LA Marathon Moving Dates?

Bad idea! That seems to be the public consensus behind the new owner's of the L.A. Marathon's decision to push the marathon from March to May. This is the 2nd time the L.A. Marathon is moving in the last year. The first planned move to President's Day (February 16, 2009) fizzled because that day is a Monday and not many people have it off. So, the new owners decided to move the marathon to Memorial Day (Monday, May 25, 2009). Problem solved, right? Wrong!

As the message boards in a couple of LA Times articles (click here and here) show, people are not happy with this move. People are concerned about a couple of things, namely the hotter weather (a 10+ degree difference from March to May), the fact that not all people have Memorial Day off, and the increased traffic due to holiday travel plans. People liked the Sunday schedule. Here are a couple of snippets from some of the comments posted:

...ultimate in stupid decisions...
...it's already too hot to run the marathon in early March...
...L.A. lost football, I guess L.A. will now loose a marathon...

Reading the stories printed in the local newspapers show that it is not entirely the fault of the new owners. There are some city authorities who asked (demanded?) that the marathon be moved from it's Sunday home. The new owners, Frank McCourt who also owns the Dodgers, therefore tried to find a Monday that would work for everyone.

Regardless of who is to blame, moving the marathon farther up than it's previous March date is a bad, bad, bad idea! If L.A. officials will really not allow a marathon on a Sunday, how about shooting for a Saturday or even if needed, move to winter instead of spring. These may not be the best suggestions, but L.A. deserves a 'cool' marathon. Let's learn form the Chicago debacle and give L.A. a safe marathon.