Walker-friendly marathons

[magwriter]

For a national running magazine (and with permission from RRM to post): Is your marathon, or are marathons with which you're familiar, walker-friendly?

[Veteran Runner]

For a national running magazine (and with permission from RRM to post): Is your marathon, or are marathons with which you're familiar, walker-friendly?

I suspect you wanted a yes or no answer, but that would leave you to spin the results. I think it would be better if you had some input on the issue.

With all due respects to the "feel good" implication of the question, one should consider that "walker - friendly" often means:

"not volunteer - friendly"

or

"inclined to discourage volunteers from returning the next year because of an excruciatingly long day."

And more importantly, "walker - friendly" means

The town fathers are less warm to the "but the race brings in all this business" retort when the race is in the community's face longer than it might have been in early years and race management has to sell the race to the venue to keep it in existence.

There is no question, I'm pro management and while I run over 30 races a year myself as a runner, I'm of the opinion that we can alway find participants for races but there is a woefully short supply of good race managers and volunteers. Here in the Northeast we have so many races, the volunteer pool is thin to start with.

[Trailrunnerdude]

Is your marathon, or are marathons with which you're familiar, walker-friendly?

The answer to this question is extremely subjective - what some RDs or runners consider to be 'walker-friendly' may be unfriendly to others and vice versa. My policy is that people can run or walk my races, but they need to finish within the specified time limits or they will not be supported by the race once those limits have been reached.

[Veteran Runner]

but they need to finish within the specified time limits or they will not be supported by the race once those limits have been reached.

If there is any significant number of those beyond the time limit, I've yet to see a city, town, police and/or residents that didn't coming looking to the race management as to why people were left out in:

Unsupervised and unsafe conditions. (Runners are stupid and think they own the roads when they are in a race, fast, slow, early or late.) AND it is more likely these stragglers are from the headphone camp.

Wandering lost for hours because the remaining course was not obvious.

***
Runners straggling in very late often don't find any food, water. Regardless of the warnings, or what they agreed to, they appear to other runners, spectators, and neighbors to be people the race didn't care about or worse, was sloppy and negligent in taking care of them.

In the "caring" department, relative to the all the other obligations and purposes that surround an event, I personally don't care about the walkers and in fact I think they are going to eventually screw up a lot of events. Once some of the higher profile events get forced to exclude them it will become obvious to even the ludites out there that more has been lost than gained.

Boston has already had to change its starting time because of the total time eastern MA is screwed up traffic wise. Of course that means volunteers which come from all over New England have get up and leave in the very wee hours of the morning now. It saw the writing on the wall from all the cities and towns along the route. It didn't have to look hard because their permitting process was not a fun time for the managers and hadn't been for a number of years because of the lenghtening of the average finish time.

The problem with an average finish time is it hides the long end of bell curve which for many is pretty a flat and long extended piece of the curve. Way too many out there.

[Trailrunnerdude]

If there is any significant number of those beyond the time limit, I've yet to see a city, town, police and/or residents that didn't coming looking to the race management as to why people were left out in:

Unsupervised and unsafe conditions.

Is this a big problem in your region? I've been fortunate that I don't have to worry about municipal authorities coming to me if they find a lot of stragglers after the time limit. They have a sag bus or paddy wagon for them if these 'runners' are still on the roads after the time limit.

Personnally, I don't care if people run or walk my races, but no matter how complex the event gets and no matter how many bells & whistles we add, the bottom line is that it's a race and this means there is a time limit.

[Veteran Runner]

<<<< Is this a big problem in your region?

It's a big problem at some races and "if there's smoke" problem at a number of others.

At one extremely popular race up here after the second time the selectmen in the town said "What is it about "WE want the town back in 3.5 hours" that you don't understand?", We got religion on the walker issue.

Having the town back means the course cleaned up and no people out on narrow roads.

After a race has grid locked an area for hours on end, drivers are way more dangerous because they are in a hurry they might not have been in had the race not screwed up the traffic. Almost every year the police have to arrest somebody who is driving like and idiot "because I couldn't get to the dump earlier today."

