to think marathons in cities cause too much mayhem?

[Bottlew]

There is a full marathon in my city on Sunday. They will start to close the roads 5pm on Saturday and it is impossible to drive anywhere.

My neighbour is immobile and relies on carers. All his visits are severely delayed and it means he ends up sitting in his faeces and urine for hours and hours. He won't get his meals till a lot later. There is access given for carers, emergency services but this still ends up in a lot of delays.

I know it brings in a huge amount of income for the city but the disruption is terrible particularly for those who are vulnerable. It means I don't get to visit people in need because I can't drive anywhere. Public transport doesn't work as I often have a lot of shopping etc.

As long as you give them the several months notice like the marathons give I’m sure they will find it easy enough to plan for it.

It can be a nightmare in Manchester. A large part of the marathon is in Trafford which has many brooks running through it. This means there are no diversions possible when the marathon is on. Many roads on the route only have one way in or out and they are blocked with the marathon all day. 8am until 5 or 6pm. It’s not as easy as saying use the diversion.

3:30am road closure

Of course; notice makes it much easier to access my road if it’s closed 🙄

Traffic causes much more mayhem.in cities, all year round

Yanbu. It's hell for carers getting through. Can't believe people saying report carers who struggling to get through to see patients and the barriers make them late....

How? Which of the closed roads would you as a carer use to see a patient...

Report the care company is what people are saying, not the carers themselves.

The care company are given plenty of notice every single year, so plenty of time to employ agency staff for that one day to help out.

This will prevent the elderly and vulnerable sitting in their own shit for hours and hours.

Other care companies in the area will have managed to do this.

Clearly the people who are bleating about how easy it is to hire extra staff for the day have never worked in care, or needed care.

No one's unessential hobby should interfere with disabled people getting care, ffs. Someone having to sit in their own shit for hours because a MAMIL wants to put one foot in front of the other? Come on. It's ridiculous.

It’s not just an “inessential hobby”, it’s a big event that generates significant benefits for the area.

Surely the answer is for the carer company to schedule more staff for that one day, so each staff member has less clients to see? All part of running a business.

Have you any concept of how much money the London marathon raises for charity? Helping the very people who need carers. Not going to raise that running round the local park

Is it Manchester? My son is running on Sunday. The route in Manchester has the tram service running pretty much all round it. Why can't the carers just use the tram for a day to get around?

My road is closed on Sunday until 4pm for the Manchester marathon (we’re a cul de sac so no other way out)

I love it, we stand at the end of the road and try to cheer on the people we know who are running as they whizz past and then we have a leisurely walk into either Sale or Alty enjoying the lack of traffic

Theres been tons of communication about the closure as there always is, road signs all along the route for a month beforehand.

It is not that easy just to recruit more staff. There is a very high turnover for care workers:

https://nursebuddy.co/blog/tackling-high-staff-turnover-in-homecare

Wow. You have an unusual amount of marathon running friends. Spending all day waving at them is quite the commitment.

Is there lots to do, in Sale, at 5pm, on a Sunday?

Oh stop it.

There are absolutely loads of care agencies in London.

It's just one day a year, pretty simple to take on a few to ease the pressure.

I'm a person who needs a carer and marathon runners have achieved fuck all for me. They're a pain in the arse, are incessant about doing something that literally every other human being on the planet (bar some disabled people) learns to do from the age of 6+ months, they want constant money for doing it, and make it their entire personality. Hate runners. And cyclists.

Why can't they go and run somewhere it doesn't affect other people? It's not hard.

You dont mind streets being clogged with traffic?

Because we are all different, everyone has different needs and priorities, we have to be all grown-ups and learn how to deal with it, rather than going in a huff when others do things we don't like.

You might surprise yourself with how resilient, adaptable and accepting of difference you might become.

I also find these qualities favourable in others, people who can find workarounds and adapt to challenges rather than seeing them as obstacles.

Interesting that none of the people who live in Trafford and are complaining about the marathon seem to care at all about the God awful traffic most weekends for the football.

Marathons are also not the same as running around the parks/country - you know that. I like running around parks/country, and personally would hate a marathon, far too busy, and long for me. BUT - strangely many love marathons - the demand is there, that's why they are often over-subscribed and can cause disruption for others. But again, we are all different, I accept it and work with it rather than trying to fight what I can't change. Due to this, I tend not to get as stressed about stuff.

All big events are going to cause some disruption. Does that mean we should never have any events?

It’s not that interesting. People can leave their homes during the football. Different kettle of fish during a marathon.

Could you be any more patronising?