Glad I didn’t run <i>this</i> marathon
The following letter, signed “A concerned runner” was printed in the November 2003 issue of that’sBeijing
I ran my first marathon last month in Beijing. Being a slow runner, I found that virtually all the water stations had long ago run out by the time I and the 25% of the race participants that followed me had arrived. The organisers kept following us and broadcasting the inspirational message “please drop out of the race” and pulling down the kilometer markers before we arrived at them. When organisers weren’t directing us into hazardous traffic rotaries without assistance, they could be seen lifting remaining cases of water from the nearly empty water stations into their vans. The last part of the race was the best, where I limped past at least five people who had collapsed on the cement. passed out or crying, with the scant medical stations long having pulled out and gone home. With the lack of water, poor traffic guidance and scant medical help, organsers should count themselves among the blessed that no one died.—A concerned runner