At another event another town refused a permit until it was almost too late to start promoting the race

Having to drive a sag wagon is sure way to loose a good volunteer. There are some unique people that love doing that but they are few and far between.

Luckily most areas welcome races but there can be a fine line between welcome and tolerate. Race managers can morph one into the other and beyond by being naive about how others perceive road races. Just because we love em, doesn't win the day.

[Trailrunnerdude]

It's a big problem at some races and "if there's smoke" problem at a number of others.

I don't disagree, but I think it can be remedied fairly easily. From what you've mentioned it looks like some races are staged in areas that have gotten more populated and congested. Perhaps a course redesign may be desirable. One of the challenges for the RD community is to balance the race/course attractiveness to runners with the needs of the community.

As far as the 'good volunteer' driving the sag wagon, it shouldn't be an issue. If it's a large race, you can hire a school bus and pay the driver time and a half. If they're bored they can bring a book. For smaller races, you can have a lag bike who roams back & forth and can call a volunteer to come out in a POV and pick up the laggard(s). At worst, you can tell the police to do what they feel is necessary with whoever is out there beyond the time limit.

[hillrunr]

For a national running magazine (and with permission from RRM to post): Is your marathon, or are marathons with which you're familiar, walker-friendly?

Depends. How do you define "walker-friendly"? As pointed out, that can mean different things to different people. I don't know of many races that give walkers a problem as long as they can finish within time limits, which are usually long enough to allow walking. If that's the criteria, I'd say most marathons are "walker-friendly".

[Cannon]

Our inaugural event in May will be walker friendly. Our innate advantage is our course which follows a paved, public trail ending in a downtown park with only 3 road crossings in 26.2 miles. We have promised that the course will be "open" until the last walker comes in our sunset, whichever comes first.

We will need a few volunteers to run a "late shift" at the aid stations, which will by then have been reduced to bare bones. Our finish line will still be open as we have a kids event that starts 6 - 1/2 hours after the marathon starts.

Check us out at www.windermeremarathon.com.

[Veteran Runner]

<<< Check us out at [url]www.windermeremarathon.com

Wow, does your event ever have some great running eye-candy.

[JamesM]

I suppose my view is colored by the fact that every race around here is in a city, with many road junctions, each manned by police who we have to pay, OR staged in a park where we have closed the park roads for an early morning run but he park is chafing to open the roads and allow the general public in.

In general I think that very few long distance running races are truly walker friendly. While as race organizers we don't much mind waiting for walkers to finish a 5K it becomes a real hassle on longer races. After all, we are organizing RUNNING races.

At most races slow walkers are dealt with one of several ways:

In some races if they cant keep up they are ordered off the course and onto the buss. (Disney)
In others there is a published pace time and if you are running behind that you are on your own. Being on your own means no closed streets, navigating intersections on your own, finding your own way, and often finding your own refreshment. It's not very enjoyable.

There are Marathons that say they are walker friendly, but at best I think they are walker tolerant, but really are walker indifferent or just unfriendly.

Some will pretend to be walker friendly just becuase they want the extra entry dollars. It does not mean the walkers experience will be very nice.

People who want to walk 26 miles should set out on a walking trail, not glam onto the back of a running race where they will be dropped in the first mile.

There are many fine walking trails, and lots of good orgnized group walks that use them. It is far more appropriate for walkers to join walking clubs and do real walking events, or just go walking with friends.

If they go on a real walk they will not be spending 6 or more hours wandering through the garbage of bombed out water stops, on streets slick with sticky paper cups and dropped gue packs, being honked at by irate motorists, having to use shitty port-a-potties that runners in a hurry left messy, and greeted by volunteers who are very tired and weary having spent the last eight hours on their feet.

I am sure there are a few Marathons, set in bucolic rural settings, where street closure is not a big issue, that tolerate and maybe even welcome walkers, but in general, for most events, they are more pain than they are worth.

If you are giving advice to walkers, give good advice. Tell them to join walking groups, who pick their routes becuase they are good walks. Sometimes because they are beautiful, interesting or challenging walks.

Walking groups are also a good choice becuase they don't look down on walkers. In a real walking group they will find support and friendship.

Marathon routes have different goals than walking paths. They are constrained by the need for width of street and the streets the city will allow them to close. On the other hand walking routes generally go by the best locations, go past convenient clean bathrooms and meander past the best views and things to look at.

My parents have both lead walking groups for years. Walking groups are not just for old folks, some can be very challenging. For example you can walk to the South Pole as part of a three man racing team.

We should not be encouraging walkers to drag along behind Marathons. We should be encouraging them to do it right, go join waking clubs, and go walk on walking trails.

I know I have said that to grow a race you need to grow the number of people joining onto the back of your pack, but you don't need the walkers.

Once upon a time, our club advertised events as both runs and walks. We even had walker awards, which we abandoned because the walkers would argue over who was and was not walking. Over time we have found it better to do one thing well, a running race, than try to do to things badly. Our club races no longer say run and walk. We have removed the word walk from all our literature, because if we got tired of getting harangued by some walker who felt slighted becuase somehow they felt left out or late to the party. For example "You should no have been giving out the raffles until everybody is finished."

It's nice to think your race is walker friendly, but in reality you are putting a lot of burden on the poor volunteers stuck out on the course till god knows when. If you still think walkers are a good idea, you have not recently worked the water stop at mile 25, with a bunch of tired kids who have been up since before dawn.

Walkers are people who can't, do don't want to run. They are by definition not runners.

When you think about it, going out and 'not running' for 26 miles of a 'running race' is not very sensible.

It's like going out and 'not swimming' a 26 mile swimming race, "I think I will just wade along in the shallow water".

You may think I am walker hostile. I probably have every every right to be having been up since 4am to make a running race happen. But I am not. I am the one circling around asking them if the are ok. I have often taken bottles of gator aid out and handed it to them personally. I am often the one asking volunteers not to leave there posts until the last person has passed. I'm often in involved in removing cones and re-opening streets so I'm down course looking to identify who is the the last person. I am the one who tells police cars to give the last person room and not to drive on their heals. I want everyone to have a good time and enjoyable experience. It just makes life eraser if they are a runner and not some one using our event for a genial morning stroll.

When the walkers finish it always looks like they missed a good party. All the signs of people having fun are there but the show has closed down. If there is any food left it's generally what every one else rejected. If there are medals left they are lucky. There will not be a clean bathroom. All around are cans full of garbage and crews are hurrying to clean up and go home.

I strongly believe walkers would be better off doing a real walk with a real waking group.

[Doug R]

It just makes life eraser if they are a runner and not some one using our event for a genital morning stroll. .

:) You probably meant "genial", I think. But, if you meant what you typed, then I really have to come check out your walkers! LOL

[JamesM]

Thanks, fixed that !!

[Coastwalker]

Jeeze, James! You really don't like walkers, do you? You really ought to distinguish between competitive walkers and casual walkers. Competitive walkers are never the ones who cause you problems/delays in a race. I'm a racewalker, not a very fast one, but I can do OK. I enter a lot of running races, from 5Ks to half marathons, and I've never been the slowest finisher in any race. I say that not to blow my own horn (like I said, I'm not that fast), but to let you know that it is not always the walkers who create the delays, and that there are some slow runners out there who can hold things up almost as much as a casual walker. So, how do you keep the slow runners and walkers out of your long races, especially if they don't pay any attention to time limits, unless you have a sweep van?

[Cannon]

<<< Check us out at [url]www.windermeremarathon.com

Wow, does your event ever have some great running eye-candy.

80% of our course is within sight and sound of the Spokane River run on a 12-foot wide paved asphalt trail. In May it is running with lots of white water from Sping mountain runoff. And it's fast!

