Episode Transcription

Kim 0:00
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How has your 2020 race schedule pans out? races cancel, postpone? Are you still waiting for a refund? Let’s pull up all things racing that one down in the past. Hey wave nation and welcome back to another episode of the runway Podcast. I am your host cam before I get started on all things racing in 2020. I just want to talk about this little elephant in the room here. My little booboo, my shoulder if you’re listening to this at home, you can’t see it but if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see it. So on June 1, I well before June 1, but I decided that I was going to Run 100 miles in June. So what that would entail for me is running about five miles a day. So I started out on June 1, and I actually ran four and a half miles, I believe, because when I started out on the run, I did my usual route. And when I turned around at two and a quarter, I thought in my head having a blonde moment that this two and a quarter turnaround will get me to five miles. But of course, I was wrong because I was off by a half a mile. So on Tuesday, I decided that I would make up that half a mile and run five and a half miles on Tuesday. So I took a different route to get that extra half a mile that I needed. And when I was running, you know, I was 1.2 miles into my run. And I was just looking forward, I wasn’t paying attention to the ground, and I fell and more than fell I tripped And I slid. So my shoulder like I must have landed down on the right shoulder and the left knee because my left knee is all busted up, my right shoulder is busted up. I mean, you can see the bandage I have to put three small bandages to cover the wound. But it’s it even hurts still to lift my arm up and to rotate it, but it’s actually feeling much better than it was. I also hurt my hands and you can see that both hands have more wounds on them, but I mean, I’ve definitely learned my lesson. If I’m going to take a new route. I need to pay attention to my surroundings. So I was just having a good day. You know, I was running the weather was nice and I was just going and I mean It’s just it really sucks to be. I’ve been running since 2012. And this is the very first time that I actually took a spill. And when I fell, I was looking around, like for somebody to drive by for a police car to drive by somebody to help me because when I got up, I was actually days and I felt the pain in my knee and I felt the pain in my shoulder. And I looked over and my shirt was actually torn, and I couldn’t see what lies underneath, but I can feel that it was bleeding and it was hurting and I was just pray for somebody to try. Like I asked him to drive me home, I would have asked a stranger to drive me home, but there’s nobody out these days. So there was no one out and I just limped my little butt back home for a little over a half a mile and I’ve been resting ever since. So that was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I’m going to try to get out and do a little Something because I can’t be making up all these miles at the end of June. But we’ll see I’m still on. I’m not on track, but I’m going to get back on track to running my hundred miles of June.

Okay, so on to today’s topic, racing. Now, on May 28, it was announced that the Boston Marathon was canceled. Now, I don’t know who was surprised about this, but I surely was not surprised because Boston actually announced earlier in the month that all major events through Labor Day, which is September 7, were canceled and the Boston Marathon was scheduled for a week after that September 14, so it was just highly unlikely that you canceled all events through Labor Day but the Boston Marathon with thousands of people 30,000 35,000 I don’t know the exact number But it was highly unlikely that that event would go on with that number of people. So I wasn’t surprised that it was canceled, it wasn’t a matter of if it would be canceled, it was a matter of when it would be canceled. Now, if you were registered for Boston, you do have a few options. Number one, everyone is receiving a refund. Now, that is incredibly generous because there are a lot of races that are keeping people’s monies, whether the race was canceled, postponed, virtual whatever, they are keeping all the money. So kudos to the organizers of the Boston Marathon for giving everybody a refund because some of us have just not been so lucky. Another option is they are offering a virtual Boston Marathon. Now the virtual can be run between something Number seven, and 14, and it will come with a feed. They will also have a series of virtual events throughout that week as well. They haven’t announced what those virtual events are. So make sure you keep a lookout for those. Now if you are going to be participating in the virtual Boston Marathon young online virtual races, but if you like virtual races, and you plan to participate, the 26.2 miles has to be run over six hours. So you have six hours to complete your race and you have to provide proof of timing to the BA and all athletes who complete the race will receive an official Boston Marathon program, our participant t shirt, a metal and a runners bib. Now, I’m not sure why they would send bibs out after you complete the race. I’m not sure what the point of that is usually Get your bib before the race. So I think they need to revise that option. Even just sending a digital bid that people can print out and wear wear while they are running would be better than receiving a bib after the race that would be pretty useless at that point. If you are registered for the BA five K, you will also receive a refund. Lucky you. I’m laughing because I have so many friends, including myself that have registered for races and we’ve received nothing. I mean, the only other race that I was registered for was Seattle rock and roll, which was the first it was this weekend coming up.

