I am running my second marathon in Ashland this weekend.  Nice and cool with a high of 54.

My first marathon was on Grand Island just north of Munising in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  Even though it was in Aug it was cool on the tree covered trails and along the cliffs overlooking the lake.

The shores of Lake Superior are becoming the Riviera of the midwest with GHG climate change.  I sense a vacation population boom on the southern shore about to heat up.  Almost time to move to the north shore.

Flee the human wave of climate change!  Or live like just another rat in a maze.  Mass culture is not for everyone.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

My first (and only) marathon was in Los Angeles, and it was over 90 degrees. There were a few problems but nothing on the scale of what it sounds like in Chicago. Lots and lots of fire hoses cooling down runners. I can't imagine anyone even considered shutting it down for temperature. But I guess in Chicago in October, nobody really prepared themselves for such temperatures, whether it was the runners or the organizers.

There was apparently a Wisconsin football game with problems with heat that they'd never encountered also, this past weekend.

in Los Angeles, they deploy the Community Emergency Response Team to help with the LA Marathon to make sure all the runners are taken care of. More communities need community training like that.

It's a big deal when you're running 26.2 miles, especially if you haven't trained in that temperature and you don't have the liquids and medical support for it. It's deadly.

John,
Guess you've never heard "It's not the heat, it's the humidity" nor lived in the often oppressive summer humidity of the midwest.
88's not that hot, but with the high humidity the heat index was no doubt well over 100. It bogles my mind why anyone would want to run in that.

I was out bright and early at 10am to watch 'em run by.  Everyone knew for a week it was going to be record breaking heat.  But 10 am, no problem, and in 2 minutes the heat rising from the pavement was stifling.  So much for all the trees Daley's Chicago is famous for.  I thought it should be stopped then and could not watch.  It went on for another hour and a half.  The spectators were yelling encouragement.  I don't think one sprinkler was planned to cool the runners the whole race by an organizer or "the general public" for this corporate sponsored event.  Last year the apparent winner slipped on the corporate sponsor logo and fell on the back of his head inches before the finish line- concussion and not the winner.  This year I hear he quit at the 20 mile mark with stomach cramps.  

I am sorry, but it is not unprecedented for someone too young to die on Chicago streets.  300+ hospitalizations of people who had to run 26 miles that day, do I give a shit?  

Two kids I know had breath attacks the holiday weekend, one needed a hospital shot to recover.  Those two victims are commonplace, is old news and disproportionately affects minorities, so they are not the story.  The great race is the story, forget about two coal plants, bus diesels, loco diesels dragging train lines of coal, all going into the neighborhoods year round.    

Heat Wave by Klinenberg is a good read on Mayor Daley's policy and press and administration during the 1995 100 degree heat wave that killed 700+ here.  Some people never learn.  Don't bother him now, the Mayor is planning the 2016 Olympics for US.

... but I can't help asking how many of those marathon participants -- who run countless training miles for months before these races -- actually bother to walk, or run, or bike to work or to the local Starbucks or to take care of errands on the weekend.

1%?  2%, maybe, on a good day?  I doubt any more than that.  I'll bet they "don't have the time" -- too busy training for this big race!  And, as Karsten has already pointed out, a larger percentage than this probably flew or drove 100+ miles just to participate in this event.

I think marathons are wonderful events.  But it should be easy for anybody to see why most people in the developing world -- who may have to walk one mile twice a day to fetch clean water, or bicycle five miles over dirt roads to get to school -- find North American culture to be hopelessly and inexplicably self-absorbed and wasteful.

I long for the day when it will be 'cool' for North Americans to actually use their feet and their bicycles for practical errands, rather than for going in circles for the sake of going in circles ...

Ran another great marathon today.  My second.

Go ahead and complain all you want you fat assed, miserable couch potatoes.  I'm sure the 800+ runners who ran the 26.2 miles would get just as big a laugh out of your idiocy as I will.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog