To our Half Marathon Runners this morning. Our event staff was informed shortly after 5:30am that a drunk driver had crashed into a pole on Treat Blvd above Oak Grove in Concord causing the entire east and southbound traffic to be brought to a complete halt because of downed electrical lines and poles. Our Traffic Mgmt. Company relayed this to us and Immediately we were on the phone with Concord and Walnut Creek PD as well as PG&E to see what could be done to get the street opened back up. To our dismay, we were informed by 6am that the process of opening the lane would be at least another 6 hours. With this information, we had a decision to make: Cancel the event altogether, or go to plan B, which was rerouting the course on to Oak Grove, which was in fact the only route we could take since above Oak Grove was closed down completely. Concord and Walnut Creek PD were in complete agreement since we were so close to the event start time and all of our sponsors and vendors were arriving as well as many of you who traveled to get here. There were many things we had to get into play right away to make this happen but were were able to get everything ready to go with the new course by 6:35am. We want to thank the City of Concord and Walnut Creek PD for being great partners to this event and working with us. We also want to thank Bay Area Traffic Control for their ability to change at a moments notice, but we truly want to apologize to all of you this happening. It was completely out of our control and we made a decision as a staff in the 11th hour. We felt without question that it was the right call to make. We realize we might not have pleased everyone with this decision, but it was what we decided to do based on the circumstances and the time we had to act in. The new course was just short of 10 miles. To our 5K Runners this morning. With the shortened course on the Half, we also had to move up the start of the 5K so that there was plenty of time to get you out on to the course and around Walden Park before the approach of the bulk of Half Marathon Runners ascended into this area. Thank you for working with us and we do realize that with this, it caught you a bit off guard as well. Once again, as a staff we had a decision to make and moving the 5K start time up was the right call. We apologize for any inconvenience we might have caused but we were looking at safety. Of course we want all of you to know that we are so thankful for you making the decision to come to Walnut Creek and to run in our event. We are grateful. While we cannot issue a refund to you for this happening, we will be issuing a reduced registration coupon code to all of our registrants in the early part of 2015 that will give you a time frame to register at this special rate, showing you our commitment to you, hoping that you will join us in 2015 to enjoy what we work so hard on planing for you over the course of several months. Once again, thank you and may your holiday season be a special one. Sincerely, Darryll Whaley, Event Organizer
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 21:30:12 +0000
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