Make that stories….. see update below.
There was an amazing, come from behind win at the Chicago Marathon. The 2nd place winner got smoked in the last 50 yards.
The link above will give you better video than the embedded player below but they are both the same, totally buried story. I’m so sorry for the family of the young officer who died but I don’t think that is the story that completely overshadowed this remarkable victory. It would appear that we as a culture would rather wring our hands and point fingers and complain about the race directors than celebrate the triumph and effort of a female athlete. For me that is the second tragedy of the Chicago marathon. I wonder if a male finish of this stripe would have gone unnoticed.
***UPDATE**** The men had a photo finish and a tie for the win (2:11:11) (Patrick Ivuti was declared the winner but it was sooooo close) with 3rd place less than a 3 seconds behind them. So this marathon should have been the story of fantastic efforts and nose to nose finishes and yet it all got lost. I want to clarify something, too. The stories of the finishers didn’t get lost to a single death. Sadly, there are deaths at a lot of marathons these days. They got lost in the heat/closure/not enough water story. Too bad for those athletes who did their best to ignore the heat and try to win.
Congratulations Berhane Adere – you are an amazing athlete!
21st-century-mom.com 
Omigosh – that was a–mazing. She was hiding behind the other two runners! Smart!
Thanks 21st! I hadn’t heard this…and yes…we are a “blame game” society anymore. The guy had a heart condition and would have perished soon anyway. Crass statement, but running in the heat/lack of fluids wasn’t the “cause”…altho some will probably not let this go…
i’ve been in such a tunnel the past few days, i just realized chicago was this past weekend too.
i kind of agree with fe-lady, we do these things and we have to live (or not) with the effects of them. perhaps he died doing something he loved? i’d like to think so.
“It would appear that we as a culture would rather wring our hands and point fingers and complain about the race directors than celebrate the triumph and effort of a female athlete. For me that is the second tragedy of the Chicago marathon.”
Here here I watched that clip this morning as well, what an amazing finish. I think the one woman thought she had it won.
Awesome! She was running like she just finished a 5k!!! Holy shmokes.
I second (third?) momo and fe-lady – endurance sport has inherant risks. Its frankly one of the things that makes it exciting and one of the reasons “regular” people abstain. Modern humans want to ignore the daily possiblity of death – maybe that’s the reason so many of us act like such dunderheads (thank you, Harry Potter). Its sad when someone dies – of course – especially when they’re young, but blame is such a useless ugly thing. OK, done ranting, you can have your blog back now.
I have to agree that it was an amazing finish in both the mens and womens race. What a show of strength and guts.
It is so sad the man from Michigan died and my prayers go out to his family. Everyone realizes the possibilities when you go out the door to run even at home.
Some of the stories of the 35,000 others that attempted to run have been lost in the politics. If you did not know what was going in downtown, you would have seen the chaos that was like the city had been attacked. There were helicopters and ambulances. The despair at the medical tent where my nurse friend volunteered saw over 1000 runners and had to start 50 IV’s. There cooling buses that were filled with runners waiting for the ambulances to reach them. There was much more than just a water issue.
From volunteering at IM Louisville, which was held in 94 degree weather, I can see that it can be handled. But 2 things are different. The athletes are better trained for what they are attempting. Also there is not such a huge amount of athletes. When there are 35,000 runners out there, that is more people than the city I grew up in, there is not always a good plan B. How do you handle that many??
Are these races getting too big for when things go wrong?