Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 111, October 2018 | Page 26

OUT OF
THE By BOX
Norrie Williamson
Brought to you by B4 Play Products
RUNNING WORLD GOING GREENER
The worldwide concern over single-use plastic is a spiralling issue that has long been acknowledged by runners, but
presents race organisers with challenges in terms of practical and viable solutions.
Steps such as these reduce
the plastic use, but what
about trees, and the carbon
footprint of manufacture?
At the finish the drinks are
provided in a separate area
where runners can pour their
own water from large plastic
‘cool-box’ type storage
kegs, and the drinks sponsor
provides its rehydration in
small Tetra packs which can
be recycled. The culture in
India means that this can
be in the open as people understand, and respect that these resources are for
the runners and not the supporters. Would such a system work in South Africa?
Possibly, as long as the fenced off section was long enough after the finish line to
prevent a back-up of runners across the finish line.
allow for the distance between stations to be longer than 5km, and the fact is that
exertion-initiated heat stroke is the biggest medical challenge in the vast majority of
mass participation events.
Currently the ‘favoured’ option is to provide 350-500ml bottles at those regular
intervals. Even in temperate London it is every 1.6km, with additional Lucozade
stations for energy. That’s about 1.2 million bottles, but most importantly, its around
1.2 million small plastic caps! It is the caps from these bottles that tend to escape
the clean-up team.
On that note, the cleaning teams in first world countries tend to be more thorough.
Within 30 minutes of the prize-giving after the Minsk Half Marathon in Belarus, five
tractor-trailer combinations lined up with four street-cleaning and brush machines,
and toured the streets as an army of clean-up team moved into the start/finish
area. Three hours later there was little evidence to be seen of the race, and those
few remaining bits of celebratory confetti shot into the air were uncovered and
removed by the daily cleaning service in what is a spotless city.
WATER ON THE GO
In the Chembur 10km held in Mumbai, India, the organisers went a step further by
manufacturing small unglazed clay bowls
as water ‘cups.’ These are completely
recyclable, but only work effectively for
small numbers in a race – and were less
practical for the elite runners speeding
by. That’s part of the worldwide challenge
to solve the water table question: How
to provide each runner with around 150-
200ml of water at regular intervals of 1.5km
to 5km, depending on humidity, heat, and
prevailing culture. The IAAF rules do not
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ISSUE 111 OCTOBER 2018 / www.modernathlete.co.za
The major advantage of a city marathon is the hard surfaces, which makes
collection easy, and this is also assisted by a culture that endemically scorns litter.
The challenges in rural and developing countries is oft