Grandma's enforcement commentary

[Hal Higdon]

The fact that Grandma's Marathon was the first major marathon to enforce the new USATF rule banning electronic music devices stirred up a storm on my V-Boards yesterday (comments still continuing). Here is a link if you want to read what one group of runners have to say on the issue. (http://www.trainingpeaks.com/bbs-forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=30179&start=1)

Keep in mind that those in dissent to the rule may not necessarily be in the majority. Angry people react with more passion than those who go with the status quo. Although a few claim they may boycott anti-iPod races, Grandma's Marathon proved that most runners are willing to leave their headphones at home when told in advance. It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out over the next 12 months, particularly whether or not the major fall marathons agree to enforcing the ban.

[Trailrunnerdude]

Thanks for passing this on. I didn't realize Grandma's was looking at photos of runners AFTER the race to bust people who had the headphones & music-playing devices. This does bring up the question of how zealously should the ban and its penalties be enforced? I once had a situation in which an aggressive driver drove for 400 meters of a 10K at 50 miles/hour while runners were in the next lane to him. The police collared the guy, but because no one complained (although dozens of runners were at risk) we didn't press charges against him. The officers did give him a tongue-lashing though.

[Hal Higdon]

To the best of my knowledge, Grandma's did not review photos after the race. A number of those visiting my forum assumed they did, but I believe this assumption was incorrect. As I pointed out in a follow-up post, quoting from the RRM article, most of those identified were spotted entering the chute (two refused to remove their iPods), along the course by marshalls or (most likely) at the finish line. If Grandma's reviewed videos or photos, I have no evidence of that fact.

[JimG]

Before the Beach to Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth, ME on Saturday it was announced several times that as a USATF-sanctioned race, headphones were prohibited. RD Dave McGilvray was standing nearby so I went over and asked him about that. He replied that they didn't have enough volunteers to enforce the rule, but were merely announcing it in hopes that some people might comply. He said next year they might be more forceful in implementing it.

When I asked him about whether the Boston Marathon would enforce the ban, he said it was something they are looking at.

[Tom Filippone]

The Marine Corps Marathon did not enforce the banning of headphones and now I see New York (New York Marathon turns blind eye to music (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/11/01/new_york_marathon_turns_blind_eye_to_music/7180/)) will not be policing to make sure runners abide by the rule.

I wonder if a race says they will not enforce the ban at a race will cause USATF to consider not to issue insurance for those races. And since two major races already say they will not police or enforce the ban, (and others I am sure will follow their lead) will this in effect, negate the USATF rule.

[hillrunr]

Tom, that's the first thing I thought when I read the news that New York announced pre-race they would not enforce the rule. Seeing as it is a rule mandated by the USATF, will they step up and pull insurance (does NYCM get insurance through the USATF or elsewhere?) or say NYCM can no longer be USATF sanctioned?

This is a very interesting issue seeing as it's happening this year with New York hosting the Olympic Trials as part of marathon weekend. The USATF honored them with the right to host the Olympic Trials, then NYCM/NYRR basically says we're not going to enforce a USATF rule.

[Sean Ryan]

I would add this thought to the discussion.

I took one of my new staff members with me to the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. He noted how zealously they enforce their own packet pick up guidelines, USATF rules, Ipod-ban, etc. I mentioned the details about Grandma's strong enforcement of the Ipod rules.

He asked if the mid-sized marathon in Green Bay that we direct would be equally diligent about enforcing such rules. I said that we would not. When asked why, I responded that newer, growing races such as our's don't have the luxury of being so strict about rules that run headlong into runners' desires. In the end, we err on the side of letting runners get away with some things in order to avoid offending any of them. If there's even a small chance that it would cause the event I direct to be accused of bad customer service, the payoff is not worth it.

