US Track and Field Association to amateur runners: “Get the fuck out.”

The USA Track and Field Association discovers a great way to reduce the nagging popularity of their sport:

“USA Track & Field, competitive running's governing body, approved a rule last December that prohibits runners from using headphones in races it sanctions. Although the ban arose from practical concerns about safety and liability, it raises philosophical questions about how runners define themselves.” According to the Boston Globe

What a great way for running's governing body to encourage people to spend their time and money on another sport. But what really got our attention was this line:

“Collyer -- who directs the Jerry Garcia race through the Road Runners Club of America, not USATF -- is sticking with discouraging headphones.”

There’s a Jerry Garcia memorial road race? Yup. That’s how you choose to remember Garcia, by naming a road race after him? A hot dog eating contest, maybe. But a road race? We don’t think so.

Missing from the article is any information about how much of a safety problem this is. How many runners are injured in road races every ear? Is it on the increase? Decrease? iPods were launched 6 years ago; what’s been the trend in running/jogging accidents since? Are drivers or pedestrians complaining abut inattentive runners?

Also- does this mean deaf people can no longer enter any of these races?

Disclosure: One of the Ten is a competitive marathoner, and he doesn't use headphones when he runs (or an iPod. He may still have an actual Walkman.) As for the author of this post, on those rare days when we run, it’s also without headphones. The music’s too distracting. But then, before we left Boston, we usually ran alone, at night thru the Back Bay. We needed to hear traffic, the people, and, most importantly, that guy on the trike yelling “Mooooooooooooooove! Moooooooooooooove!” who barrels down the sidewalk at 8 MPH. But in a sanctioned UST&F road race, surrounded by hundreds of other runners all going in the same direction, along a pre-configured and well marked route? Probably not such a big deal.

Here’s the heart of the problem, in our ignorant and ill-informed opinion: This is really about the hard core runners who are miffed at all the slobs suddenly flocking to their sport and clogging all their lanes.

We noticed the same thing come up when we were researching the sport of surfing this past winner. Thirty-odd years ago, when it was a small subculture, there were lots of laments from surfers that theirs was the best way to live, and what a great place the world would be if everybody just surfed. Now, 30 years later, everybody does surf, and pick up any surfing mag and there is at least one article or letter to the editor complaining about how the suburban corporate drones and other newcomers flocking to the beaches with their new surfboards are ruining what used to be a “pure” sport.

This is about too many recreational runners clogging the field, pure and simple. Easiest way to get rid of them is to get rid of the earphones, so there you have it.

We ran the Corporate Challenge a few years ago, and we were disgusted with what we saw at the first mile of the race, when hard–core runners shoved their way past the rest of the runners. They were throwing elbows, and pushing and stepping on people. In a fucking recreational, team-building 5K race that was marketed to amateur runners. So we shake our fists at USA Track and Field - if you want to continue to close down public streets, and clog our neighborhoods with hundreds of runners, then suck it up and let the gearheads in.

But maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume this really is about safety. Fine. You want to improve the safety of both the runners and bystanders? Forget worrying about the headphones, how about banning police motorcycles?


Photo via Flickr.com