Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Chicago's Lakeshore Marathon, 27 miles, instead of 26

Marathon Pundit has heard from two participants in yesterday's Lakeshore Marathon in Chicago that the race organizer of yesterday's event botched the course and added about a mile to the "26.2" mile race. According to one e-mail I received:

There were virtually no mile markers between 15 and 25, so I figured I must have slowed down somewhere. Turns out, per peoples GPS, the darn thing was 27.3 (miles) or so

This message board poster on Runner's World.com agreed:

People who measured the marathon with a GPS all agreed it was at least a mile long (the full marathon).

As with any large group of people, it's difficult to encapsulate what the needs are of "the typical runner." However-- to a person--all runners demand that if they sign up for a 26.2 mile race, the event organizers should get the race distance down right. Exactly right. I'll be keeping an eye on this story, and will post further updates as they become available.

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