|
|
Most of the marathons we have here, including the recently concluded Mumbai marathon, leave a lot to be desired. Here’s my list of things I would love to change.
1. Start the Full Marathon early. 6:30, even 7:00 should be okay. Not beyond that, though.
2. Publish the full results, pleeeaze! All decent international marathons do this. Even if I am not amongst the top finishers, I would like to know how others ran.
3. Allow the chip timing to be computed beyond the 5 hr limit. Okay, take away all the intermediate sensors, at least leave the one at the finishing line. I know that the traffic was opened, people can take a bus or cab to finish line, but those will not be the people who will be interested in their timings, and even if they are, does anyone else care? It’s a personal thing beyond 5 hrs.
Guys, you are free to add to this list, send me your comments, and I’ll make the list grow.
List of some interesting suggestions received from fellow runners:
- Start marathon early for amateur runners (difficult to implement from organizational perspective).
- Have a 10K race instead of the 7K dream run.
- Declare marathon dates much earlier, even an year before.
- Publish route details online along with each KM mark info.
- Provide elevation map (great point, Anand)
- Provide Finisher’s T-Shirt.
- Improve Expo quality, make it more sports oriented rather than a bazaar or a haat.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
hi tanvir,
Congrats for successfully completing the marathon. I am working with the organisers of the mumbai marathon. Have noted your suggestions. Will try my best to incorporate those in the next year. Though all the things are not in our hands.
Please keep those suggestions coming in. And best luck for the upcoming marathons.
Some really great points Anand! BTW, we did get that Finisher’s medal with “I ran the Marathon” written over it. I guess it is almost same as saying “Mumbai Marathon Finisher”, right?
In addition to what you and other guys have already said ……
these guys should also declare the event dates much earlier …… so interested people can start practising …… usually in other countries the dates for the next years marathon is declared during the current event.
Publish route details online along with every km mark and provide elevation map
Provide some finisher t-shirt (or at least have the medal) saying “Mumbai Marathon finisher” or something similar rather than having some shitty t-shirts at the pre-race expo.
Have running or at atleast fitness related items at the expo rather than selling pearls, random t-shirts and other junk stuff
Provide a bus tour of the route on the previous day
Actually have some interest in these events rather than just making money and increasing popularity of StanChart
ps. I met Hugh Jones the race director at the finish line (most of you probably did). I asked him what was the thinking behind starting the full marathon after the half, and he looked totally helpless. I guess the sponsors had more say in this schedule than the race director
I agree, Sathish. Maybe we call this event, “The Standard Chartered Mumbai Senior Citizen Run, Dream Run, Half and the Full Marathon Run”. But that would become too long, wont it
And I left out the Wheelchair event… I guess its no less than a marathon for those guys! And I am sure they need much greater inspiration to come to the event than us marathoners.
but if u notice it also gives a wrong meaning to the public. Since there are so many runs with differing distances, people ask you how much distance u ran, when you say u went for marathon.
while on side its building awareness, on the other its giving wrong information.
Anonymous, to a certain extent I would also agree with you. In fact, I would prefer to see a 10K race replace the 7K. This is the practice internationally, and 10K is a very standard distance, while 7K is not. But here in India, one of the primary targets of these marathons is to attract more people, and that I would say is right in its own perspective. It gives more visibility to the event, and the participation numbers grow over the years. People running 7K take a leap to 21K and from there to 42K. So, for the overall good of the people, and from marketing/visibility perspective, the strategy may not be all that wrong.
One more big crib: Lets stop the evil practice of calling the 7km fun runners as marathoners. ..It is so shameful when aout of shape couch potato comes up and tells me that he ran the marathon!-after waddling across the 7k.
There is only ONE marathon and it is 42.2k long. The rest dont count as marathons.
Somehow in India,ANY race qualifies as a marathon. Heck, I saw a 5k ‘marathon’ in Lohandwala some months back.Makes me want to puke
Run lola run
i fully agree with you. the match gives least importance to amateur runners and the organisors want marathon to be promoted in india. nobody seem to care about them. they are made to complete the run ine hot sun. perhaps they can divide marathon running into two races ..one for those below three hours and one for those above 3hours. and start the amteur marathon early. they need not even give them any awards. it will improve the participation and enthusiasm of amateurs.
g srivats.. ( marathon completed in 5hrs 15mts in bombay jan 2006)