Baltimore marathon this weekend is cupless and has "self serve refill stations" - should i carry water?

erik wrote:

Idiotic theater.

Does absolutely nothing to slow Covid. Might make it worse if there are people breathing heavily waiting in line. And just generally seems less hygienic to have dozens of hands touching a cooler to get water rather than one or two volunteers filling up cups.

Worse, is it just encourages people to make unsafe decisions about hydration in order to avoid lines/losing time.

Hard agree with all of this. You're going to see a lot more people cramping up and suffering at the finish.

I ran London on Sunday and the Covid protocols were purely for show and added major inconvenience tot he event. There was no bag drop on the day, you had to hand it over 1-3 days before the race. That meant you either had to carry things like your phone or credit card or just do without them. It was pretty chilly on the morning as well so you had to wear clothes that you were happy to discard. The wave start was pointless. It didn't socially distance people, we were still crammed in pens, and it also meant that slower runners who started up to 2 hours later than quicker runners, finished their marathon as the sun was setting.

I'm hard-line on Covid mitigations that work. Vaccines: I'd happily go around shooting them at people with dart guns. Ventilating indoor areas: yup, I don't care if you're cold in your office/school. But socially distancing outdoors, and avoiding touching someone's jacket for 3 seconds is dumb beyond reason. This is all to say, mass marathons should go ahead as normal, and shouldn't be doing stupid things to make a difficult event even harder, and potentially dangerous.

I hope the Baltimore organisers are ready to apologise to the ambulance service who are going to be working harder than usual at the finish line dealing with dehydrated runners

I'm pacing Baltimore and will be carrying a 20 oz water bottle. It's very inconvenient, for sure, but I've carried a bottle during some of my long runs and don't think the weight, or feeling of the bottle in my hand, will bother me. Filling up is the real issue. If we get rain, 20 oz might be enough that I can just re-fill once. But it's still not ideal and, in that humidity, I'd probably normally take in closer to 60 oz over 3+ hours.

Still, can't imagine a collapsible cup is the best option, unless it's huge. The real issue is having to come to a complete stop, something you'll have to do way more often if you're only filling 4-6 oz at a time. Better to take something that holds a lot of liquid, bite the bullet on carrying it the whole way, and hope that the time you lose on your 1-2 refills is roughly equivalent to the time you'd normally lose by slowing at 7-10 aid stations.

I don't think I would run a marathon that was like this. But then again it would present a unique challenge.

But this sounds like a really bad idea on the whole. Imagine runners in big groups stopping suddenly in front of others not stopping, in a congested area. On top of that are they pushing a button to release the water? How is a few thousand runners pushing the same button, then putting fluids with that hand, and the bottle into their mouth safer than everyone getting their own individual cup? Unless it's a trash issue, I don't see how that is smarter.

Right now we live in a clown world, where arbitrary and senseless rules are put in place.

Why cant they just use paper cups instead of plastic cups?

NORman2 wrote:

Why cant they just use paper cups instead of plastic cups?

Exactly this...plastic cups don't work anyway as you can't pinch the top of the cup to drink while running. You would only know this if you actually ran a marathon which the organizers apparently have not. The price we pay for putting on "events" instead of races.

erik wrote:

Idiotic theater.

Does absolutely nothing to slow Covid. Might make it worse if there are people breathing heavily waiting in line. And just generally seems less hygienic to have dozens of hands touching a cooler to get water rather than one or two volunteers filling up cups.

Worse, is it just encourages people to make unsafe decisions about hydration in order to avoid lines/losing time.

I agree that it's idiotic theatre. However, I suspect these are things the race directors or doing only as a requirement to get their permit for the race. Similar idiotic-theatre type policies allowed my town to start having races again when much of the rest of USA and the world was still locked down in July 2020, not even able to have races with idiotic-theatre for another year or more. Then, when those races happened and the world didn't end, we're now able to have races in my town where policies are back to normal, while other towns are still playing covid mind-games.

Yeah, things like "cupless" marathons are dumb. But some places these psychological measures are the only way you can actually have race to race in.

One of the races I ran a while back that had this "touchless hydration" concept, just put out store-bought water bottles on the drink tables and the volunteers stood back 6+ feet away from the table. You ran along, grabbed a bottle and drank it as you ran, without any need for a volunteer to physically hand it to you as you breathe heavy on them, gulp, spit or whatever. It seemed to work well, although I'm sure it cost more than tap water in a paper cup, and I don't think it saved a single life. It sure worked better than standing in line to pump 20oz of water into a self-carried bottle. It's not even a race at that point.

