Runners in Sunday’s Racefaster Half Marathon in Paramus, New Jersey, suddenly found themselves facing flash flooding. In some cases, the runners had few options for escaping the water that nearly came up to their knees.
“Bro, this is nuts!” said runner Zac Clark, panning his cell phone camera back to himself after showing the raging flood that had at least one runner grabbing the railing of the trail. Clark spoke from near an overpass where another runner held on to the guard rail as the swift water rushed by.
“It’s funny because I signed up for this race on Thursday and Saturday was such a nice day, so I figured it’d be a great day to like (personal record) for my half marathon,” said Garrett Nathan, who shared his own astonishing view of the flooding with NBC New York.
(Image obtained by NBC New York)
Nathan said he found out that the race start time had been pushed back two hours. “I’m like, I guess it’s gonna rain… it sounds like a good, logical decision.”
But Nathan says he then started getting flash flood alerts on his phone. “I keep checking my email from the race directors and get no notifications about a canceling.” The race, he said, began in Ridgewood “at basically the top of the Saddle River.”
(Image obtained by NBC New York)
He says once the race timer started, “I’m like, ‘alright, I guess we’re just actually doing this thing’ because it was such downpour and you couldn’t even walk on the grass. It was muddy. It was all flooded out.”
Once the race began, Nathan said he was soaking wet.
“And there really wasn’t any, like even on the way back, after crossing like five or six river crossings, you can call it, it’s waist deep, chest deep, holding onto the railing. I was like, ‘are they going to like change the routes for us at all?'”
(Image obtained by NBC New York)
No injuries were reported. Racefaster organizers did not return a request for comment from NBC New York on Sunday.
