Opinion
Finding a way When all major events in Germany were banned at the beginning of April until the end of August we were still confident that we could come through with the race on 13 September. We thought September was still so far away that our race wouldn’t be affected. But when the ban was extended until the end of October we became nervous.
Günther Vogl explains how the Altötting Half Marathon scaled down its operations to keep its place on the 2020 race calendar
We developed a concept to make it possible to hold a smaller race. In a conversation with the local health authorities the concept and the hygiene plan were conceived, coordinated and finally accepted. One of our advantages is that our race route leads through the forest and that means that we get hardly any spectators. A limit of 1000 participants was agreed. There are of course a lot of additional restrictions and rules that we had to observe. Our aim was to give the runners an opportunity to test themselves and get results on a certified course. Many thousands of medals and participant gifts (a towel with a photo print on it) were ordered for the race as usual without the year 2020 on them. That made it possible for us to use them next year (2021 will be printed on the ribbon of the medal). For this year we will order different medals – and only 1000 of them. This way we can save money and do not have to throw away thousands of medals. We are fortunate that our sponsors have remained loyal to us. There were additional expenses such as for masks, hygiene items and postage fees for sending out the start documents and start number (which participants normally pick up at the race office the day before or on the day of competition). Our detailed 14-page hygiene-concept convinced the authorities. The 1000 limit was far lower than the 3000 participants in 2019 but it was still the biggest running event in Germany since covid restrictions were put in place.
Everything was different from the previous events. To avoid contact with participants start-numbers had to be sent by post. No late registrations were allowed. The children’s race had to be cancelled. Neither victory ceremonies nor showers were allowed. We had to change the start and finish locations to a large parking and festival area. Participants had to run the first and the last 1.5km on a bike path which
connects the city with the forest in in which the rest of the race is run. We had to start a few runners at a time every 3-4 seconds. Participants had to wear masks before the race and maintain 1.5m separation between each other – which was controlled by several volunteers. On the course they could run without a mask and there were no limits as to distancing Distance Running | 2020 Edition 4
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