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@oclandscapemj
Chico, CA Raving since 2024 Active 11 months, 2 weeks agoAbout Me
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Organize, track & review your races and personal bests here.
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| Race | Distance | Location | Date | Paid |
|---|
Past Races (1)
| Race | Distance | Location | Date | Result | My Raves | My Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Half Marathon | Half Marathon | San Francisco, CA | Feb 4, 2024 |
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San Francisco Half Marathon
Avoid this one next year?
San Francisco Half Marathon
This was my third straight year doing the Kaiser SF Half. It's February, so you can have all sorts of weather- 2022 was great, 2023 was rainy, and this year … MORE
This was my third straight year doing the Kaiser SF Half. It’s February, so you can have all sorts of weather- 2022 was great, 2023 was rainy, and this year 2024 was very windy with high speed gusts. Did the Blistering Pace race organizers make the right call in cancelling the race? I think so. When running in the park following the cancellation we saw multiple downed trees and several big limbs fell during our run- someone could have gotten hurt.
Like the other reviewers I fault Blistering Pace for poor communication and planning as weather forecasts were very clear what was coming on Sunday. They were having email issues, as I received all the standard pre-race info, but did not get the emails shown on the website in the couple days before race day. Cancelling the race within 1 hour of start led to confusion and put a lot of people out on the roads in less than ideal conditions.
As for “Your medal and race shirt will be mailed to you in the coming weeks. We will be in touch with next steps on the status of your entry” there has been no communication from the organizers two days later. The assumption is no refunds will be given. Fine, read the fine print, etc. etc. But, I don’t have to sign up for your race again if you aren’t going to be clear in communicating and gracious with refunds (such as those who purchased insurance). Race organizers can and should purchase insurance for their events in order to protect their financial interests and the reputation of their event. This is especially true of an event with a major sponsor and an event organizer that claims to work on marathon majors.
There are other SF half marathons including the Zoom Half Marathon in March, the SF Marathon in July and Golden Gate Half Marathon in November- in my next SF race I will give one of these a try instead.
You can read a great article for race directors about how to cancel a race.: https://www.racedirectorshq.com/read/race-cancellation-56/
You’ll notice they way this cancellation was done is the antithesis of the recommendations. Also, KTVU has a good segment about runner’s frustrations with the race: https://www.ktvu.com/news/runners-frustrated-with-sf-half-marathon-organizers-after-event-canceled-last-minute