Whose Idea to have a Road Race at Night ?

[TheProfessor]

Whose idea is to have a road race on dark streets at night in the dark?
Yes. Stated dark twice !

[ITD]

Hmmm, need more to make sense of this.

[Mr. V]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

Whose idea is to have a road race on dark streets at night in the dark?
Yes. Stated dark twice !

Huh?

Could you please shed some more light on this?

[Poor Richard]

Sounds like Reach the Beach.

Basically, 500 people and a bevy chase vans inconveniencing communities for two days on their route from Bretton Woods to Hampton Beach.

[jeffk]

Yes, it is Reach the Beach. It is an approximately 200 mile, about 24 hour - 30 hour relay race. It started in 1999. It currently goes from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach. Up to 425 TEAMS of 12 people run the 36 legs of the course. The runners are mostly from the New England area but there are runners from around the country and some are international. Each team has 2 vans that leapfrog the transition areas where runners swap. The officials work in concert with the towns they run through, placing signage and requesting police support in key areas. The runners all have red and white LED lights, front and back, for visibility. The event supports a charity.

Most of all, it is a LOT of FUN as teams decorate their vans to a theme and many wear some type of costume elements. Some of the transition areas provide parking and food and can earn donations from that activity and the volunteers have a lot of fun as well. The whole atmosphere is VERY happy and the runners are VERY appreciative of the support of any volunteers and the communities they run through.

Beyond the typical running injuries and the occasional lost runner, I have never heard of any significant accidents while on the roads.

Think of the "inconvenience" of the Boston Marathon.

[TheProfessor]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

Whose idea is to have a road race on dark streets at night in the dark?
Yes. Stated dark twice !

They appeared to end or begin at Heath's Market parking lot in Center Harbor.

Almost as bad as those who dress in black and walk their black dog early mornings and at night - in the dark. But that subject is for another posting.

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

They appeared to end or begin at Heath's Market parking lot in Center Harbor.

Almost as bad as those who dress in black and walk their black dog early mornings and at night - in the dark. But that subject is for another posting.

Heaths is one of the 36 "transition areas" where the relay runners check in and can swap to the next runner.

Instead of "dressing in black" the runners wear flashing LED lights front and back. Maybe some of us have night time vision difficulties?

[thinkxingu]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

Whose idea is to have a road race on dark streets at night in the dark?

Yes. Stated dark twice !

C'mon, now—who complains about well-marked, positive activities that support charities?!

There were plenty of signs and, as others have mentioned, lights and other indicators.

It's ONE night, and many peeps won't even be out when it's a thing.

Can we please just stick to keeping the complaining to the bonehead captain and wake boat threads?!

Sent from my SM-G990U1 using Tapatalk

[tbonies]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

Whose idea is to have a road race on dark streets at night in the dark?
Yes. Stated dark twice !

This event was a tragedy waiting to happen. We were driving from Laconia to Meredith last night up 106 at 11 PM. In the pitch dark, a significant number of inexperienced "runners" with miner headlights on their head up and down the road which in a lot of places has little pavement outside the lane lines. Traffic was traveling very slow but it would have only taken one "athlete" to cross the line to have a tragedy and everyone would have regretted this idiotic idea. Hopefully no one got hurt.

[chachee52]

If everyone is lit up and the course is well marked, what's the issue? It's at night so traffic isn't going to be affected much.

Now if it was unmarked and the racers had no common sense about being on the side of the road or un marked, than yes, complain.

This is the case in my neighborhood in MA. A weekly triathlon with people that don't know what they are doing come every Wednesday. I've been told I couldn't go down my own street because runners or bikes were on it. Even had a lady jump in front of my car to stop be as I was trying to leave my neighborhood because "there was a bike behind me". Yup, not making that one up!! Had no officials helping (now PD, no markings), just random volunteers at the top of my road blocking people from using a public road.

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by tbonies

This event was a tragedy waiting to happen. We were driving from Laconia to Meredith last night up 106 at 11 PM. In the pitch dark, a significant number of inexperienced "runners" with miner headlights on their head up and down the road which in a lot of places has little pavement outside the lane lines. Traffic was traveling very slow but it would have only taken one "athlete" to cross the line to have a tragedy and everyone would have regretted this idiotic idea. Hopefully no one got hurt.

