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<\/a><\/p>\nI filled out their survey and then sent a personal email to the race officials.\u00a0 A copy appears below:<\/p>\n
Dear Treasure of the Coast Marathon officials,<\/p>\n
I completed the anonymous survey regarding this year’s event but have no problem signing my name to my comments which I hope you will take in the spirit of constructive criticism.<\/p>\n
This is a copy of my additional comments section of that survey:<\/p>\n
“I was one of 51 runners who were misdirected in the opening miles. \u00a0I ran a detour on my own to make up the distance around mile 5. \u00a0I was ok with all of that. \u00a0I was ok that I fell along the way and got banged up, bleeding and bruised. \u00a0All that is part of the running experience. \u00a0I was profoundly disappointed in press coverage and quotes from race organizers regarding the issues with misdirected runners as I felt they did not take stock of what happened and view it as a learning experience to improve. \u00a0Instead the comments felt like a defensive shift of blame and denial of possible areas to improve. \u00a0I was also just notified my time was adjusted to reflect a missed section of the course… even though I had made my own efforts to correct along the way. \u00a0So be it. \u00a0But it all felt oddly impersonal, detached, and unsportsmanlike. \u00a0A disappointing experience made ever more so by the race organization. \u00a0Mistakes happen, efforts are made to correct but I found the actions taken by the organizers to be initially far too defensive and subsequently far too unilateral.”<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I would go further to say that we all\u00a0make mistakes; it’s what we do AFTER the mistakes that truly define the situation.\u00a0 I chose to run a detour to make up for the missing mileage during the event to get back on track (I’ve attached a screengrab from my Garmin Connect app to reflect this).\u00a0 I felt the Treasure of the Coast Marathon team displayed as I said above a cavalier attitude that in many ways made me feel like the organization didn’t care about their runners.\u00a0 We can all be quoted out of context but the press reporting\u00a0included comments that I felt dishonored me as a runner and as a person. \u00a0\u00a0 There were apparently 177 marathon finishers, according to your race results website.\u00a0 So 51 out of 177 runners, or 28.8% of the field, were misdirected.\u00a0 That’s a lot of people.\u00a0 Perhaps we as runners should have known better; I can say when we figured out what happened some of us made adjustments (I saw two or three other people on my way back into the stream of runners doing the same detour I took).<\/p>\n
To be honest, I was okay with what happened right up until the press coverage.\u00a0 Even after that, rather than remain\u00a0upset, I tried to accept it again as\u00a0just one of those things.\u00a0 But to have received your email this morning unilaterally altering my time felt like one final insult to injury from the Treasure of the Coast Marathon.\u00a0 I am profoundly disappointed in your event’s handling of this situation.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Kevin Hanna<\/p>\n