im writing this as my first DNF in an event.
Overall, the event excelled in delivering a great selection of events and did it very well. Not least in the shadow of Mondays attack in Manchester.
ive been setting over a niggling injury which sadly decided to jump in the car with me to the race today.
the route, as much as I saw took you through some fantastic landmarks in and around Liverpool. Aid stations were well organised and the support on the route was excellent.
as I've mentioned, by mile 9 my injury was making itself known and I decided to see how things went knowing I'd be passing the start/finish area shortly. As I did I realised I needed to retire from the race.
this is where my concern came in as it's not a situation I've encountered before. So trying to find out who to tell was the first challenge. In fact I spoke to the 'solutions ' booth who seemed a bit surprised but were happy to take my details. I was advised to visit the first aid team, yet none of the marshals I spoke to seemed to know where that was. I was vaguely pointed in the right direction but that was hit and miss. And to be honest, I had more idea about addressing the problem than the medic I spoke too!
Lots of things done right, but this aspect of safety concerned me.
a final gripe- why is the event so expensive especially with no deferrals, transfers or refunds? The bibs weren't sent off to be printed before May and it's an online booking system, so it's not a difficult thing to do before that date. I transferred my number to a colleague from another race in order to run in Liverpool which they were fine about as long as it was updated before their cut off. As for the overall cost, one only needs to look at London to see it can be done at a reasonable cost.