Competing Marathons

I've been reading with interest the posts about the two Indy marathons being so close in time. This happened in Cleveland not once, but twice.

The Revco/CVS/Rite Aid Marathon (the original one) is in the spring. One time someone decided to have a "Greater Cleveland Marathon" a week later. Many loyal Cleveland Marathoners were upset by this competition, feeling that there aren't enough runners to hold competing events. I did both (of course) and thought they did a decent job on the new one. They definitely had a nice course. They had trouble getting sponsors for the GCM the second year and scratched the race at the last moment, having only a 10K instead. And that was the last year for that event. The new race did have an influence on the old one, however. The old race changed from their traditional out and back course to one much more like that of the GCM in order to provide more variety and generally better scenery, and to better show off the city.

Then came the Akron Marathon. They decided to hold that one the very same weekend as my beloved Towpath Marathon, which is only a few miles away. Once again, many were upset by the competition - out of 52 weekends, why did they pick the same one? I keep thinking they were trying to put the TPM out of commission. If that was the goal, it didn't work. For some reason, both of these races are doing well now (a couple years late), although they are now a week apart.

ORN: 10 on the mill this morning including 8 x 1200 @ 9mph. Then 3 outside at lunch outside. I have to keep breaking these things up because of my work schedule.

Dan Dan Horvath runhorvathrun@hotmail.com