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MichaelBluejay

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From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

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Handcycling and Helmets in the Austin Marathon 2012

Why I raced on a handcycle
Two years ago while training to run the Austin Marathon, I injured my knee.  Since then I haven't been able to run even three blocks, and I'll likely never run again.  It's been tough for me to give up being an athlete and to give up marathoning, but a while back I got the idea to enter the marathon in the Handcycle division.  Most marathons don't have a handcycle division (probably because of the danger of vehicles colliding with runners), but Austin does.  This was my chance to participate in a marathon again.

Equipment
I bought a used Top End XLT bike with 7 gears, because it was 1/3 the cost of a brand-new 27-speed model.  (These bikes are tough to find used.)  I needed lower gearing to be able to handle the 9% ond 10% grade hills in West Austin (Austin is one of the hilliest marathon courses around), so I had Mike Librik from Easy Street Recumbents fit the bike with a James Bond-like internally-geared hub inside the crankset.  You bang the axle of the crankset to switch between the high and low sets of gears.  Anyway, I trained for the last couple of months, and yes, my arms got visibly bigger.

Helmets and Safety
When I picked up my race packet I found that helmets were mandatory.  I called and asked the race officials why helmets were required for the wheeled participants but not the runners (since many of the runners have a much faster average speed than I do).  At first the person said that "It's for the safety of all our participants," (note the "all"), which is silly because literally 99.988% of participants (the ~18,000 runners) wouldn't have that "protection".  The idea of protecting the runners with helmets isn't far-fetched, either, as a few years ago the winning runner of a major marathon in another city slipped as he was running over the finish line, knocked his head, and became unconscious.  He went to the hospital with a concussion.  Anyway, when I pressed for the reason why helmets were required for the wheeled participants but not the runners, they couldn't give me an answer, except that it was "policy".

There was one scary part in the race where a runner nearly ran sideways into my bike when I was screaming down a hill on Exposition.  I probably would have been okay but he would have been mangled or worse.  It gives me a little pause about racing again, because after my own career as a marathon runner was ended, I would hate to be involved with ending someone else's career.  And it seems like the only way to avoid that kind of possible collision is to go super-slow down the hills, which of course obviates the whole point of racing.

I do think, had we collided, he would have needed the helmet more than me.  There's really no way to fall off the handcycle, and it's really hard to flip because because it has a super-low center of gravity, since it's very low to the ground and your feet are out in front of you.  Any of the ~20,000 runners could easily trip and fall to the ground, with their head making a 5-6 foot trip to the pavement.  My head would have half as far to fall, if it were even possible to fall.

So I can't blame other races for banning handcycles because for fear of runners and wheelers colliding.  Keeping wheeled vehicles off the course certainly does a lot more for safety than making the wheeled participants wear helmets, which does essentially nothing.

Results
Last year there were three handcyclists, with finish times around 2:30, 2:30, and 10:00.  This year I was the only one, meaning that if I could finish, I'd win, which is why the media reported me as the winner of the handcycle division.  KVUE's report didn't mention that I was the only entrant.  My time was 3:04, so had I raced last year with the same time, I would have been 3rd out of 4, but this year I'm the "winner", and apparently more important to list on the TV news than the half-marathon *running* winners.

Also, KVUE said that I won the "Wheelchair" division, which is actually a separate category from handcycles.  (Racing wheelchairs are propelled by pushing the wheels directly, direct-drive style, and are either two or three wheels.  By contrast, a handcycle has a hand-powered crank which drives a chain and gear system just like a bicycle; it's always three wheels.  Both flavors have brakes, too.)  This year the only wheelchair entrant was a woman who entered the half marathon, not the full.  Both of us got to start at 6:55am, five minutes before the runners started.  Handcycles are faster than wheelchairs so I zoomed ahead, solo, until the three bicycle escorts joined me a couple of blocks later.  So it was just me and the escorts for the first couple of miles, quite strangely, until the runners caught up with me as I did the slow trudge up S. 1st to Ben White.

Incredible support
I had three bicycle escorts for the whole race, affording me a ridiculously high level of sag-to-rider support.  They cleared a path for me through the runners, got water for me at the stations (since it was really hard for me to navigate in and out), and carried my bag for me, since it kept falling off my bike.  With three cyclists taking care of me, it was a really pampered experience.  They had to drop off right before the finish line, and so I wasn't able to get their contact info to thank them properly afterward, even though I thanked them during the race.  (If anyone knows Steve White, his wife, or the third biker, please let them know I'm looking for them.)

Comparison to running
Handcycling the Austin Marathon is nothing at all like running it.  First, when you run, it's hard the whole way.  I know that from experience because I nearly died at Mile 25 when running a marathon in Japan and was nearly unable to finish even though I had only a mile to go.  But handcycling the Austin course, it's really only a 19.5-mile race, because once you get to 19.5, it's pretty much downhill after that and so it's easy.  Also, doing the hilly Austin course on a handcycle means that the uphill parts are tortuously difficult, while the downhill parts are way too easy.  You don't get the consistency of difficulty you'd get by running.

Conclusion
Anyway, riding the handcycle allowed me to participate in a marathon again when I thought I'd never be able to.  That was deeply important to me.  That would have been enough, but the experience was enhanced by the fantastic support I got from the three bicycle escorts.  And then the icing on the cake was that I "won".  I'm a little annoyed at the double-standard of the helmet requirement for wheelers but not runners (especially as that helps to perpetuate the myths that (1) all kinds of bicycling are exceptionally dangerous and (2) helmets are effective for all kinds of cycling), but I'm still exceptionally grateful to the organizers for giving me the opportunity to live my dream again, and to the bike escorts for helping me through it.

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Re: Handcycling and Helmets in the Austin Marathon 2012

Here's some (embarrassing) video of my effort, so you can see what handcycling looks like.  It's the second video on the page.  It's when I'm crawling up the hill on South 1st, with the runners zooming past me.

http://www2.brightroom.com/email/96808/430/128717761

The videos (and pics) of the finish don't show my actual finish, because the media company didn't realize that I started five minutes before the runners, so even though my finish was 3:04, I crossed the finish line at 2:59.

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Re: Handcycling and Helmets in the Austin Marathon 2012

The Austin marathon has adopted some sort of national standard ruleset which means that they're no longer allowing handcycles.  There are a handful (no pun intended) of marathons in the U.S. which still do allow handcycles, but all of them are well over 1000 miles away.