I happen to think that Mayor Bloomberg should have canceled the marathon. In addition to the very serious humanitarian considerations, I think there are huge risks, both for the city, and for the New York Road Runners - it's probably 50/50 how this event ultimately goes off. However, I'm open-minded enough to realize that, as an elected official, he also has to balance the long-term economic considerations to the city as a whole, which come to hundreds of millions of dollars, a lot of which goes to small businesses along the route, many of whom have been impacted by the storm. Not everything is as black and white as you make it out to be.

Also, if you are going to cast such broad-stroke aspersions about Mary Wittenberg, then you should probably know a bit more about what you're talking before you do so. You're often one to call into question others' qualifications to comment about various topics in this forum, so I'll tell you that I happen to know quite a bit about the NYC Marathon, the NYRR organization, the sport of running, and Mary Wittenberg's impact on all of them. And that's from 25 years of first-hand experience, not from seeing a few recent newsclips or reading a couple articles.


"She's all about the money," you say.

Except that NYRR is a non-profit organization.

Except that Mary Wittenberg took a >50% paycut (she was a partner in her law firm) to join the NYRR as Allan Steinfeld's #2 back in 1998. Because of her success, her salary is now back up to that level...14 years later.


But perhaps you are right, it is about the money.

Since she became CEO of the NYRR in 2005, the economic impact of the marathon on New York City has increased 36% to $340M in 2011.

Since she became CEO of the NYRR in 2005, charitable fundraising based on the marathon has tripled to $34M in 2011.

Since she became CEO of the NYRR in 2005, the amount of money provided to childrens' running programs in NYC has quadrupled to $5.6M, and the number of NYC children reached by those programs has increased nearly 10-fold to 112,000 in 2011.


No, she's not Fred Lebow. And the NYRR is no longer a small club of hard-core runners who put in 100-mile weeks. It's a huge organization that has had a national and worldwide impact in promoting the sport and its health benefits. Nearly 14M people ran road races in the US last year, nearly triple the number that ran during Fred's tenure (with over 6 times the number of women). Yes, there are locals who are bitter it about and yearn for the good old days (when they could only afford one running shoe and had to switch feet between strides), but on balance, Mary Wittenberg has had a tremendous positive impact on the NYC marathon, the NYRR, the sport, and as a result, on the city itself. Oh, and let's not forget that her fiduciary responsibility is, in fact, to the NYRR.