Yeah, it was this weekend. And they said that the race is postponed but we’ve been giving no other information so no new date. No mention of a refund nothing they just said as postpone. And that’s it. So I don’t know what’s going on with rock and roll but they need to tell us something soon. Oh, I’m about to go on a rampage. Now for you smart Alex out there. If you thought that you will run the virtual Boston marathon and get an Abbott star. That’s not happening. Unfortunately. Abbott released a statement pretty much right away after Boston announced cancellation saying that you would not receive a star or credit towards your six star quests if you run the Boston Marathon virtually. So you may get a T shirt you may get a medal but you will not get a star for completing the virtual Boston Marathon. There are two kickers with this. Runners can use their 2020 b q qualifying time to enter the 2021 race. Now it doesn’t say that you had to be registered for the 2020 race. So I think even if you qualified and you didn’t get in, you can use your qualifying time to enter the 2021 race and maybe you’ll get in this time so I highly encourage you if you did not get in because the you know, there’s so many people that are applying to get in and the the times are tied and the slots are tight. So if you applied and didn’t get in, apply again this year, which are 2020 times and see if you can get in this time. So I think that’s actually a good thing and gives people another shot at getting into the race. It gives people a chance that we’re running the race to run the race again, hopefully. And I mean, it’s it’s just a good I personally think they should have just rolled everyone over. That would have been the nice thing to do. Just roll everyone over. I mean, why what why must we go Through this process, again, if you would just roll everyone over, everyone would be happy. Well, except the people that ran a qualifying time and we’re hoping to apply to get into the next race. But hopefully you can still get in. You might boot some people out. But who knows. The other kicker is charity runners. Now, this is what Boston Marathon says on their website verbatim. Questions about fundraising deadlines and timelines should be directed to the manager of the charity team with which you are affiliated. Now, what this means is that it is up to your charity to either to give you a spot for next year or not. So if you were done fundraising for this year,

and your charity says we’re not giving away spots for Next year, you have to fundraise again. That’s what you’ll have to do. You’re you’re at the mercy of the charity, which I don’t think is really fair. I mean, I think that these races to just automatically roll everyone over charity or not. It’s just not fair. And Boston. Okay, listen, the minimum fundraiser for Boston is $5,000. Most charities are way more than $5,000. They’re like 7500 to 10,000. I’d even seen $12,000 minimums for charity. So it is not cheap. To get into Boston, be a charity and raising money for charity is hard work. I mean, I know we were supposed to do this out of the goodness of our heart. And you know, the charities need the money, but it is hard work, raising money for charity, especially at those amounts and some people if you’re not a runner, people just Don’t understand what why we are we’re raising money to run these races for charity. I mean, some people think that the money goes to us that is paying for our race, our travel, or our expenses. And, you know, although we try to explain that the money is going to charity, we still have to pay for everything. People don’t get that and some people just don’t like to donate. So a lot of people self fund their charities. I mean, I fundraise for the London Marathon and I think my fundraising minimum was 2022. It was 1700 pounds, I think that came up to like 20 $200. And it was hard. I mean, I had to like hustle to get that money. People were just giving away money. And the donation amounts are small, they’re like $25. So imagine how many donors you need to come up with that money. And when those amounts are in the five 710 12 thousands. That is a lot