So a single accident/death would make this an idiotic idea?
That should set a new standard on events throughout the Lakes Region.

[Poor Richard]

Well, since the route practically runs through my back yard every year, my issues in the last....oh, decade or so....are the runners crossing the road in a non-lit section of Rte 28 at 10pm (for one example) and the chase vans that couldn't care less about other motorists on the road and drive as such.

No, the course is not well lit, it's barely marked and the participants as a group are focused solely on their runner, outside world be damned.

While I appreciate the charity aspect of the event, that entire group has routinely shown how oblivious they are to their surroundings.

[TheProfessor]

Originally Posted by tbonies

This event was a tragedy waiting to happen.

Originally Posted by Poor Richard

While I appreciate the charity aspect of the event, that entire group has routinely shown how oblivious they are to their surroundings.

Originally Posted by jeffk

Maybe some of us have night time vision difficulties?

A night time charity. On dark unlit winding country roads.

My eyes are checked twice per year by an ophthalmologist. No glasses yet.
Have done multiple charity work for over 40 years. In lit areas.

Originally Posted by tbonies

This event was a tragedy waiting to happen.

[FlyingScot]

It's funny that no one other than John sees the obvious parallels to Bike Week. This is a bunch of guys doing something slightly wild, free, kind of cool and fun, if that's your particular thing. Also similar to Bike Week--others are inconvenienced/irked, and the danger is obvious.

And of course, each has an excuse for the unpleasant aspects. For Bike Week, we ignore the noise and annual deaths by saying it's good for business. For the race we have a charity fig leaf.

[Poor Richard]

This morning, about 30min after I last posted.....chase van travelling at 15mph for about 1/2 mile. Was he looking for a place to park? Nope. Seems it was completely necessary stop dead in the middle of the road to talk to a runner.

And, as expected, at no point in time is the driver smart (considerate?) enough to move over and let 4 other vehicles behind him pass. No, it takes two cars honking to get him to wake up but yeah, no worries....no one has an hour drive and schedules to keep and I'm sure the 3 cars behind me weren't trying to get anywhere either.

Glad it's over.

[John Mercier]

For me, it wasn't just Bike Week...
Every event that we have in the area carries a certain amount of discomfort for those not in participation.

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

For me, it wasn't just Bike Week...
Every event that we have in the area carries a certain amount of discomfort for those not in participation.

Including Election days. Lots of cars and traffic interrupted. People milling around the polling places, some not paying attention to their environment.

From other posts:
"Inexperienced runners" The participants are not out for a little jog. They run multiple legs of 7+ miles. They can't do this without a significant investment in running on all sorts of roads and the experience that comes with that.

"An accident waiting to happen" You could say this every time you walk down a flight of stairs or turn on a stovetop burner or put your child in a bathtub. Lots of things have an associated inherent risk. They have been doing this for over 20 years with 1000's of runners and a thousand+ vehicles every year. If bad things happened we would hear about it. Just because YOU find annoying and outside your comfort zone doesn't make it significantly dangerous.

[John Mercier]

We could just go to picking a random name off the roster - like jury duty.

[chachee52]

I saw some signs for a bicycle race along the Bypass that will happen today.
What are they thinking? People leaving from a weekend stay up here and all the cars (mostly out of state) driving like crazy because they are from out of state?

Sarcasm if no one caught it.

[John Mercier]

That is the Timberman.

[chachee52]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

That is the Timberman.

OOOO, That's better than it used to be at Ellacoya!! Used to pin me into my cottage for the weekend because of the traffic and wake us up at 5AM with the announcers on mic.
But we got used to it and enjoyed what it was and I slept with ear plugs so I didn't have to wake up at 5am.

[AB_Monterey]

I've run multiple Ragnar races including Reach the Beach in 2019.

I highly doubt there are any inexperienced runners running any Ragnar race. As others have already pointed out, a team of 12, 2 vans will have each runner total 15-24 miles over three legs. The elite teams do it in one van with a team of 6(?).

Every runner is required to wear a headlamp, a tail light, and reflective safely vest when running in the dark. Mandatory. There's no way anyone was out without all three after dark.

I ran through downtown Laconia at 2am to get to Gilford HS in 2019.

Now this coming weekend, I'm running a Ragnar trail run at Wawayanda Lake in NJ. Running trails at night should be interesting.