Nickel: Why was a Milwaukee marathon being attempted in March? The race director says there were several reasons.

Why was Milwaukee trying to hold a marathon in March, anyway?

And why was it canceled when the roads looked like they would be fine on Sunday?

Milwaukee Marathon’s newest race director, Chip Hazewski, made the decision to cancel the Milwaukee Marathon Saturday morning, 21 hours before the starting gun. On Saturday afternoon, he answered several questions.

Nickel: Was this the final straw? The Milwaukee Marathon has been canceled. Again.

First, a refresher: There are two major marathons in the city that draw thousands of runners in a normal year. And two other smaller marathons in Milwaukee and the suburbs. And two big marathons nearby, in Green Bay and Kenosha. And other smaller marathons within a two-hour drive from Milwaukee.

Yeah, it's confusing.

The Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon, the longstanding marathon that has been running since 1981 (except for 2020 and 2022) is the first weekend in October. It is usually a Grafton to Milwaukee run, although construction has messed up the route (that’s another story).

The Wisconsin Marathon is a longstanding marathon usually the first weekend in May. That’s a run in Kenosha, which is less than an hour drive from Milwaukee.

Brew City is having races April 22, and they have a full marathon distance now, as well as a half marathon, 10K and 5K. (This race had a half marathon as its longest distance in 2019). And Silver Circle Sports Events has the Non-Cancelled Marathon in late April, too. Cellcom Marathon in Green Bay is also in May.

Now, the Milwaukee Marathon (hang in here with me) is the newest of the big marathon races – the ones that aim to be USATF certified courses and Boston Marathon qualifiers – and it's the most troubled. It was introduced in 2015 with the goal of being a competitive race, a national and international draw for elite and world-class runners, as well as a running festival for all other levels. The vision for the race then was to have it entirely within the streets of the city of Milwaukee, which made it unique. It has boasted as many as 4,000 combined participants one year, and even this year drew 1,000 registrants between the half marathon and the 5K distances, which were just announced a month and a half ago.

Please keep all that in mind while reading the new race director's comments below. The Milwaukee Marathon has tried to shoehorn its way into a small but dedicated and active upper Midwest running community, with race dates first in November, and then April, trying to find a place on the calendar that doesn’t compete with the other established and even newer marathons.

But as you can see, that calendar is pretty full, and Wisconsin weather means the running calendar is small.

The Milwaukee Marathon has been a hot mess though from the word go, first with a couple of measuring mistakes by course-markers, several ownership and race director changes and then just a curse of bad luck lately.

Like the 13-inch snowstorm that hit Saturday. It meant Hazewski, who is based out of Denver and is the fourth director of this young race, had to make the call: cancel it.

I’m grateful Hazewski – from Ventures Endurance – returned my call. Ventures Endurance, which puts on marathons and other events around the country, is owned by Gannett, the parent company of the USA TODAY NETWORK. The Journal Sentinel is part of a separate division in the company. Here is what he had to say:

I was honestly wondering how you're doing; it seems like I’ve called so many race directors with tough days like this. Are you holding out OK?

Hazewski: Yeah, I've been a part of other cancellations for other events. Definitely – this is the first for snow. I mean, obviously, we knew it was a possibility at the end of March, but didn't didn't expect it to be like this.

It does happen; it's happened for us as late as April 20, to get a foot of snow. In 2008 we had a blizzard too. We never put our skis away until after Easter so my heart broke when I saw the email message to cancel go out; welcome to Wisconsin, Chip.

Hazewski: It's a gut punch just because all the planning that went into it, and especially with the race not having happened since 2019. But for the safety of the runners, volunteers and everyone else involved it was the right decision.

People are asking, well, the snowstorm will be over by Sunday morning. What's the problem? But, there's ice. There's tons of clearing out that has to be done. You can't predict the next 12 hours; weather and predictions change all the time. But let me ask you, what were the factors that were considered when you canceled?

Hazewski: Waking up this morning (Saturday) I was looking at my hotel window and a car accident in front of our hotel. So the concern was: One, people just getting to packet pickup today. We didn't want to ask people to come drive through these conditions to get their packet. And also, in terms of when you want to cancel – you want to give people as much notice as possible. It would be unfair to the runners to say, ‘Come get your packet’ Saturday and then decide to cancel it later Saturday night.

