Most of the marathons we have here, including the recently concluded Mumbai marathon, leave a lot to be desired. Here’s my list of things I would love to change.
1. Start the Full Marathon early. 6:30, even 7:00 should be okay. Not beyond that, though.
2. Publish the full results, pleeeaze! All decent international marathons do this. Even if I am not amongst the top finishers, I would like to know how others ran.
3. Allow the chip timing to be computed beyond the 5 hr limit. Okay, take away all the intermediate sensors, at least leave the one at the finishing line. I know that the traffic was opened, people can take a bus or cab to finish line, but those will not be the people who will be interested in their timings, and even if they are, does anyone else care? It’s a personal thing beyond 5 hrs.
Guys, you are free to add to this list, send me your comments, and I’ll make the list grow.
List of some interesting suggestions received from fellow runners:
- Start marathon early for amateur runners (difficult to implement from organizational perspective).
- Have a 10K race instead of the 7K dream run.
- Declare marathon dates much earlier, even an year before.
- Publish route details online along with each KM mark info.
- Provide elevation map (great point, Anand)
- Provide Finisher’s T-Shirt.
- Improve Expo quality, make it more sports oriented rather than a bazaar or a haat.