It's not big secret in the world of social media that the NYC Marathon was cancelled this year in light of Sandy (which I won't go into any detail on, since unless you've been living under a rock you probably know that parts of the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, Queens and Long Island are quite literally in the ocean now - we were lucky, losing just some shingles and holding onto our power. A week out and millions are still in the dark.).
I will say I am WILDLY disappointed in how this was handled by NYRR, and I suppose, given the source of the announcements, the Mayor's Office. Any idiot could have said on Tuesday, seeing the wild destruction, that it needed to be postponed. Not held. Whatever. I can't speak to the motivations for not doing so immediately (though I imagine they were financial), but it was really disgraceful and disrespectful to both the runners (many of which were traveling from far away, and travel to NYC is by no means cheap) and the city as a whole. And cancelling 36 hours before the race due to (I assume) wild backlash in social media and a general feeling that the runners might not be safe (from people, much less the environment)? Salt in the wound.
That said, I am glad it was cancelled, though I admit I am (perhaps selfishly) dying to know what will happen to our entries. We went to the expo Saturday, spent a good deal of money (some of which is supposed to be donated to the relief funds) and got our numbers and tees for The Race That Wasn't. I know these things take time, blah blah, but I do want to know. To be honest, in light of our questionable training and the fact this is a bucket list item for Chris, we are not registering for another marathon this fall but just riding this out. We'll run if it is rescheduled, though I would prefer automatic deferral to next year (and donation of this year's entry fee to a relief fund would be nice, are you listening NYRR?). I promise to train properly next summer if you make this happen Running Gods.
Now, in light of my fake taper, I basically haven't worked out in weeks, so I have 3 weeks to try to get into shape to try to PR in the Thanksgiving turkey trot. Given that my 5K PR is around 26:30 or something like that, it should be achievable. Except I am still 172 lbs and haven't been training.
I agree it was terribly poor form to call it so late. I read a newspaper article highlighting a woman who traveled there from Malta only to show up at her hotel to find it boarded up and without electricity. She was all, "Now what do I do?" and sort of wandering around. Poor form!
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