Also, like you said, the temperatures were to dip down before race start, being in the mid 20s. There might be clearing on the streets from the plows. But we don't know where ice patches are. And then on top of the runners, we have volunteers that we rely on, as well as our staff and crew that are out there. We wanted to keep everyone safe in the grand scheme of things.

More:Here are Wisconsin snowfall totals over the last 24 hours

I've been to big races and small races and usually the big races – like MM – with thousands of participants only allow runners to pick up their packets with their race bibs and chip timers the day before race morning. What was the reason for not wanting to delay packet pickup – or even the race start time – Sunday?

Hazewski: We explored the option of race morning packet pickup, but again, it was one of those things where if we did race morning packet pickup and for some reason there's overnight icing, and then we're canceling the race, the morning of kind of thing. ... So, it was more out of fairness to the runners to give them as much advance notice as possible and not stringing you along for a while and then all of a sudden pull the plug at the last minute.

This is the No. 1 question I'm getting from runners and the public. You know, I was at your press conference on Friday, and you said, ‘Hey, if you're going to sign up for a race on March 26 in Wisconsin, you're probably pretty adventurous anyway,’ which is true, and we are tough and all that. But a lot of people are complaining: Why is the race in March anyway? Can you give me an idea of what went behind picking this particular weekend to pull this together?

Hazewski: Yeah, I mean, I'm new to this event, just started with the company back in June. So I don't know the history behind the exact date; I think in the past had been in the fall, but a combination over the years of COVID cancellations and other issues over the years, it kept getting bumped and kept getting bumped and then ultimately landed on the March date. But there's a lot of factors that go in – other events in the city, the resources that are available based on those other events. So I don't have an exact answer just because I wasn't involved in the initial selection of the date. But I do know in general when picking, obviously you have to consider a whole host of other factors and not just what you want your ideal race date to be. And, obviously we want to be mindful of other events that have history in the city as well.

If not you, who did pick the March date, was it was somebody with the Bucks, a race partner, or the city or…?

Hazewski: No, no, it wasn't anything with the Bucks or the city. To my knowledge, I think it was internally (discussed). March wasn't too far off the April date. I think last time it was April 6, right around that first week of April kind of thing. So it was still within that ballpark. But like you said, even early April has a bunch of risks associated with it as well.

We've actually lost a couple of big races. We used to have the Rock ‘n Sole. We used to have something called Al’s Run which was a fundraiser, been around for more than 40 years. We're losing these races because we're losing participants in general. And you alluded to this fact in the press conference Friday, this it's a small community. How many cities do you know of that have two marathons anyway? I don't know if there's room for two marathons in Milwaukee anymore. I used to think there was; now I don't know.

Hazewski: Based on the current schedule, a fall and a spring, I think it is possible – just based on the training cycle for a runner. There are for sure other cities that have races, but again, they're at opposite times of the year – kind of similar to this scenario. So yeah, I do think it's possible. But yeah, I mean, it's tough for sure when you're all going after the same runner kind of thing, during the course of the marketing cycle.

The previous race director in 2019 was from Rugged Maniac and he's from Boston; you're from Denver. You guys know what it's like to deal with snow and inclement weather. But I just wonder if you get spring storms like this – this is typical for us in Wisconsin, miserable and dramatic, blizzard, all that. It takes awhile to understand us. I feel like, in Denver, you get a spring storm but then like, the next day, it's melted. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

Hazewski: When I first moved to Denver, it was in the middle of March and we got seven inches of snow and the next day was 70 degrees. Our pattern has changed a little bit because it's been a little drier and drier each year. But yeah, we definitely get a lot more intense sun pretty quickly after a spring storm, and with this wet heavy snow it definitely melts away pretty quick.

It's like shoveling wet sand. So what do you do now? People are going to start asking for refunds and all that. Have you set a timeline of when you want to make a decision about either deferring or refunding? What timeframe are you considering?

Hazewski: We'll be regrouping internally next week, so I would say in the next week. As bad as I feel for all the staff that put the work in, I feel worse for the runners who signed up and thought they were going to be running a 5K or a half marathon. As a runner myself, I know the feeling to get the message after the training.

I think at this point, people who signed up were literally just coming out to try to support it. Honestly, we just wanted it to survive.

Hazewski: We just wanted to get something off the ground and say, 'Hey, we're still around' kind of thing, but yeah, wasn't in the cards.

Message Lori Nickel on Twitter at @LoriNickel, Instagram at @bylorinickel or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChinUpLoriNickel.