AIBU to be fucked off at road marathons?

For anyone living in, or needing to visit Peterborough this weekend....there is a race with an entry limit of 8000 people.
There is a list of road closures with timings on the link below!

https://www.greateastern.run/

@NotAnotherCodeBlueAt3Am
Wheredo you live that has 4/5 marathons or half's per year?

I have to say I really just thought why can’t they all run around a park or find a road in the country side where you are not impacting on thousands of other people.

Off road lapped events do exist, and the number of participants are usually a lot smaller - less than 500 compared to say 20000 for a road half or marathon.

This thread tells you why your suggestion of laps around a park would be a bad idea for a lot of people.

Agree completely with the @CheeseWisely and @Ginmonkeyagain . Most runners I know are always hungry after a race and will definitely use local shops /restaurants/pubs etc . And if they have bought supporters they'll also be spending. As said if youve travelled far you'll probably stay in accomodation locally and lots of runners will share their recommendations not just for races but also where to stay and where to eat .
I've friends where the man runs and the wife doesnt but they do a lot of race tourism and will not only rate the race but also the town/city, exhibitions etc. I've gone to places based on their recommendations

1/10 of weekends is 5.

I've had a think of how many times we have events. There are two running races (one is only a 10k so over quickly). A carnival (lasts two days but mainly in a park) and a bonfire/firework display that puts that park out of commission for two days as well. And a one day Christmas market which takes up one street but there are plenty of ways around it.

Other than the half marathon, I can't think of anything that blocks anyone in for hours on end and even then it's not "hours on end", it's 2-3 and it has been moved so that the same people don't get blocked in every year. And there is plenty of notice so it is easy to plan around.

But even if it's 5 times a year, is it really that hard to plan around? All the events are well publicised wherever you live.

Roadworks are far more of a problem, especially when there are planned works that people know about, but then they go down the diversion and discover it's closed for "emergency" works (aka we didn't do the job properly first time around). I'd have thought that would be far more concerning if you need to get to a hospital.

Planned events are really not the problem here.

Right well I’m assuming you didn’t have to do your usual chores and stuff. You didn’t need to collect your child in X part of town, your child didn’t need to go to a birthday party, you didn’t have to go to the DIY store for an errand or do one of the 1000 jobs people have to do at weekends.

You swanned around a city centre, had coffee and drunk in the views. That’s comparing apples with oranges.

None of my neighbours are out cheering and clapping the runners. First year I couldn’t understand why. Now, I get it. They are over all that. They just accept they have to stay in and then some get fed up and say why can’t they hold these elsewhere for a change?

Well, quite.

When I am out for a Sunday cycle ride I am always very conscious that some of the drivers behind me might be going to work or visiting aged parents etc.

But most are driving for leisure purposes and some are just driving somewhere they could have walked or cycled themselves in 10 minutes. I have no idea why cars are deemed more important than people but it's time it stopped. It won't though, it's getting worse with the size of cars and the fact that you are allowed massive entertainment systems on the dashboard so there's not even any pretence that drivers are concentrating on the roads.

I don’t think there’s a mentality of I don’t run so no one else should.

I do like running.

And I also like my weekends, being a full time worker. And one tenth of them every year are affected by events such as this when my local road is closed at 3am and opened late the following day when everything is shut.

I have also got caring responsibilities which mean I may need to visit a hospital or something in the dead of night. So countless times a year, I need to find out how I can get out in an emergency. This is my third year of this and I’m understanding why it might piss people off.

The event organisers could think of different routes and give people a break.

You mean, people dare to want to use them for their intended purpose? The horror! How very dare they!

I’m not sneering at anyone. It was novel and now it’s a nuisance. If they spread them around a bit so that different areas were impacted, it would be more palatable.

We're going to to Brussels in April as Mr Monkey is running a half marathon there. We shall, I assure, you be spending money locally. We are staying three nights and will eat out every night and visit some local attractions.

Attracting tourists and spending is one of the key reasons towns and cities put running events on. Every race I have been to the pubs and cafes are full of runners afterwards, generally spending money.

This is all a getting a bit League of Gentleman with some additional sneering at people who dare to want to use public highways for anything other than driving cars.

Are they not? I've run several races in places other than where I live and have always made a weekend of it. Hotel, couple of meals out, mooch in the shops, maybe a local attraction depending where I am.

If the race is big enough to create closures lasting all day then participants will have come from all over and most will have arrived the day before. If it's a small local athletics club with no visitors then it won't be a big road closure situation. It's one or the other.

I ran a 10K on Sunday and I did then go on to spend my money in the city shops, as well as the car park.
I didn't take any supporters, but there were some from my club and I know they went out to lunch and did some shopping.

@NotAnotherCodeBlueAt3Am Where do you live that has 4-5 marathons or half marathons a year??

Last year I could barely to collect my daughter from a school trip and had to set off hours in advance and then take two autistic children out for hours at a restaurant for their tea, when they were both overwhelmed and wanted to be at home.

I have to say I really just thought why can’t they all run around a park or find a road in the country side where you are not impacting on thousands of other people. It feels like quite economically advantaged people taking over lots of roads in an important artery into a city centre.

It gets old. And the marathon runners and their supporters are not spending their money in our local shops.

We have one at least four or five times a year. The road outside is closed over my weekend from 3am to 4-5pm. There will be severe congestion if I try and go anywhere. We will only be able to shop in the corner shop.

The first marathon had me and the children going out to high five runners. Good luck to them all but we are marathoned out now. During next weekend’s run, I will need to spend my time off at home yet again. From 3am to at least 4-5pm, we will be at home.

The road outside is also frequently subjected to football matches which result in traffic at a standstill; ditto concerts and cricket matches.

As there is always a lot of prior notice, then park your car elsewhere and walk to it?

Anyway, how many Doctors appointments are early on a Sunday morning????

5 hours... talk about making stuff up...

I don’t know about all the others but Manchester (half and full) definitely girs through the posh bits :)

Yes, but in most cases I don't think these have anything like the same overall impact. There are lots of instances of small markets or small concerts or whatever in parking lots, parks, etc, but I can't think of any that similarly seem to impact on the same level.

Plus, many (not all) events like this are very much something the local people enjoy themselves, and when neighbourhoods find events like this really problematic, they tend to find their complaints are taken seriously.

The closest thing that seems somewhat similar to me are parades, and having once been in labour trying to get to the hospital while being blocked by a Christmas parade I feel very aware that they can be a real inconvenience - but even parades don't in my experience cause as much disruption for everyone as marathons and bike races in cities. The latter just seem so very spread out, and take so long, and block traffic across so many streets.

And maybe the kicker is, unlike smaller local events, it never really seems like complaints are taken seriously or really even noticed much. It's like the town or city makes a deal with the race organizers and sponsors, and residents don't matter, they are expected to put up with it even though few are involved and many of the participants aren't local.

Where I am now, large concerts no longer seem to be common in city venues that aren't really set up for the,. There was a period, especially in the 90s and early 2000s when there were a lot of them, but they were pretty impractical in terms of traffic and also infrastructure issues. So the trend now seems to have them in places like exhibition grounds. I think this reflects a lot of the same issues with these races.

Every day, all year round, a cacophony of metal vehicles thunders down my local high street, spewing fumes and causing traffic jams. I too find that unsatisfactory.

The London to Brighton bike ride closes the roads (my road). Where I live the months from March to September bring with them a flurry of neon coloured markers for one race or another. They usually aren’t collected afterwards and end up being these sad tattered flags until they rip
off in the wind leaving the cable tie behind and their ruined guts in the bushes. ‘Race days’ bring hollering of Lycra clad humans from about 6am onwards as their strava PB urges them on. I find it all very unsatisfactory.

Could one walk some of the way?

"Those particular roads" may be the only ones available for you to get to a doctors appointment or out to your work. It's not reasonable to ask someone to leave their house 5 hours early for an appointment.

I'm not talking about people having to take a longer route, I'm talking about people whose only way out of their house has been closed.

Does everyone driving, really need to? Cos they're pretty annoying too

@Wellingtonspie A parking space with a city centre flat is all well and good until you can't get out of it due to the carnival / Christmas lights switch on / pride parade / whatever.

I'm not just talking about road closures though. There are lots of factors to lots of events that cause inconvenience to someone. But I very much doubt anyone can claim to have never attended / enjoyed any of them, so pissed of are they by the ones that adversely affect them.

My message is live and let live! You (in the broad sense) enjoy the motor rally that makes my property inaccessible for a whole weekend, or the music festival in the park down the road that we can hear every note of, and I'll enjoy the marathon that goes past the end of your road for a day. There are bigger things to worry about in the grand scheme of things.