Good friends look out for each other in all kinds of times. Today Bob Roncker who goes back to my high school days when we competed against each other in 1960-61, has sent me an account of behind the scenes work at the first Heart Mini-Marathon held in Cincinnati in 1978. It was a 15Km race starting in downtown Cincy. Jerry Springer, yes thee Jerry Springer was the official race starter. He may have been mayor at that time in the Queen City. The story is written by Mike Boylan one of the early co-organizers. One has to remember that these early races were usually organized in the back seat of a VW bus on race morning. This one was getting a little more sophisticated by '78 as they thought they had about 1500 runners. It turned out they got a lot more and had to scramble to get people across the finish line and record names and numbers and most important their times. I've heard of races back in the 50's where the lead runner carried a stop watch and relinquished it if he got passed by someone. The winner was then duty bound to be at the finish line giving out times as the rest of the runners crossed. I think they may have scratched the results on the wall of cave for posterity.
Before getting the action going I just want to send a message from all of us in safe places that we are thinking of those of our readers who live in Southern California. We are hoping for the best for you in these times of serious fires. We need to remember that anyone of us can be suddenly tossed into the jaws of an unmerciful Mother Nature from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, volcanos, not matter what. Be kind to your neighbor in these perilous times. Best to all, George
Behind the Scenes Action at the First Heart Mini-Marathon
V.1 #3 Behind the Scenes Action at the First Heart Mini-
Marathon
by Mike Boylan
The First (1978) Heart Mini-Marathon turned out to be one big
heartburn for Bob MacVeigh and me.
The first "running boom" race in Cincinnati was the 1977 Memorial
Day Race, with just short of 500 runners. The finish label snafu at
that race has been discussed elsewhere, but we realized we could not
handle even that number of runners with the conventional finish
chute procedures from cross-country races.
When Bob Mac finagled me into being co-race director, we set (what
we thought was an ambitious) goal of 1500 runners. We realized that
handling that many runners, even at 15K, was going to be difficult. I
recall going to see the finish of the Dayton River Corridor Classic and
observing their finish line, which we decided to mimic and adapt.
Essentially finish cards were paired with runner IDs attached to the
running bib, which were then stapled together and sent to the
processing center. We had recruited 25 finish line helpers to process
the runners. Mark Jones and Sally Doyen were two of our key
people.
The "computer" service that the Heart Association hired assured us
that results could be generated quickly. What did we know?
We were also self-impressed with our acquisition of the race timer/
printer, which would automate the timing and be accurate to .1
second! HA!
A week before the race, the Heart Association told us that there were
already 1800 runners registered. Gulp!
Also the week before the race, there was a significant storm that left
a good 5-8" of ice and snow on the sidewalks of Central Parkway.
This was critical, since the returning runners were supposed to run on
the sidewalks. On the Friday and Saturday before the race, we were
out on Central Parkway with picks, sledge hammers and shovels
trying to break up the ice on the sidewalks. John Frick, Pat Harrell,
and (I think) Harold Shuck were part of that demolition party.
On the morning of the race, there were several discouraging
developments:
First, Bob Mac informed me that he was running in the race, and I
was on my own at the finish line.
Second, highway maintenance decided to open a pit on Vine Street in
front of the Library, four blocks from the start at Fifth Street. Vine is
only four narrow lanes wide at that point, and the excavation was a
lane and a half. Panic! That eventually was resolved before the 1 PM
start.
It was chaos at the starting line and in the Carew Tower arcade. It
was impossible to register all of the runners, so there were an
estimated thousand bandits and an estimated total of 3500. The
Athletes Foot had provided bags to check gear. The runners were
instructed to pass the bags to the curb minutes before the start.
Unfortunately, runners on the east side of Vine decided that meant to
throw their bags over the fence protecting the excavation for the new
Westin Hotel construction. I could see bags flying over the fence.
That was the first of several sinking feelings that day.
There was no one to start the timing watches for split timers on the
course, so Jan Boylan and I and another helper parked my brown VW
Rabbit a block up the course, caught the start, and began racing up
the course. As I got to the excavation, now covered with big metal
plates, there were cones in the middle of the street. I tried to slalom
while yelling to get the cones out of the road, but one caught under
the Rabbit, and remained there for the entire journey up Central
Parkway and back. The exhaust system continued to burn off the
plastic for several weeks.
I felt better when I returned to the finish area. The finish line was
directly under the skywalk on Walnut. Jan Boylan and a group of
manual timers and bench markers were ready on the Skywalk, and
our finish crew was feeling ready.
Bill Rogers finished first and we were doing fine for about the first
100 finishers. At about 250, things started backing up. We just put
our heads down and tried to carry on. At some point I went up to
the Skywalk to see how the timers were doing. Jan said they were
having trouble deciding when someone was crossing the line. I am
sure I was my usual impatient self, and asked what was the problem.
Jan pointed my view up Walnut. It was only then that I realized that
there was a single file line of runners stretching as far as I could see
up Walnut. Could things possibly go worse? Yes.
At some point the chute area was just crammed, and our system was
breaking down. Unbeknownst to me, one of our helpers grabbed a
stack of finish cards and started using them to reduce the backlog.
The problem: the cards were in series.......A-1, A-2 to A-100, then
B-1, B-2 etc. The helper had grabbed the H series while we were
still using C or D. The result was that many finishers received cards
that recorded them behind many hundreds of runners they had
beaten to the finish. This rendered our finish results highly suspect.
When the finish backup finally resolved itself, I was exhausted, and so
was everyone else. But, the problems were just starting.
The finish results were to be keyed in by translating the finish place
and the race number into keystrokes, and then entered into the
database of the bank computer being used in the 580 Building. The
problem was that there were (only) ten data entry persons. Each
runner required seven keystrokes followed by the enter key. Then
turn to the next card and repeat. We later calculated that it would
have taken the ten data entry clerks a week of non-stop keystrokes
to enter all the runner/place data, let alone the times.
Meanwhile, all of the finishers on a very chilly/windy 40-degree day
were camped in the ballroom at the Stouffers (? now Millennium)
Hotel. David Lyman was the MC, and he had some hostile age group
runners waiting a very very long time for results. Meanwhile, we
were trying to manually sort out results on the floor of the Southern
Ohio (check reference) bank. It was like finish line bingo..........let's do
Women 30-39............anyone with an A card for a runner W-30-39?
A "B" card. Because the cards had not been passed out in order
after a certain point (we were not aware of this at the time), many
age group runners we knew or expected to be highly placed were not
in our top finishers. They were giving David Lyman the biz at the
Awards Ceremony when they were not announced. "I beat all of
those runners!" was a common refrain.
Epilogue: Bob MacVeigh and I were so confident going into the race,
we were planning to write a book on how to manage races and finish
lines. Afterwards, we finally went to The Precinct after the race for
commiseration and some beverages. I did NOT want to be identified
with the race that evening, or for about a month afterwards.
As it turned out, many runners were race virgins, and had no idea
what to expect, so those runners had no idea we had screwed up
royally. They were happy with the runner singlet and the newfound
status of "being a runner." The finish booklet was a real prize, and a
keepsake I still have. And, as Bob Roncker points out, the boom was
on.
Ultimately, some combination of Harold Schuck, Don Connolly and Pat
Harrell worked out a multiple chute finish system, which was a good
working answer to big fields. I do not recall the details, but I believe
we figured that if more than one runner was finishing a second for
10-15 seconds, the chute would back up and the finish line would be
toast.
Some mention of Ann Jones of Alias Smith and Jones, and Tim
Shilling, my Xavier classmate and the Heart Association Exec at the
time.
Respectfully submitted but subject to the memory loss from 39 years
ago......
Mike Boylan
Readers, I bet you wondered if this race is still happening? The answer is yes. Here is their website for the race this year which happens in March.
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