Tragic 21-km run

The Cebu running community is in mourning following the death of a runner during the Cebu leg of the 21-kilometer 7-Eleven 2023 Marathon last Sunday. The runner was a policeman, identified as Patrolman Lee Rodrocks Carbonilla, who was described as seemingly fit at the young age of 31. That’s why his death due to an “acute decompensated heart failure” came as a shock to many.

The incident also raised concerns about the safety of the CCLEX as a route for any running event. Cebu’s third bridge spans 8.9 kilometers which requires an uphill run up to several kilometers, and which also entails long running stretches without people or monitoring stations that can immediately provide assistance in case of emergency.

We understand the objective of the organizers in holding marathon events at the CCLEX. The bridge is a beautiful attraction and thus serves as come-on for professional and amateur runners looking for a challenging route or an “instagrammable” or social media-worthy place to unlock their fitness goals.

Despite our best efforts, accidents still do happen owing to factors we cannot foresee or have control over. However, this tragic death of a seemingly-fit runner should serve as a lesson for organizers and participants alike to re-examine their safety guide for organizing and participating in marathons.

Runners are responsible to look after their own health and keep themselves in shape for the run. Organizers, on the other hand, can do more to minimize the risk factors. Adequate safeguards to protect the runners, especially the amateur runners, must also include an assessment of the route’s slope, wind speed and direction, and relative humidity. A bridge spanning several kilometers, entailing long running stretches away from the usual crowd of onlookers as well as monitoring stations, should immediately raise a red flag.

Now there are suggestions that the city council should pass legislation to regulate marathon events in the city in light of this tragic incident. A friend of mine posted in social media that legislation must “provide specific guidelines and requirements on who are only qualified and allowed to join the event” as well as clearly lay down the accountability of organizers should any untoward incident happen during the event.

It may be proper to examine present guidelines and possible responsive legislation regarding marathon events. However, we must also guard against overregulation that may lead to more layers in the bureaucracy and the eventual stifling of civic and commercial initiatives to promote health and fitness as well as tourism in the community.

What is good for our runners can be settled by a community of civic-minded people who are looking out for the safety and well-being of each other. It need not involve legislation or any formal system that will just add up another layer of restrictions, limitations, and so forth.

Let’s be careful with legislation because it is not the solution to every problem and may even cause another problem. A foreigner client of mine once complained to me about the red tape and bureaucracy in our government. I told him the following story: Once upon a time there were scandals, tragic incidents, and incidence of people cheating the government. So we figured out that the solution to all these was to put layers upon layers of preventive measures. For every bad incident, we put another layer of restriction. Somebody steals from government dole-outs? No problem; let’s require two valid IDs, and an affidavit, and a barangay certification.

All these reactive laws and regulations choke honest citizens like you and me stifling our initiative and innovation, while cheats and liars figure out a way to beat the system.