[JamesM]

I don't have a problem with race walkers, who can maintain a pace similar or faster to slow runners. They are more than welcome, and they know that. It's the amblers and perambulators who I think would be better off on a real walk that is planned and designed for their pace.

When a race is run on what is essentially a walking or hiking trail there is not much problem with people ambling on behind. They are using the path for what it was meant for.

The problem is when you have city streets closed for a long distance event, like a marathon. Then it's just inappropriate to enter a running race and not run. Not a problem with a 5K, but a real pain with a marathon.

I also believe that if walkers take their morning stroll by following along behind a running race they can't complain when they arrive at the finish to find all the good food has been eaten, and all the giveaways have been given out.

I do strongly believe that running clubs and running stores should also maintain links to local walking and hiking clubs. Hiking is a very good way to gain the time on feet and build bone strength and endurance. We should be encouraging more kids to do long distance walks. We worry about them racing too far when they are too young, but lots of walking and hiking never hurt anyone unless they are wearing inappropriate shoes or are carrying a pack that is too heavy.

Walking is good. Lots of long distance walking and hiking is better. Just ask my parents who are in there 80's and still leading mountain walking groups.

It's just with the compilations of organizing real long distance running races in the urban jungle of modern cities, the last thing most races need is amblers drifting along behind.

So I am very pro walking, and very pro running, but not at all keen on trying to mix walking with long distance running events. It just makes everything to difficult to do well.

[deej2020]

Our event is VERY walker friendly. We have a 6 a.m. start for our marathoners who expect to finish in over 6 hours. We also have a 13.1 mile walk with competitive and non-competitive divisions. We cater to all of our participants but are receptive to walkers. This year we are moving our Half Marathon start time to 7 a.m. and keeping the Marathon start time at 8 a.m. We are hoping this will alleviate some congestion issues we've had due to growth over the last couple years.

[JamesM]

Deej2002 - If you start the walkers first, and then start two races down the same course one after the other, won't your full marathon runners will run into the back of the 1/2 soon after the start, and the back of your 6am walkers shortly after that?

I don't know your course layout but the traditional way to un-clog a course is to get the faster runners of first and the slower ones last.

Having to weave through slow walkers, who are quite possibly wearing ipods, and later through slower runners can cause much frustration for fast runners.

Sounds to me like you will need a flock of bicycles to move the walkers and slower runners from the early starts over to one side, so as tolet the faster runners pass by.

If you are experiencing clogging up on the course then seriously consider starting corrals by pace group. Once you have each of the runners in the right place, behind the faster runners and ahead of the slower runners, you should not get any serious gunking up on the course because after the start they should naturally spread out.

If you need to further spread out the runners then consider wave starts every 5 or 10 minutes like a triathlon, with the faster people going off first. Fast runners are also better at getting to the start early.
__________________________________________________ ________________

I went back and re-read your post and you said "congestion issues". I assumed you had congestion issues on your course. Maybe you meant traffic congestion with people trying to get to your start? In which case you need a transportation and traffic management plan, possibly combined with wave starts.

Some races have very good transportation plans that use of lots of buses. They often give the participants very detailed instructions on arrival routs and the exact times they need to depart and arrive.

Frequently Triathlon races are held in places with limited traffic access and becuase of their length they need to start early. This is especily true in the tropics where the race often starts in the dark to beet the mid day heat. Getting a large tropical triathlon off on time is an exercise in parking management.
I have been to races where each pace group or wave gets individually customized arrival instructions. Instructions that told me the exact route I must drive to approach, the parking lot I must use, the color code of the particular parking lot, the time that I must enter through a specific gate, during a very specific 10 minute time window, while displaying my waves color coded parking parking pass in my windshield as I approach.
As I approach the race by the assigned route, in the assigned time window, I see giant signs on 4x8 plywood that identify the entrance to my assigned parking in 3 1/2 foot high letters. We stream into the lots at 30 miles an hour, slow down and are then told exactly where to park. This is like wave finishes for parking.
They know exactly how many parking spots they have and divide them up so they have multiple gates doing parallel arrival queues, and then managing the parking so that each car parks in the next space in the row, no circling around looking for a better spot.

