Chicago Marathon water controversy

by Bev Sklar (Subscribe to Bev Sklar's posts)
Oct 8th 2007 12:29PM

Categories: Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Celebs & Entertainment

The Chicago Marathon debacle is all over the news. It was so hot in Chicago yesterday, hundreds of runners were taken from the course by ambulance, and race officials stopped the race. Twenty-five runners are still hospitalized. Thirty-six-year-old Chad Schieber, a marathoner from Michigan, died.

Was there enough water and sports drinks out there to fulfill the tremendous hydration needs of more than 35,000 runners on a sweltering day? Race officials say yes. Many runners are saying no. According to a friend of mine who made it through mile 16 when the race was halted, there was definitely a water shortage. He says the race officials are full of sh**. They're lying. During his time on the course, the race was mostly out of water and Gatorade after the second stop until approximately mile 12. Cups were hard to find.

What pushed him onward was the generosity of Chicagoans. Normally cheering runners on through the neighborhoods, they dug deep and pulled out garden hoses to douse runners, and handed out water bottles and sports drinks either just purchased or swiped from their fridge. The energy and aid from these Chicagoans made the difference for many. My friend believes they probably saved lives.

Let's be clear there were serious water shortages along the route. Even more disturbing, this October heat wave was forecasted for days. Race organizers should have been better prepared. However, I am glad they stopped the race -- good call.

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Comments (16)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lauren Powers 10-08-2007 @ 4:06PM

I'm very glad you posted this. I was in this race yesterday too, and there was hit-or-miss at water stations. Thank goodness for the people that were kind enough to hand out water bottles, and spray the runners down with hoses. I was at mile 21 by the time they announced the race closed, and finished only because of the people that stuck around to help the runners. I hope that people who participated, or were in any way a part of this race, write about this. It was horrible the way La Salle handled the situation, and the fact that they are denying the water shortage is just stomach-turning.

steve 10-08-2007 @ 7:34PM

I ran the course yesterday and found no shortage of water of sports drink. Tables were stacked with sportsdrink at each stop. I was able to grab two and sometimes three cups of hinckley springs throughouot the race. Three issues with the race- major factor, people going out too fast for the conditions...has there been a world record set in the heat?, people stopping at the first tables of water instead of moving down the block a tad to more available water, and three, at one table the terrific volunteers were puring as fast as they could. Out of water, no, I did not see it. Slow pours due to volume, perhaps the only problem.

jeff 10-08-2007 @ 8:39PM

Steve CAN GO F*&K himself. I was pacing just under 5 hours and started with the 5 hour corral. THE FIRST WATER STATION HAD 0.000 drops of water you jackass!
The second station had 1 last table on the right with people crashing into eachother. Runners went into gas stations to BUY water.
I was prepared and had gu and intentionally step my pace down, I was going to finish.. but the real go getters jerks like you maybe looking for a personal best found urselfs with 4,5,6 cops to bath in and cool down as you poured over urslefs.
YOU ARE IN no position to say sh*t.
I am 33 years old have trained well for 22 weeks. I ran the LaSalle distance classic and noticed a shortage of water there TOO. no one died and they did not cancel so no news on that organizational fiasco.
HOW DARE those officials lie plain face on TV!! Any other country would have had immediate apologies and responsible men owning up to the situation but not us Americans!
Re-G*D-Damn-Diculous!!!

Bev Sklar you rock for the blog on this. Concise and fair.

#2 comment by steve, hope you enjoyed ur 5 cups of fluid per station you idiot , maybe you should have paced YOURSELF AND not burdened the rest of US you Smarmy prick! OR MAYBE LaSalle should have prepared for a MARATHON on 90 degree day!!! too fas for conditions ..? Then you too steve, else wise why did ja take so much F*CKING WATER!
Sign up next year too ya big winner! :O)

Andi 10-08-2007 @ 9:28PM

And then there are the outsiders looking in that ask "was it so important to run this race that you kept going after you started seeing a water shortage?" It was 90 degrees out and you're supposed to be old enough to use your own judgment.

emily 10-09-2007 @ 1:51AM

This was my first marathon, and I live in the south where it's normally that hot, but we always had PLENTY of water and we had it every MILE, and we got up and ran before the sun rose to avoid hitting the heat at the worst time of the day. What I don't understand is why they didn't start the race earlier. They sent out a heat advisory email to racers on Thursday. They knew then what the weather conditions would be. They could have told everyone at the expo (that was MANDATORY to pick up your chip) that the race was going to start at 6 instead of 8. And that's total BS about them having plenty of water. If it weren't for the genorosity of people w/ice and garden hoses, I wouldn't have made it as long as I did. I cannot believe how unprepared they were, as far as fluids goes.