As we discussed it further, I made this analogy:
Some of the established, sell out races are like the popular class at college that all of the students bid on and the eccentric professor has the luxury of being able to run the classroom like a dictator since everyone wants in. I told my assistant, "These races enforcing their rules zealously are like the instructor teaching Business Communications." "Unfortunately," I told him, "we're stuck teaching Advanced Stats, a class that only a few people want. If we want our class popularity to go up, we better go easy on the students."

[Trailrunnerdude]

I wonder if a race says they will not enforce the ban at a race will cause USATF to consider not to issue insurance for those races. And since two major races already say they will not police or enforce the ban, (and others I am sure will follow their lead) will this in effect, negate the USATF rule.

I think that the attitudes of these race officials is somewhat irresponsible. If there is an accident caused during the NYC Marathon by someone wearing headphones this year and the insurance rates rise for all races that wish to get a sanction, then there is a risk that smaller races with smaller budgets will forego the sanctioning. Also, I don't buy for a second the argument that they don't have the resources to enforce the ban. Since 9/11 many large races have taken draconian steps to ensure the safety of the bag checking process, including adding large numbers of volunteers and spending large quantities of man-hours thinking about making the bag-checking process safe. If they want to enforce the ban, they can.

[jeff darman]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/11423161.html

[JimG]

The article Jeff referenced states that while Philadelphia announced "no headphones" they also admitted they would not be enforcing the rule among the masses.

I did see posters at the expo referring to the ban, and on race morning saw a much smaller percentage of runners wearing them than normal.

I think a reasonable policy for smaller races that are in a "buyers/runners" market would be as follows:

Announce that as a USATF-sanctioned race you will follow the no headphone rule. If you are asked by the media if you will enforce it, don't do like NYC or Philly and say, "not really" but something like "we are going to try to enforce it as best we can given the limits of our staff."

Do a lot of pre-race education, like Grandma's did (and in no way were their enforcement procedures "draconian" - they were very proactive and even on race day they simply asked people to turn in their headphones, and if they didn't, they were still allowed to run, but were informed they risked being DQ'd and dropped from the results.) Tell the runners it will make things safer for everyone, and that they'll enjoy the energy of the race a lot more.

On race day, have a volunteer or 2 near the start asking people not to wear their headphones, but don't force them to remove them.

At the finish, anyone wearing headphones will not be eligible for prizes (that's a no brainer, and probably a non-issue, as few if any serious racers will be wearing them.) Whether you drop them from results or not is harder to do, esp. w/ Chip timing. It's easier w/ pull tags.

What I'm doing w/ my events in '08 is anyone who finishes w/ headphones will have a colored "bandit" tag put on the spindle in their finish place. I use RaceBerry JaM to score my events, and all unofficial finishers are listed as "TURKEYS" - very appropriate, IMO.

I am designing a logo (probably a Napster look-alike, a cartoon guy wearing headphones w/ a red circle/slash over his face), the new multilingual symbol for "NO HEADPHONES." When I get this finished I will gladly send to anyone for their literature and website.

[keithcstone]

I did see posters at the expo referring to the ban, and on race morning saw a much smaller percentage of runners wearing them than normal.

I didn't even see posters telling people how to get their packets or line up in the correct starting corrals, so enforcing the headphone ban was the least of their problems on Sunday. It was one on the most poorly organized marathons I've been to. I was pretty surprised as this isn't a new race.

[Trailrunnerdude]

I think a reasonable policy for smaller races that are in a "buyers/runners" market would be as follows:

Announce that as a USATF-sanctioned race you will follow the no headphone rule. If you are asked by the media if you will enforce it, don't do like NYC or Philly and say, "not really" but something like "we are going to try to enforce it as best we can given the limits of our staff."


I think this is the smartest approach to take because it represents a good faith effort to comply with the rule. If race organizers try to pull or push headphone-wearing runners a la Jock Semple, it could backfire on them with negative PR for the race. The bottome line is to ensure that the race is as safe and competitive for all runners as possible. If races don't take measures themselves, we could eventually see vigilantism from runners who get inconvenienced or injured by those wearing headphones.