ive run it Ive watched and I cant belive the city is actually taking generators away from people that need the power.

amen!

agree

Don't CANCEL but they could easily postpone it to a similar weather month, say March. But its not just generators, its EVERYTHING - all the police and EMT workers diverted for THIS - hotel rooms kicking out temp homeless NYers for this, etc. Postponing it means the city will city the money still, just later.

I think the pro-marathon argument is that NYC needs the tourist dollars, and anything that makes it look like the city is not "up and running" gives us a slow Christmas, and a resultant drop in tax revenues.

and before you flame me, yes, up here on the Upper West Side we and most of our neighbors have taken in downtown refugees.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Sorry, pro-marathon here (and running it). Don't throw buckets of sewage at me.

I'm in favor of the marathon.

Never ran it, and probably never will with the insane under 3 hour qualifing times (is faster than the Boston Marathon) or the big bucks you have to "donate" to charity in order to secure a running spot. I'll run the Brooklyn marathon instead.

It's cancelled.

"insane under 3 hour qualifing times"

When did this start? That's disappointing. Very, very few people can run a marathon in under 3 hours, but 4 hours is well within reach for the dedicated.

The median time was 4:21 in the late-90s years when I ran it, IIRC, and went up after that. Not because people were getting slower, but because more people were attempting it, which is a good thing. And I think about one third of the runners broke four hours.

With the qualifying time instituted, does that mean that everybody is running 3-hour races now?

Triple_Zero: don't believe everything you read on the Interwebs. The sub-3 is for guaranteed entry. Lottery entrance is still available, as are special "marathon" packages for international entrants. Or you can run 9 qualifying NYRR races the year before and volunteer once for guaranteed entry (that's how I got in).

Where did you see that it was cancelled? Link?

Power of alanhart.

This sucks! http://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-marathon-canceled-sunday/story?id=17629506#.UJQ8rJiCaG4

Grrr!

I will personally go to SI and unplug all the people who still have power.

This was a no win situation. It looked really bad if the marathon went on. The odds are cancelling doesn't speed up anyone's rescue effort or power restoration, but you have the p.r. of it all , and that's powerful.

I say hold it a month from now, or even in the spring. It would be a little weird to hold the 2012 marathon in 2013, but that's better than not holding it at all. Marathon Sunday is the best day of the year -- better late than never!

There's always 50k in the park.

Canceled!!

Alan: you betcha. Already planning it. Don't throw buckets of sewage at me.

I say hold it a month from now, or even in the spring

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there's no rescheduling. anyone who thinks that is naive. too hard to bring back the intl runners, get new committments for the dollars, etc. This stuff is scheduled months..a year in advance.

Riversider and other PR-minded denizens: say, you're invited to a huge party at a friend's house. His house burns down. You don't question not going, do you? You don't question just rushing to help with all you can do?

Do quasi virtual marathon where one runs on a threadmill and the best time wins. Computer network hooks up anybody from anywhere, it's the future.

All you rabid and frustrated marathon runners can simply run right over to Staten Island on Sunday morning and volunteer to help your fellow humans who are suffering. Sorry, but sewage may be in order for those who think running a race is more important than using our resources to enable folks to survive.

called it. glad they cxld it. that was the right thing to do

NYC100023, want help unplugging SI? I am not running this year, but the stupidity and shortsightedness of this decision pisses me off.

After reading about how much resources the marathon uses, yeah, cancelling is the right way to go. All those generators at Central Park (enough to power over 400 homes), 90,000 gallons of Poland Spring water, thousands of gallons of Gaterade, several tonnes of food, medical personel and ambulances along the race route, 1,500 police and auxillary cops, several hundred sanitation workers and trucks, and etc., could have and should be used for the recovery effort.

And most of those resources can't be, or won't be, used in the recovery effort, even though the race is canceled. And now the city has forgone a significant amount of revenue that COULD have helped with the recovery efforts. It's cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, nothing more.

I agree, while cancelling the race was the the right thing to do, many of the resources(generators , food) that were for the race will not go to the relief effort. Just doesn't work that way. And the city along with the NY Road Runners lost revenue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/sports/marathons-cancellation-sure-to-carry-huge-costs.html?pagewanted=all

I made a serious mistake earlier when I said the marathon should go on... glad it was cancelled.

If the race went on, Bloomerberg would be analagous as Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned.

"And most of those resources can't be, or won't be, used in the recovery effort, even though the race is canceled"

Really? Where does that information come from?

Our uniformed workers -- police, fire and sanitation -- who had been pulled off rescue efforts are not working for NYRR members today and tomorrow. Instead, they are working for storm victims. I've heard that many of the generators and some of the other physical resources have already been, or will shortly be, redeployed.

And, beyond that, we have been spared the sight of thousands of self-absorbed runners trotting through the devastation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/-new-york-city-marathon-cancellation_n_2066921.html

also keep in mind that many charities are hurt.

Memorial Sloan kettering lost 3.6 million dollars in donations for cancer according to the article.

generalogoun, While I agree that cancelling was the right thing to do , it had much to do with being sensitive to the people in Staten Island who were without heat and power. Some resources will clearly be going to them that weren't before, but this may have more to do with getting the State , City and Federal government more in gear than the switching of resources from the Marathon to the hurricane relief effort. They might get a few more cops, and some roads will stay open that wouldn't have been(important things), but to ignore the public relations aspect here is naive.

By the way, agree with Ed Koch that the media fanned the flames a bit.

the city still made money from the out of towners who got stuck here...plu we didnt have to pay for the marathon so I think we came out ok

Welcome to Elmore City, the new name of New York City.
Had this town still had a pair we'd still be running on Sunday. Televised and showcasing the disaster and asking for $ for disaster relief,
Demonstrate our tenacity to endure and continue the immediacy of our relief needs.
I know those that have had huge losses but canceling the Marathon will do little to lessen their pain and suffering.
Once a tragedy befell Elmore City and from that day all were forbidden to dance.
It took the power of Bacon to save the town.
Come home Kevin...we need you.

Falco: ITA.

It seems like a lot of the runners took part in a "4 times around Central Park" marathon today. They seemed to be in good spirits and lots of people were cheering them on.

So we got a cancelled marathon, the hurricane victims didn't get supplied, charities lost money and they are blaming the joggers who went to Central Park on Sunday.
------------------
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/running_into_brick_wall_O7eD7uSm23n0BLdYhMz9eJ
What a run-around!

The city left more than a dozen generators desperately needed by cold and hungry New Yorkers who lost their homes to Hurricane Sandy still stranded in Central Park yesterday.

And that’s not all — stashed near the finish line of the canceled marathon were 20 heaters, tens of thousands of Mylar “space” blankets, jackets, 106 crates of apples and peanuts, at least 14 pallets of bottled water and 22 five-gallon jugs of water.

A marathon security worker still working yesterday from a generator-powered trailer in the park, said the power sources had not been moved to devastated areas of the city because of an impromptu race run by marathon holdovers in the park.

“Once we found out they’d still be running a marathon, we had to call all the towing vendors and tell them they couldn’t come,” he said.

“We can’t have these trucks coming in with the runners. It’s a safety issue.”

>If the race went on, Bloomberg would be analagous as Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned.

The most important thing(s) to our condescending nanny mayor is his ego and legacy.
His 3rd term has the bloom seriously off the burg.

And not one of his staffers have the balls to tell him how ridiculous he sounds speaking spanish. Please! Stop speaking spanish Mr Mayor, you sound like an idiot. It's worse than cajun french.

Riversider: It would have been wrong to hold the marathon. Whether or not generators/blankets/staff could have been diverted is beside the point. Bloomberg erred in not calling it off earlier.

nyc10023, I agree. I'm just pointing out the rationale re resources didn't hold water.

Alan: not really.

anybody who thought it appropriate to hold the marathon is a complete imbicile. bloomberg has fit this description for some time now so his pov really doesn't count....

tone-deaf dunces