[Veteran Runner]

Our event is VERY walker friendly. We have a 6 a.m. start for our marathoners who expect to finish in over 6 hours. We also have a 13.1 mile walk with competitive and non-competitive divisions. We cater to all of our participants but are receptive to walkers. This year we are moving our Half Marathon start time to 7 a.m. and keeping the Marathon start time at 8 a.m. We are hoping this will alleviate some congestion issues we've had due to growth over the last couple years.


This subject was touched on briefly at the Give and Take breakout session at the Running USA conference in San Diego last week. That session had race management personnel from large name brand races, smaller events and folks who have been around since race timing and scoring was done with white boards and stickers.

The comment was made that multiple events on the same course is like the long thin balloon which has a bubble in it.

You can squeeze the bubble to flatten it but it will pop up elsewhere.
You can have a number of your friends use their hands too but the bubble will still pop up somewhere else.
You can move the deck chairs on the Titanic around in every pattern imaginable and nothing will change the ultimate outcome.

Some group in the race will conflict at some point in the race with some other group. And the general resulting comments were that the analogy was pretty accurate.

[JamesM]

I agree in part with the idea that it is very difficult to run multiple events on the same course, but it can be done if the courses soon diverge to route the runners on different courses before re-merging, but it's very very tricky.

You never want the front of one race running into the back of the other, and you never want to merge to races that are doing a significantly different pace. You have to have the course of the races diverge before the front of one runs into the back of the other.

If you re-merge races you ALWAYS have to figure out which one should have the advantage and you have to end up harming one of the two. If the races start at diffrent times and go diffrent distances they can't be seamlessly zippered back together, because at the point of merger people in the other race will be running a diffrent pace. I do it in one race with two streams of runners that total around 1,500 but it is tricky. It takes immaculate calculations on pace and timing and then very careful planing.

We do have two 5K's with only 300 to 400 people where we run it on the same course, in two waves, five to ten minutes apart. The first has the women go off first, and the men have to try to catch and overtake them before they get to the finish. The second is similar, but the over 40's go first. On both we have a team of lead bicyclists moving the first wave to one side so the front of the second wave can come blasting through on the other side of the road.
If we did not have the team of bicyclists moving the back of the first wave over the second wave would trip over the first. It is still a bit messy but works. Don't do it without lots of road width, and then only with a small race. Basically you need twice the road width, and you need to move the runners in the first race over to one side as the second comes blasting through.

The exception to this idea of not starting multiple races on one course is when you use a series of age group wave starts with a very small number going off in each start. Many Triathlons are started this way. Groups of around 50 to 100 go off every five minutes or so, based on their sex and age group. This feeds a continuous stream of people onto a course over a couple of hours.
Racers have age group body markings on the back of their leg so everyone knows who they are competing against and if they are passing a slower person from the age group ahead of them or one of their own.

When age group wave starts are carefully done, by selecting the right group starting order, it makes the race quite fun. First go the elites, then faster groups to slower (age & sex) groups based on the average time for the top half of that group. I have never seen it done in any running races around here, except on cross country and fell racing where a narrow course often prevents a mass start. If your course has constrictions and bottle necks I guess you could do a similar system.

[Veteran Runner]

I agree in part with the idea that it is very difficult to run multiple events on the same course, but it can be done if the courses soon diverge to route the runners on different courses before re-merging, but it's very very tricky..

James, your description of what can happen and the work involved to mitigate the problem ought to scare the hell out of people, as well it should.

When done right, the outcome is still very iffy.

When done wrong, lots of runners know it and many of them are silently saying. "What the hell were these guys thinking?" Notice I said "runners" and it's ironic here because the walkers won't care. Sort of makes the walkers seem like the ideal participant to court. Just make sure someone is there at the end and save em a bagel and give em a medal and they are happy. Where is this sport going?