of hustling that you have to do. So for charities to say, Oh, well, we have your money and we don’t have a spot for you next year. I think that that is just wrong. I want to read to you some of the chatter that I’ve been seeing groups online on Facebook, on what people have been saying about their charity entries. So one person said, I would have been okay with raising an additional 50% for my charity, but they email me yesterday and so they want 125% of this year’s amount for 2021 entry. The charity runners are shouldering the entire burden. So this charity in particular, they want 125% more of what the person breathes. Last year, which I mean God I know charities are suffering. their bottom lines are hurting everyone’s bottom lines are hurting but to raise your minimum from raising that much, it’s like it’s it’s crazy. Another person said in my case, they told me that they can’t guarantee me a spot for next year’s race. They don’t know if they’re getting any bit for next year, but they will roll over what I fundraise for this year, should I apply to run with them again? Of course, they haven’t told me what the new minimum would be. So Boston has a certain amount of spots for time qualifiers. Last year, it was 24,127 spots out of 31,500 spots, so about 7000 charity spots. So how about Boston decrease the amount of spots for time qualifiers and increase the amount of spots for charities so charities can roll people over from the previous year and get new runners into fundraise to help them meet their goals for the next year. I mean, that seems like the right thing to do Boston, doesn’t it? It does to me. Well, Austin is supposed to release more information going forward. I just hope that they do the right thing by all of their runners, especially charity runners because a lot of charity runners have put in a lot of time and effort into fundraising and for them to have to fundraise all over again. It’s it’s just wrong and it’s it’s not fair to runners to have to do that. And you know what going forward we need to put if this is what is happening this year, we need to put our foot down and stop supporting these freakin charities. I mean, shit, I want to six Thor metal just like everyone else, but I don’t want to have to raise $15,000 to get it and then have no guarantee of actual running my race because something like this can happen again, we never know these cancellations can happen. This came out of nowhere this can happen at the drop of a dime. So there needs to be something in place to protect charity runners because yes, we’re doing this out of the goodness of our heart. But we’re doing this because we want to run the frickin race. Period. Now, there have been more cancellations. Boston was just like one of the big ones this year, but the Big Sur international marathon and California has been canceled. That was November 15. The Dublin marathon in Ireland has been cancelled. That was October 25. They had a field size of 25,000 people. The Cardiff marathon was postponed to march 2021. Now it was scheduled for October 4 the same day that the reschedule the London Marathon is scheduled for So that should be interesting to see what the London Marathon is going to do. Cardiff isn’t in Wales in the UK as well. The Belfast marathon has also been canceled. Now it was originally scheduled to take place on May 3, and then it was rescheduled to take place on September 30. And ultimately canceled. Now the good thing about the Belfast marathon and if you’re into running international marathons, you might want to add this one to your list. They are deferring all entries to 2021 which is really nice of them. And if you don’t want to want to run 2021 they’re even considering deferring you to 2022 or 23. Whichever one that you choose, there are a few big races that are still a scheduled go right now. First, we have the Marine Corps marathon that’s in Virginia. It’s scheduled for October. 25th and they have a field size of about 30,000 people.

The San Francisco marathon in Cali, that’s November 15. It was postponed from July 26. And they have a field size of 27,500 people. Also still on the schedule is the Chicago Marathon on October 11. And they have a field size of 45,000 people now, if you remember the Chicago Marathon offered a few months ago, not a few months ago, like two months ago, either a refund of your race fee, or a deferment to 2021, but they keep your race fee and you have to pay your registration fee again. So shame on you Chicago Marathon but I just say that they’re out for their bottom line as well. But just Roll frickin people over Why do you need to keep people’s money especially this far in advance? It just pisses me off and God It makes me not want to support these races.

So also New York City Marathon is still on the schedule but New York City is my hometown and I’m hoping New York Road Runners does the right thing. T hey have been doing it for their previous race cancellations they’ve been giving either refund or they’ve been giving a deferment of the next year with paying for the race again. Which sucks but at least they’re giving the option of a refund.

2020 has just been absolutely crazy year. We’re still going through COVID-19 we have the death of a Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. We have the killing the brutal murder of George Floyd by the police in Minnesota. Then you have the murder of Breonna Taylor by the police. I mean, I just don’t know how much more of this that we can take. We’re hurting, we’re hurting in our pockets. We’re hurting politically, which is 2020 has just been a hard year and we’re only halfway through it.

So I’m gonna end this show here. It is boating season we’re back in boating season. So if you are registered to vote, which you should be, make sure that you’re being knowledgeable of your polling dates. You know where your polls are. If you are absentee voting I know I got an absentee application in the mail. The week before last I sent that in. So I’m going to absentee vote myself this year. So I don’t have to wait on long lines. But if you’re absentee voting make sure you get those applications in. I think the deadline is this week to get those in and Make sure that we vote we show up at the polls so that we can get the elected officials that we need into office.

I know I went on a tangent here but I mean it’s just needed so make sure that you get out and vote. I hope you guys enjoy the show, and I will see you on the next one later.

Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Be sure to subscribe to the runway on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review of the show on Apple podcasts. It would really help me out if you’re a runner that has a story to tell and you would like to be on the show. You can email Hello at the Run Wav comm or send us a DM on Instagram to the Run WavSee you next time.