The Brooklyn Half, scheduled for April 26, has been postponed indefinitely.
A notice that was posted on the NYRR site earlier today (since pulled down), said the following:
"Due to concerns in the Brooklyn community, the date of the 2008 NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix Presented by Continental Airlines: Brooklyn will be changed from Saturday, April 26, to an as yet undetermined date. At present, we are no longer accepting registrations for this event. If you have already registered for this race, you will be given several options in response to this change; you will receive an e-mail shortly with the new date and particulars of these options. Stay tuned."
While the notice is no longer on the site - in fact, everything looks hunky-dory if you go to the Brooklyn Half information page - a separate query confirmed the race won't be held on April 26, at least at this point.
Lot of questions here, none of them with great answers:
-- Why was it postponed? Was it a Passover conflict? A problem with the Parks department? Issues involving the size of the race? Right now, it's all speculation.
-- When will it be rescheduled? At this date, it could be problematic. Not only has NYRR unveiled its schedule of races for the year (though many can be changed, especially in the second half of the year), you've also got scheduled conflicts involving both Coney Island and Prospect Park. And creating travel headaches to get to Coney Island in the summer is not a way to win more friends "within the Brooklyn community."
-- What race alternatives do I have? I feel for the JackRabbit group that is specifically training for this race, as well as the numerous people out there who have been focusing on this race -- Brooklyn's largest. I'll try to pull together some worthwhile alternatives for folk hoping to pound out a good long-distance race.
-- Could it still be held April 26? Until we know the reasons why the race date is being changed, it's hard to know if the decision will be reversed.
More information on this as it becomes available.
1 comment:
If "the Brooklyn community" is code for the Orthodox community which was probably objecting to this event occurring on the 8th day of Passover (which is a holiday beyond an ordinary shabbat), NYRR could do what they did in previous years when they couldn't get Ocean Pkwy et al., and have it be four loops of the Park.
We all noticed this the day the date was posted. Why didn't they?
Having this race during the summer, when the area is packed with beachgoers, would be unpleasant, beyond the heat issues for any summer race, and also the fact that most of the course is unshaded.
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