Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "The Deadly 62-mile Marathon That Killed 21 Runners" video.

It took all of that for you to realise you're responsible for yourself and your own safety? You can have all the regulation and safety measures on the world, but things can always go wrong and you're always responsible for your own safety.
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@MexicanTeTe What you have just stated is entirely false. In ones younger day I participated in sporting events at a national level, and continue to participate in sporting events to this day; including such endurance marathons and orienteering competitions. I live in Australia and have first hand experience of one of the events you listed. Every entry form for any such event makes clear that the organiser is not responsible for your safety and you participate at your own risk. That is indeed true for such competitions even at an open amateur level such as fun run obstacle courses (eg. simple colour runs or those involving mud) Heck, those disclaimers even appear on the sign on sheets for kids sport and school excursions. Any expectation you had that others are somehow responsible for YOUR safety is entirely your own, unreasonable and misguided at best. All of the runners in the event this video is about had cold weather gear, food and survival essentials. All of them. That gear however was in their backpacks which organisers ferried to check point 6 with the expectation that gear would not be required until later in the event. P.S. For the record, genuinely pushing ones self to the extreme is indistinguishable from fighting for survival. That is particularly the case in the context of a cross terrain endurance marathon where the entire point of the event is to mix survivalist & camping elements into a marathon. There is no moment in your entire life where the responsibility for your safety genuinely belongs to someone else. It is ALWAYS your responsibility. Every event participant has the ability to monitor the weather and pull themselves from competition if they believe conditions to be unsafe, or to prepare appropriately for changed conditions at the event. Edit: Fixed typos
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@MexicanTeTe Mate your total ignorance to this subject when partnered with your insistence to defend an equally ignorant and poorly conceived opinion is making you look foolish. You can sit there and rant nonsense all day, however it won't ever become anything more than nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about. The first line of your last comment is objectively absurd. Be quite until you get a clue
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@deleqtronica8733 When did I say anything about safety regulations?
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@nasar1262 False. I did not at any stage say duty of care did not exist, nor did I say a waiver eliminates duty of care. But duty of care has limitations, and those limitations change depending on the specific event/what was advertised. So if you're running in an event like the NY Marathon where everything takes place in a man made environment, where runners can't carry bags and all elements of the race are under the control of organisers, the duty of care liability is very different than an extreme endurance race like say a cross country desert orienteering race where checkpoints may be 14-28 hours apart. You would expect water to be provided in the former, you would expect to have to carry your own water in the later. They're very different kinds of events. These kinds of extreme endurance events are by nature inherently dangerous, that's their biggest drawcard. There are far too many variables at play to make these events genuinely safe, nor would any participant want them to be. So yes, duty of care exists but it doesn't change the requirement of personal responsibility. The whole point of the waivers is to make the limitations of duty of care clear, and they absolutely are legally binding waivers. It is very common for endurance events to require participants to carry a PLB. This ensures that if something happens (and there's always at least some people who have an emergency event) they can be easily located and rescued. Event organisers will often contribute to rescue costs to a certain amount per individual or a fixed percentage. This is also spelt out in the terms of entry. Whilst the organiser of the event this video was about had no business running such an event, they were not liable for under duty of care nor found legally accountable for many of the factors which led to the disaster. Continuing the race despite the weather is not a violation of duty of care, participants have access to (and of this calibre are almost certainly actively monitoring) weather reports. The ability to have your bag ferried to check point 6 was optional. Dress on the start line was at the discretion of the participant. The organiser should have insisted that all participants carry a PLB, however not having such a mandate given the relatively short course wouldn't violate duty of care. What they did get in trouble for was how they handled the situation once they were alerted, and the inadequacy of their emergency planning. They really were novices. But experienced participants should have known to keep their bag with them, or at very least to carry water and given the weather forecast to carry a pocket pullover. Doing so would have saved their lives, as would even one of them having had a PLB to alert rescuers sooner.
