Question:
Answer:
Just got off the phone with the Marathon people. They were
hoping not to change it, but ran into problems with the
city and the church community (the race is on Palm Sunday).
The result is that they have just moved the race up to 7 AM
(from 7:30). They've just started to get the word out.
Ron, good luck in the race, if in fact you're running. I am not, but
just got a general purpose email newsletter from the organizers....the 7
a.m. start time is mentioned quite a few paragraphs down in the email
and is not hghlighted as a change. Curious. I guess these are growing
pains to be expected in a new race but it's unsettling that they would
not have discovered the conflicts (street closings and traffic patterns
I presume) before now. When I think of the various hotels and their
shuttle scheduling, the people driving in very early from outlying
areas, a 7 a.m. start takes my breath away! Hope everything goes well.
But then again, I don't want to do any more marathons until I see a sub 20
5k.
I called them, evidentally they had been holding out for the original
730 start, but they had just had their last meeting with the city earlier
this week. They said they will be doing more to get the word out on
the new start time.
Things were fine actually, until a couple of churches up in Montgomery
County made a big media stink over the Marathon in the parks, which suddenly
launched a lot of DC churches into special "aggrieved status."
As far as getting to the start line, it's no big thing. There are shuttles
from the hotels as well as from the Pentagon parking lot. It's only a few
hundred yards from the Metro, which will be operating two hours before racetime.
You can even walk it from the down town hotels, it isn't more than two miles
or so.
Don't think it's much of a problem (except maybe for
you Canadians). It's also the same day as the Maraton
Di Roma and one in Thailand. There just are only 52
weekends in a year. They are trying to complement
the other large eastern ones like the Marine Marathon,
New York, Boston, and Chicago, and not trying to put it
in the opressive DC winter or summer weather.
I might not be "Canadian" but I'd like to go back up to Hamilton for another
race. Plus meeting others from r.r. might be a lot of fun.
But I also like the thought of doing an inaugural marathon or three. ;-)
No, it was changed to 7AM to accommodate the church crowd. Read carefully.
