Rules: More headphone bans coming in marathons

Back on April 10th, I posted an article about the fact that USA Track and Field had adopted a new rule banning headphones in races – and at that time Grandma’s Marathon was the first to announce that they would enforce the ban. Since then, it’s been quiet (no punn intended).

On May 1st, the Napa Valley Marathon became the second race to officially unplug you from your iPod.

In a press release from the event organization, they said: “The Kaiser Permanente Napa Valley Marathon announced today that it has adopted a USA Track & Field (USATF) rule that prohibits the use of personal electronic devices such as portable music players in the competition area of its sanctioned long distance running races. Race organizers said that the Napa Valley Marathon, a sanctioned USATF race, will enforce the rule starting with its 30th annual event scheduled for Sunday, March 2, 2008.”

There hadn’t been much discussion about the reasons behind the rule prior to this. I found that race directors have mostly been supportive of the rule as advancing an important safety interest. But they’ve also been somewhat cool to the idea of actually trying to enforce what will be a very unpopular rule in the early going.

The Napa Valley race organizers went to some length to justify their postion, pointing to the huge increase in the use of music players by runners and to the recent death of a runner in the San Francisco area who was killed by a car while she was wearing earphones.

Race organizers also cited some interesting background from the USATF proceedings that adopted the rule, which said in part “the huge proliferation of MP3 players and other audio devices using headphones by road race participants constitutes a safety hazard.” Then the USATF added, “Many race directors are reluctant to prohibit these devices in their races for fear of losing entrants. A firm prohibition by USATF will make it easier for these
directors to justify bans on these devices in their races.”

“While there have been great advancements in portable music devices, wearing them on the run is simply not the safest choice,” said Jean Knaack, the Executive Director of Road Runners Club of America. “We recommend against their use because they limit a runner’s ability to be aware of their surroundings, especially things going on behind them and in their periphery.”

So, while a tidal wave hasn’t yet arrived, the tide is turning on headphones in races. I think we’ll see more bans soon. I’ll keep you up to date.

You can read my original posting on this topic by clicking here.

Coach Joe

Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also now available on Yahoo! 360 and My Space.