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Mar 2016
11:05am, 22 Mar 2016
1,360 posts
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Spleen
I can see the reasoning for this but I would rather it was left up to the organisers. The organiser of a road race will be well aware of how hazardous the course is, and if they want to make a serious effort to ban headphones (big signs up at the start, DQs, etc) they will. With a general ban, people who don't want the hassle of dealing with annoyed runners will now be forced to either go through the aggro or allow people to break the rules.
I worry that it disproportionately affects people who are relatively new to running or to racing. Most people who've done a race or two realise that it's different from a normal run and you don't need music. For the rest it sends a message like "10ks are SERIOUS BUSINESS for serious runners, you casual joggers with your headphones can piss off."
I notice that the rules only prohibit the wearing of headphones on sections of unclosed single carriageways. Not the entirety of a race that includes a single carriageway. So you would still be allowed to wear your headphones as long as you removed them when the single carriageway came up. Or, to put it another way, the rule as written is totally unenforceable. If you're organising a race and you don't want headphones then you will enforce a total headphone ban. No-one is going to put signs up before single carriageway sections saying "Remove headphones now" and disqualify anyone who hasn't got both earbuds out before they cross the white line, this isn't triathlon.
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Mar 2016
11:07am, 22 Mar 2016
13,963 posts
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The Teaboy
Does this mean that you could instead run round carrying a 1980s style boombox?
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Mar 2016
11:13am, 22 Mar 2016
22,594 posts
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McGoohan
A bloke did that at the Reading Half Teaboy. He was dressed as 'Rocky' and it was playing Eye of the Tiger and the Rocky Theme on endless fecking repeat. Even more annoyingly he was running at the same pace as me.
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Mar 2016
11:15am, 22 Mar 2016
3,405 posts
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minardi
I found my last race had a very annoying runner in it - she wasn't wearing headphones but was letting everybody listen to her appalling taste in music instead! I would rather she had worn them!
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Mar 2016
11:17am, 22 Mar 2016
3,256 posts
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ndellar
Ha! I've often seen iPhone armband wearers blaring out tunes on speaker to everyone else in headphone-less races. The modern equivalent 
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Mar 2016
11:19am, 22 Mar 2016
8,152 posts
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Autumnleaves
I see what you mean Spleen - although within the beginners' group I run we apply the same rule to the group runs at least - on the grounds that they need to be able to hear instructions if nothing else, I have one more experienced runner who does use them - but like JoviR (I think it was on the previous page) only keeps one in - although he still occasionally doesn't hear me so I am thinking of trying to be a bit firmer. I think that the health & safety aspects are hard to argue with - I used to use music myself on longer runs, I stopped when I realised I hadn't been remotely aware of a car pulling up alongside me to ask for directions.
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Mar 2016
11:23am, 22 Mar 2016
13,964 posts
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The Teaboy
McG - was it Homer who did that? That seemed to be the only theme tracks he had for the Big Fetch Mile...
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Mar 2016
11:38am, 22 Mar 2016
1,361 posts
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Spleen
If someone was playing music on speaker I would ask them politely to turn it down and if that didn't work I would impolitely chuck it in the river. That's not on.
Of course this is easy for me to say, as one of the advantages of becoming *slightly* above average in pace is that I can now outrun most of the fancy dress people and other annoying types.
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Mar 2016
12:12pm, 22 Mar 2016
534 posts
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larkim
I do think the point about the impact on new runners is a valid one.
<Confession time>
I'll admit that when I first started running I saw that the prevailing trend was to wear headphones, and after some trial and error I settled on some bluetooth headphones when I was running on my own. Come race day (Chester Half in 2011) I planned to use headphones even though the rules said they were banned - ISTR that my thought process was that if I turned up on the start line and everyone else was doing it, then I'd just accept that this was one of those "rules" which were always present but never enforced. As it turned out, my headphones' battery died after about a mile so I ran the race with them in my hand, and I don't think I've worn headphones since.
However, if I'd been DQ'd from that race after the commitment I'd made to get to the start line of my first event I'd have been mightily unimpressed.
</Confession time>
Since then of course I've heard the arguments about safety etc and now agree that this is appropriate. But that's a learning process, and many newbies (who may well start in local, smaller races, not just the mass events) will see this as another barrier to their participation (rightly or wrongly).
I disagree with Spleen above about notices with "headphones removed now" being unworkable. Actually I think this is the way forward for run directors - particularly if there are only small, short sections on the roads where the new rules have headphones banned. This makes it more straight forward to marshall, allows for some clear signage (start line announcements can rarely be heard, and pre-race rules are rarely read - especially if the rules are just generically described as "Run under UKA road running rules"). Its a small additional cost to get the signage out there at mile markers or similar.
I also think there is an opportunity for some race directors to be a little more tolerant of headphones in races where there is no UKA rule for banning them. Ambulance sirens are clearly audible above all but the most deafening headphones, and for every headphone wearer there is probably an equal number of individuals who don't have them in, so I think it may over-play the safety argument to argue that headphones need banning on closed road courses - I'm happy to be proven wrong, but can you actually imagine a real scenario in which a runner with headphones seriously and critically harms the safety of another runner? If you can, then the only logic open is to say headphones should be banned in all races, and whilst that might satisfy some I don't think that is a pragmatic view of the world. I genuinely suspect that some race directors ban headphones simply because they are "old school" runners who have "no truck with this modern nonsense" etc etc without truly being able to justify the H&S validity of their position.
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Mar 2016
12:14pm, 22 Mar 2016
17,101 posts
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DeeGee
The race referee at the Cleethorpes New Year's Day 10k asked me to stand on the finish line noting the numbers of anyone who crossed the line with earphones in. It was written in the instructions on the website when people entered, repeated in an email from me just before the event (along with the no late number-swaps or entries on the day message that people just roundly ignored), and there were signs at registration and before the start.
We have significant mileage of unclosed single carriageway and a right turn across 'live' roads, which are marshalled for safety.
Rules are rules and I don't buy this "I train with music" excuse. I don't run 26.2 miles in training, but I can't enter a marathon, run 18 and say I've finished.
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