Cancelled half marathon

I can remember Paula Radcliffe dropping from dehydration during the Marathon at the Athens Olypmics in 2004. But that was summer. Don't think Pheidippides was a true story anyway.

A friend of mine ran this race and told me that the runners were inundated with water offered by spectators along the way ... "over the top" as he said. .

We did a 10K walk across the London bridges a while ago, back and forth across the Thames, and it was a very hot day and there weren't enough water points and most of the walkers simply popped in to a convenience store along the route and picked up a bottle.

My son and his partner did a half-marathon round Ponteland on Mother's Day last year and nearly ended up with hypothermia. That race should have been cancelled because it was not very well organised.
My son also ran the Edinburgh Marathon when it was so hot that the runners were being hosed down by people who lived on the route so they did not pass out from the heat.
Organisers have to be so careful. Any runner who carried on after being told the race had officially called off must have been doing it under their own steam and against regulations.

durhamjen the organisers of this race were over careful yet not careful enough! Most of the runners didn't know it had been cancelled - my friend and his wife ran the entire half marathon without knowing that it had officially been cancelled, there were marshalls en route (who also clearly didn't know) and they even got Certificates of Completion. So to all intents and purposes he thought he had run the marathon that he had entered.

That was poor organisation, Grannyknot. It's like the one run at Ponteland. The finish was through a carpark where cars were coming in while the runners were still finishing - and general public cars, not the runners cars. My son finished ten minutes before his partner, and by the time she arrived he was shaking. There were aluminium blankets at the start but none at the finish and it was below freezing, blizzard conditions.
They then had half an hour to walk back to their car in the official car park, but there were no officials to be seen. They nearly called for an ambulance.
I wonder if it was the same organisers.

Grannyknot

The fact the water bowsers did not turn up and some decided to run the race is on the surface 'bulldog spirit' 'stiff upper lip' syndrome' but the fact is the amount of runners who went on to run was not equal to the number of runners had it officially taken place.

The point I am making is whilst your friends were inundated with water, would they have been had the full compliment of runners elected to run??

You can be the world's best organisers but if you are let down you have to make and take decisions and the assessment was it was not safe.

But as Grannyknot said, even some of the marshals had not been told and allowed the run to continue.

Yes I understand that.

What I am saying is the fact there was not the number of runners did not give the whole picture. The fact Marshalls supposedly did not know is neither here nor there.

So, if there had been a broblem and some of the runners had got knocked down because the traffic had been allowed to go on the course, assuming it was onroad, whose fault would it have been, the runners or the marshals?

DD ran Paris marathon two years ago and the day was very hot so some of the front runners taking bottles of water to pour over themselves. When DD got got to the last few miles there was no water left but nobody stopped the race or tried to make alternative arrangements . Is Athens not built on seven hills like Sheffield?

I've just seen something on Facebook saying that the organisers had not complied with the terms of the contract they had with the water supplier, which stated that payment for the water had to be made in advance.
They were reminded several times to pay and didn't, so the water supplier didn't supply.
However they have agreed to supply the water next year for free.