Marathon weekend meltdown
Mother Nature may have just warned Midwest marathon organizers against scheduling their races on the same weekend. This past Saturday and Sunday it was in the mid to high 80s – brutally hot for everyone who ran the Chicago Marathon, Twin Cities Marathon and Lakefront (Milwaukee) Marathon.
Tom Held at MJS’s Off the Couch looked at the attrition rate at the latter event – and the 20 minutes slower average finishing time from a year ago (when I ran Lakefront in perfect conditions).
In Chicago, a Michigan police officer died on the marathon course and more than 300 people were taken away by ambulance. Twenty-five remained hospitalized this morning, according to the Chicago Tribune.
I’ve run all of these marathons and found the support on each course phenomenal. The volunteers who aided the fallen this weekend were nothing short of heroes.
– Joel Patenaude