V.1 #3 Behind the Scenes Action at the First Heart Mini-Marathon

V.1 #3   Behind the Scenes Action at the First Heart Mini-Marathon

by Mike Boylan

The First (1978) Heart Mini-Marathon turned out to be one big heartburn for Bob MacVeigh and me.

Left photo - Mike Boylan; Right photo Bob MacVeigh (l) and Don Wahle (r)

The first "running boom" race in Cincinnati was the 1977 Memorial Day Race, with just short of 500 runners.  The finish label snafu at that race has been discussed elsewhere, but we realized we could not handle even that number of runners with the conventional finish chute procedures from cross-country races.

When Bob Mac finagled me into being co-race director, we set (what we thought was an ambitious) goal of 1500 runners.  We realized that handling that many runners, even at 15K, was going to be difficult.  I recall going to see the finish of the Dayton River Corridor Classic and observing their finish line, which we decided to mimic and adapt.  Essentially finish cards were paired with runner IDs attached to the running bib, which were then stapled together and sent to the processing center.  We had recruited 25 finish line helpers to process the runners.  Mark Jones and Sally Doyen were two of our key people. 

The "computer" service that the Heart Association hired assured us that results could be generated quickly.  What did we know? 

We were also self-impressed with our acquisition of the race timer/printer, which would automate the timing and be accurate to .1 second!  HA!

A week before the race, the Heart Association told us that there were already 1800 runners registered.  Gulp! 

Also the week before the race, there was a significant storm that left a good 5-8" of ice and snow on the sidewalks of Central Parkway.   This was critical, since the returning runners were supposed to run on the sidewalks.   On the Friday and Saturday before the race, we were out on Central Parkway with picks, sledge hammers and shovels trying to break up the ice on the sidewalks.  John Frick, Pat Harrell, and (I think) Harold Shuck were part of that demolition party. 

On the morning of the race, there were several discouraging developments:

First, Bob Mac informed me that he was running in the race, and I was on my own at the finish line. 

Second, highway maintenance decided to open a pit on Vine Street in front of the Library, four blocks from the start at Fifth Street.   Vine is only four narrow lanes wide at that point, and the excavation was a lane and a half.  Panic!  That eventually was resolved before the 1 PM start.  

It was chaos at the starting line and in the Carew Tower arcade.  It was impossible to register all of the runners, so there were an estimated thousand bandits and an estimated total of 3500.    The Athletes Foot had provided bags to check gear.  The runners were instructed to pass the bags to the curb minutes before the start.   Unfortunately, runners on the east side of Vine decided that meant to throw their bags over the fence protecting the excavation for the new Westin Hotel construction.  I could see bags flying over the fence.  That was the first of several sinking feelings that day.

There was no one to start the timing watches for split timers on the course, so Jan Boylan and I and another helper parked my brown VW Rabbit a block up the course, caught the start, and began racing up the course.  As I got to the excavation, now covered with big metal plates, there were cones in the middle of the street.   I tried to slalom while yelling to get the cones out of the road, but one caught under the Rabbit, and remained there for the entire journey up Central Parkway and back.  The exhaust system continued to burn off the plastic for several weeks. 

I felt better when I returned to the finish area.  The finish line was directly under the skywalk on Walnut.  Jan Boylan and a group of manual timers and bench markers were ready on the Skywalk, and our finish crew was feeling ready.  

Bill Rogers finished first and we were doing fine for about the first 100 finishers.  At about 250, things started backing up.  We just put our heads down and tried to carry on.   At some point I went up to the Skywalk to see how the timers were doing.   Jan said they were having trouble deciding when someone was crossing the line.   I am sure I was my usual impatient self, and asked what was the problem.  Jan pointed my view up Walnut.  It was only then that I realized that there was a single file line of runners stretching as far as I could see up Walnut.   Could things possibly go worse?  Yes. 

At some point the chute area was just crammed, and our system was breaking down.  Unbeknownst to me, one of our helpers grabbed a stack of finish cards and started using them to reduce the backlog.  The problem:  the cards were in series.......A-1, A-2 to A-100, then B-1, B-2 etc.   The helper had grabbed the H series while we were still using C or D.  The result was that many finishers received cards that recorded them behind many hundreds of runners they had beaten to the finish.  This rendered our finish results highly suspect.

When the finish backup finally resolved itself, I was exhausted, and so was everyone else.  But, the problems were just starting.

The finish results were to be keyed in by translating the finish place and the race number into keystrokes, and then entered into the database of the bank computer being used in the 580 Building. The problem was that there were (only) ten data entry persons. Each runner required seven keystrokes followed by the enter key. Then turn to the next card and repeat.   We later calculated that it would have taken the ten data entry clerks a week of non-stop keystrokes to enter all the runner/place data, let alone the times. 

Meanwhile, all of the finishers on a very chilly/windy 40-degree day were camped in the ballroom at the Stouffers (? now Millennium) Hotel.  David Lyman was the MC, and he had some hostile age group runners waiting a very very long time for results.   Meanwhile, we were trying to manually sort out results on the floor of the Southern Ohio (check reference) bank.  It was like finish line bingo..........lets do Women 30-39............anyone with an A card for a runner W-30-39?  A "B" card.   Because the cards had not been passed out in order after a certain point (we were not aware of this at the time), many age group runners we knew or expected to be highly placed were not in our top finishers. They were giving David Lyman the biz at the Awards Ceremony when they were not announced.   "I beat all of those runners!" was a common refrain. 

Epilogue:  Bob MacVeigh and I were so confident going into the race, we were planning to write a book on how to manage races and finish lines.  Afterwards, we finally went to The Precinct after the race for commiseration and some beverages.  I did NOT want to be identified with the race that evening, or for about a month afterwards.  

As it turned out, many runners were race virgins, and had no idea what to expect, so those runners had no idea we had screwed up royally.   They were happy with the runner singlet and the newfound status of "being a runner."  The finish booklet was a real prize, and a keepsake I still have.  And, as Bob Roncker points out, the boom was on.   

Ultimately, some combination of Harold Schuck, Don Connolly and Pat Harrell worked out a multiple chute finish system, which was a good working answer to big fields.   I do not recall the details, but I believe we figured that if more than one runner was finishing a second for 10-15 seconds, the chute would back up and the finish line would be toast.

Some mention of Ann Jones of Alias Smith and Jones, and Tim Shilling, my Xavier classmate and the Heart Association Exec at the time. 

Respectfully submitted but subject to the memory loss from 39 years ago......

Mike Boylan