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@Krystalmyth o.O I'm not convinced you even know what the words you're saying mean. Certainly you have demonstrated an ignorance to the subject matter along with a misunderstanding of risk. Your desire to shed yourself of personal responsibility is highly disturbing. Sure, there is a level of risk involved in taking mass transport and yes you are not physically piloting the vehicle. However this does not absolve you of any accountability for personal safety. You do not become a mindless drone upon entering mass transport, nor do you go in naive to the risks involved. You weigh the risks and make a decision about what you will or won't take with you, where you might sit/stand, what you might do during the journey and perhaps most essential whether you utilise mass transport or not in a given scenario, and if so what type. If you found out that it's your pilot's first time flying and the copilot has only even flown small aircraft you may (rightly) rethink your travel plans. However, mass transport is a false comparison with something like extreme endurance marathons, survival scenarios (competitive or otherwise) or even through hikes. These are situations where the participant is alone in the truist sense of the word. When you're done being a keyboard warrior, perhaps you might see fit to tell me whom do you expect is looking out for you when it's just you and your skills? When that is the entire point of the situation? It's like expecting someone else is responsible for your rigging during a sky dive, or that someone else has to save you during your drop if your rigging doesn't perform. That's not how any of that works. In an extreme endurance marathon you're going into hostile environments on purpose, you're showing off your skills and competing on them. Weather can, and often does, change rapidly in these competitions. Monitoring weather, both forecasts and conditions live on the ground is an integral part of the competition. There are check points but no defined track, there is an element of orienteering involved. Mid pack participants may be near each other and able to work together if conditions turn poor, but those on the extremities and those taking alternative routes are completely alone. What this event did was provide a harsh reminder to the community (which again I am a member of) that you should not allow yourself to be separated from your gear, or at very least you must always remain vigilant. To put this back into the context of something you might understand, because it's clear you've never been involved in any kind of extreme activity. It's like walking down the street naked and blaming someone else that you got arrest. Or like driving your car while drunk then blaming police because you got into an accident. These competitions aren't like the Boston or London marathons where anyone can be involved regardless of skill, where everything is highly controlled/monitored and worst case scenario you can stop at starbucks. These are elite, invitation only events where everyone involved knows what they're doing and is very good at it. A certain lack of safety and an emphasis on personal responsibility is the entire point of the competition.
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@severalwolves what?
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@GypsyGirl317 Again it's important to remember this isn't an ordinary marathon we're talking about. It's invitation only, all participants are elite survivalists. Imagine a field of bear grylls clones if he actually knew what he was talking about. The marathon is purposefully designed to test survival skills along the way, and has less on common with a marathon as most people understand it and more in common with an extreme orienteering competition. I mean how many traditional marathons have you been to where competitors carry a flint and steel, a camp stove and a tent? That's in those backpacks that were transported. Participants were offered to have their packs taken ahead to checkpoint 6 where most participants would have reached by the evening. They needed their packs for the evening because they held their food, cooking supplies and sleeping supplies. They were told exactly where they were being taken to and it was only an option not mandatory. Not all participants in this competition gave up all of their gear, and those participants faired well, the video just didn't talk about them much because it wouldn't suit the narrative. The participants whom gave up their gear didn't go into it blind, they agreed first hand with the weather assessment. Taking the gear to gate 2 or 3 would have been pointless. They were relatively close gates and the entire point of transversing the gear was to save on weight. It's a competitive advantage. Marathons with open participation have people all over the place because they have to account for runners of all skill levels, ages and personalities. When you get into elite competition you've got a pretty homogeneous pack of participants . They're all highly skilled, experienced and knowledgeable people, in a narrow age band with similar personalities. Think of it like a triathlon. When it's open to everyone you have boats out in the water, safety staff everywhere because you just don't know what everyone is capable of. When you have a triathlon in the Olympics the boats are on the shore and the significantly smaller group of safety staff don't expect to be utilised. Elite groups of athletes don't tend to have injuries and make poor decisions during a competition at the same rate as general population. That's in part why it's so important to recognise that these athletes made a huge mistake in giving away all of their gear to gate 6. If there's a safety lesson to be taken away from this event, that's it. Always keep your just in case essentials on you during an extreme marathon, you're still light enough to gain competitive advantage. That does not mean the organisers did nothing wrong. They absolutely did and I have never said otherwise. They should have had an experienced team and an evac plan in place. It's really their main job when holding such an event and that they ignored it was a major failing. But this idea that your safety is someone elses problem always gets people hurt. Always. No one cares about you as much as you do. Your safety is your problem no matter how much safety an event organiser or a government might put in place. To ignore that basic requirement is to ask for harm to befall you.
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@MexicanTeTe 🤦 You didn't even understand what we've been saying to you. Yes, you're the foolish one and your last comment demonstrated that further.
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@someguy782 Tough guy? No mate. It's just how things are.
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@peterf.229 🤦
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