To me this is a no brainer. If you've been around this sport and paying attention you will notice that most of fears RDs have about things they think will cause runners to not to sign up or come back are just not true. Price seldom matters, lack of paper apps, the cost of online processing fees, enforcing headphones, none of that matters an iota. Runners will not avoid a fun popular race for any of that stuff.

Price does seem to matter only AFTER something gets screwed up at a race and then you hear "You'd think for XXX bucks they would have ya da ya da". As if the problem was acceptable if the price was lower. Price only matters to the extent of the bitching session and as no real effect on the race.

However, screw up the course a second year or have a repeated timing or scoring issue and the journeyman runner will go try that race they haven't been able to run because they've liked your race. and that journeyman runner will take their friends with them. This course thing is a minefield because a moving mass of people often will not follow what you have in mind, even if you are very very good in your plan.

Addressing this subject is a major distraction to many other things a race needs to be doing.

Many of those putting on races only do a larger serious race once a year.

That means they have little experience at the subject at a larger level and the majority of folks only get one chance a year to do, with absolutely no way to practice and often with many new volunteers who probably can't recognize that something is going south until it is really a mess.

Doesn't this all sound unwise to accommodate a group of folks who are out for the experience of traversing the geography because they certainly are not involved in a "race".

The added downside is the longer and longer these "whatevers" take, the higher the no-show and non-return factor we get from volunteers. And what's worse is that it is harder and harder to attended the permitting meeting with city and town Fathers who clearly see that whatever "good" a race may perceive to bring is countered by growing general displeasure of the local citizens who want their city back in a time frame like it use to be.

Walkers are going to cause some events to disappear at worse and cause key committee people to decide it isn't worth the extended day at best. The wise event managers will figure that out in time. Sadly, many of us will think our event is different and can get away with it against what will be very long odds.

This isn't going to happen tomorrow, but right now many events have their heads down messing with the deck chairs and trying hard not to step in the chuck holes in the road. (Multiple groups over large time windows) Because of that, they don't look up to see the mountain that is looming in front of them.

Cities pay attention to what other cities do and the act that will shut down some races won't necessarily come from the city hosting a race. It will come from some other major city or cities who decide to shut down their race. Then the city looking for an excuse and a form of backing example to point to, will shut down their race and it will blind side the RD. So sad. It's all about "time" and they don't make any more of it. There is only so much on the clock each day.

Maybe it's just me.

[Trailrunnerdude]

I think JamesM and VeteranRunner bring up a lot of important points. As to the original question, I would say that the races I'm involved with are 'friendly' to all participants as long as they abide by the rules of the competition and the time limits. Some people will interpret this as being unfriendly to walkers because it may leave some of them without a finishing time or any food & festivities if they finish beyond a given timeframe. This brings me back to the quintessential quandary facing the race management community: should races be competitive athletic events that showcase the best of the running community or merely events in which some people can choose to run as fast as they want, but the important thing is to participate?

[Coastwalker]

should races be competitive athletic events that showcase the best of the running community or merely events in which some people can choose to run as fast as they want, but the important thing is to participate?

From my perspective, races are what people enter to compete, be it against other people or against the clock. If someone wants a fitness walk or jog, then they should enter one of the many noncompetitive events that are popping up all over the landscape. Races that welcome walkers should have time limits, and those limits should be enforced. Races should welcome all those who want to compete, and who are willing and able to abide by the rules established for that particular race, including whatever time limits are imposed.

[hillrunr]

James, I believe I do know which event deej2020 is mentioning. The courses diverge early on, before joining back up for the late miles.

Elsewhere, I did mention a concern that, by starting the half marathon an hour earlier than the full, that could create even more problems for the full marathon leaders in those closing miles. I suggested splitting the late miles so one side of the course was for the half marathoners or the slower participants in general and the other for the full marathoners or faster participants in general. I heard that there was some real estate concern about doing that (a city that only makes one side of the street available to the runners) but I hope the advice will be considered, as I think it's the best alternative in this case. If there are other alternatives for this type of format, for my own education, I'd for one love to hear them.