Barely 20 miles away from the Luton marathon course on the day it should have happened. Why was it cancelled so early?

Comments

• 5th Dec 2010 at 9:04pm
  Last of the Time Lords: I have a lot of sympathy for the organisers on this one. There would be a lot of people coming from a long way for the marathon and they would have an army of marshals / volunteers due to be out there. Unless people have been on the other side of the fence with an event requiring the logistics of a road marathon then I think it's difficult to appreciate.
  
  The roads round my way were extremely icy this morning and you couldn't have run a large road race here. With the events of a year or so ago when a car overturned on ice and the Luton was cancelled at the last minute then the organisers know what a nightmare the ice can be. Given the weather over the last week I think they had a very tough difficult decision to make that is bound to upset some people.
• 6th Dec 2010 at 9:06am
  Rach E: Appreciate this, LotTL. I know just how much it takes to organise a race (well, maybe I don't quite appreciate it!). But they put a note that they would let us know by Saturday if the race was going to be cancelled, and, despite all weather forecasts saying there was going to be better weather at the weekend, cancelled it much earlier in the week. I know the logistics *are* difficult to organise, but surely a note on Wednesday saying something along the lines of "Given the likelihood of the weather not improving on Saturday, there is a chance we will have to cancel the race at short notice. You may wish to cancel any arrangements you've made to get to Luton now, or await for a decision to be made on Saturday." I lost money on a hotel I'd booked (although this is obviously a risk I take booking a hotel) and I actually think it's a shame for Luton as it's the second cancellation in three years (the first of which was obviously no-one's fault - but a lot of people are now saying they just won't enter it again. Which is sad).
• 6th Dec 2010 at 11:21am
  Last of the Time Lords: I haven't followed events and only picked up Luton was cancelled last night. I personally think they made the right decision to cancel, but from what you are saying timing and communictation may have been an issue.
  
  What I would add is that is jolly difficult to get someone to stand marshalling at 25 miles on a reasonable day in October. Getting people to even turn up and marshal when there *may* be snow must be a nightmare. Also, have you tried hammering in stakes when it's 2:30 in the morning and -4.
  
  Perhaps it's time they sought a different slot in the calender. Luton used to in either July or August and they had the other extreme of people flaking out!