I agree with vaccinating, staying home when you're sick and frequent hand washing/sanitizing. Other than that I think most everything else we're doing regarding is psychological. Like having a marathon with 20,000 people instead of 30,000 people, claiming that will make a difference, at the same time we're having 100,000 people crammed butt to butt in football stadiums in the same state and all over the country, at the same time. It's peak stupidity.

Thinking COVID can be stamped out is just silly, at this point. It's time we go on with life. Either get the shot and move on with life, or accept the risk of not getting the shot and move on with life. Those unable to accept any risk can stay home and get their food delivered, until the virus is gone.

I am pretty skeptical this is about getting the permit. I think it's probably about saving money and effort not having to get volunteers. And my guess is it'll become permanent to "save the environment." Cupless racing is a cancer spreading across the country. I'm all for it for a 5K or a 10K, but it sucks for longer races. I despise hydration packs and/or handheld bottles. And stopping also is a nightmare.

Surely they decreased the entry fee as a result of going cupless, correct?

Gault & Co can we confirm?

arunnerinwa wrote:

They're still happy to hand out gaudy medals and T-shirts, and they distribute bottled water at the finish. If they were really serious about the environment, they'd use compostable or reusable cups at the aid stations.

This is the part that really kills me. I don't want your ill-fitting race shirt or the medal I'm going to throw out in a few weeks, or the swag bag full of plastic-wrapped product samples and advertisements. The waste from that far outweighs having compostable paper cups at aid stations. Give me an option to take $20 off my registration and say no to all that extra garbage. Everyone wins.

OP, if you do decide to carry a bottle I suggest the soft flask style. I carry a 500ml (17oz) Salomon soft flask on a lot of my long runs in the summer and find it more convenient than traditional bottles since it shrinks in size as you drink and once empty you can shove it in a pocket (if your shorts have good enough pockets) and forget about it. They also make 250ml (8oz) and other sizes.

Yes. I would happily give up the medal, T-shirt and other junk to get cups of water handed to me on course. I hardly think 4 to 5 compostable cups (in a half) is worse for the environment than the medal + T-shirt + plastic water bottle at the finish.

I sufficiently dislike carrying stuff when I race that I have done the collapsible cup and stopped and refilled it. I think this is the best option if you're running 9 mpm or slower. 8 mpm (my pace) is debatable. Much faster than 8 mpm and it probably makes sense to carry enough water so you only need to refill once or twice at most. The faster you're running, the harder it is to come to a dead stop and then accelerate back to race pace.

Baltimore's a rough town. Running cupless may leave the boys unprotected.

High hopes wrote:

I'm hard-line on Covid mitigations that work. Vaccines: I'd happily go around shooting them at people with dart guns. Ventilating indoor areas: yup, I don't care if you're cold in your office/school. But socially distancing outdoors, and avoiding touching someone's jacket for 3 seconds is dumb beyond reason. This is all to say, mass marathons should go ahead as normal, and shouldn't be doing stupid things to make a difficult event even harder, and potentially dangerous.

One of the most sensible statements about COVID I've read on this board.

If this was really about covid they would just place filled water cups on tables. That is not any worse than having everyone use the same refill station. Barring that they could go the Olympic route with water bottles on tables.

It isn’t though, it is about a cost saving measure by the RD. Cupless races have been creeping in to ultras for a while now. Well before covid. Marketed as green initiatives, but really they are only a cost and logistics savings to the RD. They make zero sense on the road at the half and marathon distance for any legitimate race.

Meanwhile, you're literally more likely to be shot and killed going to dinner after the race than getting a serious case of COVID in Baltimore...

RDs every where trying to see what else they can trim from the road race and still charge those big fees. Maybe they became addicted to the scam of "virtual races" where people sent in a check and the RDs sent them a finishers medal.

200,000 cups is a significant waste issue, and that many water bottles would be even worse. I don't see this being COVID-safer, except that it means a lot fewer people around with small numbers of volunteers.

But shouldn't old school guys like this? Back to the days of no fluids--if you have a serious time goal, that is, and aren't going to stop five to ten times for 10-20 seconds each time.