from October to November.

Can't speak for the LaSalle sponsorship, but I expect the Chicago event to continue, though perhaps moved to later in October. It's too bad about the death, but those things happen from time to time in distance events, regardless of the weather.

I agree that the planning was horrible. As urban marathons expand to almost unthinkable size (35,000+ starters?), there will be untold numbers of marginally fit (euphemism) participants, and organizers should provide for their safety. The number of water/aid stations seemed irrationally small for such a huge event. I think NYC has aid stations every mile, and this was the case even when the race was less mega-sized (I ran it in 1985, when there were "only" about 17,000 runners).

Edited October 8, 2007 by T.D.

[ejp626]

I used to run a lot of marathons, though none since '94...

Actually, anything over 70 degrees gets uncomfortably warm for a marathon; you're already pushing your body to the limit, so incremental heat has a big effect. I ran one in 88 degree weather, Grandma's Marathon 1988 in Minnesota, and it was a really ugly experience, especially since it was early June and nobody was yet acclimated to the heat.

The NYC Marathon had a terribly hot 1984 (iirc, even hotter than yesterday's Chicago), and several hot ones thereafter, and wound up rescheduling the race from October to November.

Can't speak for the LaSalle sponsorship, but I expect the Chicago event to continue, though perhaps moved to later in October. It's too bad about the death, but those things happen from time to time in distance events, regardless of the weather.

I agree that the planning was horrible. As urban marathons expand to almost unthinkable size (35,000+ starters?), there will be untold numbers of marginally fit (euphemism) participants, and organizers should provide for their safety. The number of water/aid stations seemed irrationally small for such a huge event. I think NYC has aid stations every mile, and this was the case even when the race was less mega-sized (I ran it in 1985, when there were "only" about 17,000 runners).

Well, I read a bunch of comments from runners on the Tribune web site, both those that finished and those that didn't. I think there are stations every mile or 1.5 mile, but people train for this marathon to be a lot cooler. Many people commented that they took 2 cups of water to drink and 4-5 to pour over the heads. Only later did it become clear that this completely depleted water at the water stations, since the expected usage was 3 or more times what they had bought. So it was a combination of not reacting to the weather on the part of the organizers and a lot of individual selfishness (I guess that is a little harsh but when you read about how the slower runners had no water and the front runners were dumping it all over themselves, there is some selfishness). Anyway, it was a mess, and if it hurts the Olympic games, I'm glad for that.

[T.D.]

Well, I read a bunch of comments from runners on the Tribune web site, both those that finished and those that didn't. I think there are stations every mile or 1.5 mile, but people train for this marathon to be a lot cooler. Many people commented that they took 2 cups of water to drink and 4-5 to pour over the heads. Only later did it become clear that this completely depleted water at the water stations, since the expected usage was 3 or more times what they had bought. So it was a combination of not reacting to the weather on the part of the organizers and a lot of individual selfishness (I guess that is a little harsh but when you read about how the slower runners had no water and the front runners were dumping it all over themselves, there is some selfishness). Anyway, it was a mess, and if it hurts the Olympic games, I'm glad for that.

I still think this argues for some flaws in organization for such a mega-event. For instance, the NYC Marathon gets massive support from the NY police and fire departments. If there was any hint of water running out, fire hydrants would have been cracked open to make up for shortage. OTOH, the NYC event brings so much money into city coffers (thousands and thousands of European entrants stay in hotels and eat in restaurants for the better part of a week) that the city can justify support expenses. This may not be the case in Chicago.

[Disclaimer: I'm by no means biased toward the NYC Marathon; the race was not at all to my taste, and I preferred to run in much smaller marathons...]

[RDK]

My experience with the Chicago marathon was that it was very well-organized and had the full support of the city.