Paul 10-09-2007 @ 9:36AM

Steve, please be sure to post your future runs somewhere so that we can all make sure NOT to run those. I would like to get some water and/or gatoraid, and I know I won't if you're ahead of me...

Seriously, Steve, why, oh why would you hoard so much?

And, if there was enough water at the stations like the coordinators are claiming, why did I see water stations that were actually shut down (tables were taken down)?

Adam 10-09-2007 @ 11:51AM

I flew over from the UK to run Chicago having raced in New York for the past two years. Firstly i was surprised to find that unlike New York which has water stations every mile, there were only 15 in Chicago - none extra were added for the arduous conditions. I can categorically confirm that two stations around mid-way had no fluids at all. We weer advised to take cups and get water from'somewhere'. People were grabbing water from hoses and hydrants that had been cracked open in the latter part of the coures. Personally I stopped off at a grocery store to buy some Gatorade - not quite in my race plan!

Spectators were superb giving out what beverages they had and opening their coolers for ice - thanks to all of you.

Given that the temperature was known about for at least two weeks, the organisers should have started the run (at least) an hour earlier and had more spray facilities so that runners wouldn't take drinking water to pour over themselves.

I did cross the line in 5:12 but only after being diverted shortly after mile 20 to rejoin for the final mile. I will put it down to a particularly arduous 23+ mile training run!

Naturally I was disapointed with the whole experience, but the weather is the weather and is just another factor that makes long distance running hard work.

Bill 10-13-2007 @ 10:57PM

Here's anoval idea. Ever think for a minute that you people are idiots for running 26 miles in that kind of weather ? Think it's healthy or a reasonable thing to do. When it's that hot, it doesn't matter how much WATER you drink, you morons. You have get hyponatremia if you drink too much water and in those sorts of conditions, your body is NOT BUILT TO RUN THAT FAR THAT LONG!!!!

It's terrible people had to die, but you idiots tie up traffic for these ridiculous events that you train months for. FOR WHAT ? GET A LIFE! DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE.

Lauren 10-09-2007 @ 11:26AM

I ran the race too - first half at a pace of finishing around 4 hours, and I ended up finishing in 5 hours. Don't blame Steve, blame the race officials for not being prepared. Throughout the race, I never ran into a place where there was no water, though water was scarce and it was not cold. I usually only took 2 cups per station, but I felt like I could have drank forever and still not been hydrated. No matter how much water they would have had, the runners at the front would have just taken more. Thank goodness for generous spectators with hoses, bottles, cell phones for calling ambulances, and open fire hydrants. This race was an absolute nightmare to participate in, I think no matter what pace you tried to run in. I don't even think starting earlier would have made a difference - it was about 70 and humid at 6 am even! Crushing the hopes of 45,000 who have been training for months and cancelling the race prior to it would have been unthinkable, but LaSalle should have been better prepared for this horrifying heat wave. Ambulances were called in from the suburbs. Don't blame people like Steve for taking water at the front, who would ever expect for them to run out. After going with only a mere sip of water through three stations, I felt completely dehydrated and needed more if finishing was even to be contemplated. What a mess, but thanks to Chicago spectators would made finishing this race possible!

Tom 10-09-2007 @ 2:00PM

Each runner can tit for tat all day... if there was water there when you went by, you'll say "no water issues"... if there wasn't... you certainly had water issues!

What I don't understand is with 45,000 registered runners, and only 35,000 taking to the start line, you should have had at a minimum 20% extra water available.... With reasonable planning, water/gatorade shouldn't even be an issue.

