THE RACE MUST GO ON UNLESS WEATHER DICTATES OTHERWISE
Most Thursday mornings during racing season Mark Zenobia of On Your Mark Productions is at his computer checking several online weather websites. In his business of organizing road races and other outdoor events, he has to know what to expect on race day.
Zenobia recalled the Kilometers for Karyn in West Orange a few years ago. West Orange High School where the race was being held has instruments mounted on the building to detect lightning. It went off about ten minutes after the race had started.
"If it detects a certain amount of lightning within a certain amount of time and at certain time intervals, it will send out a shriek that is so loud it is unbelievable," said Zenobia.
"Here I am. The race is half over. My leader is probably at the two mile mark, and everyone else is out there," he said.
"I called my course managers and the police and told everyone to tell the runners the race is done, canceled," said Zenobia. "That's a liability thing, because you have to tell people to get under cover."
But the most memorable was the ITC triathlon that takes place in Mount Olive every September. A hurricane had hit south of New Jersey and was heading up the coast.
Zenobia had been looking at this weather system for days and still trying to guess if or when it was going to hit Morris County.
When it did hit on Friday, it didn't appear to be bad. Zenobia told people that the event would be held, although it might be rained on. That was the only expectation. Saturday morning there was a steady rain, but nothing torrential. The field where the event is staged was wet and it was wet inside the several tents.
"All of the tents had been constructed that Wednesday, so we were in complete build-up. We had the whole "city" built," he said.
Sunday morning the wind began to come up. Zenobia called over to his staff person at Budd Lake where the canoe portion is competed. She described the scene and how bad the lake was and how bad the roil with the canoes being blown about.
Just as Zenobia was about to consult with the police lieutenant about the conditions he looked out from the tent he was in. At that moment a twenty by thirty tent imploded.
"A gust of wind came in, lifted it up and had it on the ground in three seconds," said Zenobia. "The tent was on the ground flat."
Twenty seconds later, the lieutenant came on the phone and the event was canceled.
"We got some heat because people drove all the way," said Zenobia. "But you know I held up as long as I could. Most people said I did the right thing, but you're never a hero there."
Zenobia recalled a race in 2006 with a cold soaking rain.
"It was raining like crazy," he said. "A lot of pre-registereds stayed home but 64 people came and registered that morning!"
"In more cases than not the race will go on," said Zenobia. "That's why we say 'rain or shine'. This is not tidily winks. Runners run in rain."
Zenobia points out that 90 % of the races are non profit. They can't do the race again.
"First of all the calendar is too full and all your vendors are gone," he said. "You have paid a lot of your bills. That was the problem with the ITC Tri. We had spent every dime."
"We had spent nine thousand dollars on tents," said Zenobia. "Were we going to spend another nine thousand? We didn't have it."
Zenobia recalled the 2003 Sunset Classic that takes place in Bloomfield on a June evening. "The pressure on me was the most pressure I ever had at a road race," said Zenobia. "Here I had seven, eight hundred people there. Every one of them wants to run. The rain was not heavy. It was intermittent. But there was lightning in the area."
Because Zenobia does a race at Teterboro Airport, he knew the men in the airport tower. He called them every five minutes to find out where the lightning was. The rain began to come down harder as the runners walked up Broad Street to the start.
"I bring them up to the start and I'm still talking on my cell phone to the tower," he said. "Five minutes before the start I find out where it [the lightning] was and I make a value judgment to go ahead. We started about five minutes late but we had the race and the lightning never came to us."
"What I have to do is weigh - somewhat equally - the interest of the client and the athlete. That's what I do," said Zenobia. "I confer with police. I confer with the client. I confer with people whose judgment I respect."
Zenobia counts his blessings that with all of the 450 or so races he has been involved with nearly all of them went off as planned.
Originally published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey on Sunday, April 29, 2007
Copyright, Madeline Bost, 2007