Kathy 10-09-2007 @ 2:50PM

I ran the race on Sunday as well, and can attest to the accuracy of Bev's post. I don't blame faster runners like Steve for using whatever water it took to keep themselves safe, cool & hydrated - their $110 entry fee entitled them to just that. But the mid-to-back-of-the-pack runners paid the same $110, and were equally entitled to adequate hydration and cooling - which the race organizers simply FAILED TO PROVIDE. Their statements to the contrary are preposterous, particularly when tens of thousands of runners know otherwise. Steve and other faster runners shouldn't (somewhat cockily) assume that just because they had access to plenty of water, everyone else did, as well. I assure you, that's not the case. People were actually filling their water bottles in the fountain in Lincoln Park around mile 5. (Not a drinking-water fountain - a big, huge, dirty public FOUNTAIN). And it makes me furious that the race organizers are trying to make it sound as though the course closure affected a smaller number of runners than it actually did, by saying that "anyone who passed the halfway point was allowed to continue." This is, indeed, a blatant lie. I was almost at mile 17 before we were diverted straight to the finish line - and there were no police with bullhorns there to tell people what was happening, either. No one had a clue what was going on - it was a complete fiasco. Shame on the race organizers for not being prepared despite more than a week's notice of rising temperatures, and for lying to the media to cover their own a**es. But I echo the huge thank-you to the people of Chicago for their course support and provision of water where we'd otherwise have had none!

Paul Brennan 10-09-2007 @ 9:52PM

What was unbelievable was that given the conditions, there were no aid stations between the 2nd and the 6th mile. That was just bad planning. But to top it off, THERE WAS NO WATER AT ALL in the second aid station, which meant that runners ran for five miles or close to one hour for many without any water. At the fifth mile we shouted WATER! to a race official with a bullhorn and he callously said "on your right you will see the lake". I don't know what the individual who assures that there was enough water has to gain by saying it. It almost seems like a planted comment. Those who were there, in the middle of the pack, know that there was no water in the second station, no cups in the third, and that the supplies and logistics were not at the level required. Sure, the weather was the main problem, but the response was very poor for a world class marathon. The dishonesty in discussing it only makes it more galling. The reputation of the Chicago Marathon may never recover.

Christine 10-09-2007 @ 4:14PM

IT WAS ABSURD. THERE WAS NO WATER AT MILE 2- UNHEARD OF. WE ALL TRAINED IN THE HEAT AND WE ALL COULD HAVE DONE IT IF WE WERE GIVEN ENOUGH WATER/ GATORADE. WE WERE LEFT OUT THERE TO BE SLAUGHTERED. MANY MORE WOULD HAVE DIED IF IT WASN'T FOR THE GRACIOUS SPECTATORS AND LOCAL NEIGHBORS. WE GAVE UP MONTHS OF OUR LIVES FOR THIS ONE DAY. THE RACE WAS NOT CANCELED BECAUSE OF THE HEAT BUT BECAUSE THERE WASN'T ENOUGH PREPERATION. THEY SHOULD AT LEAST ADMIT THAT AND STOP LYING AND MAKING ALL THE RUNNERS LOOK LIKE THEY ARE MAKING THIS UP. THERE IS NO WAY TO DEFEND THEIR ACTIONS. IT IS DISGRACEFUL- GOOD LUCK GETTING THE OLYMPICS TO YOUR CITY.
AT A VERY MINIMUM THEY SHOULD REFUND ALL THE ENTRY FEES- AT A VERY VERY MINIMUM. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PURCHASED "LA SALLE BANK" MARATHON FINISHER GEAR, HOTEL STAYS, PLANE TICKETS, FAMILY'S PLANE TICKETS, MEALS,ETC..... THEY SHOULD COMPENSATE FOR WHAT THEY CAN- SINCE THEY CANNOT COMPENSATE FOR THE FEELINGS OF DISSAPPOINTMENT, FAILURE, FRUSTURATION, THE MUSCLE CRAMPS AND PHYSICAL SUFFERING FROM DEHYDRATION AND TO THE FAMILY WHO LOST SOMEONE IN THIS RACE. NO EXCUSE CHICAGO- NO DAMN EXCUSE.

Ed 10-11-2007 @ 9:57AM

Although I was near the start (Corall C), one assumes water is a given. I have only heard about a shoratage at the 5th 3rd half a few years ago.

I finished at 4:19 walking and having water was never on my mind. getting to the finish and driving home were on my mind. Obviously, the heat was getting to me.

I feel sorry for the folks in the back

ED

Lisa 10-15-2007 @ 5:56PM

I, along with my husband, ran in Sunday's race. It was like a war zone. I had posted about this on the threads on another site, describing everything like Bev did. I ordered a couple of these shirts:

http://www.cafepress.com/chicago2007

You have to zoom in close, but when you read them, they're pretty funny!

They have another one on the site that says, "Got Water?"

Here's another one, and proceeds to to help Chad Shieber's family: http://www.chicagofunrun.com/

Lisa 10-15-2007 @ 6:03PM

People who train as hard as they do for the marathon, don't train as hard as you do to exercise the muscles in your mouth. The good thing for you, is that your brain didn't have to work as hard.