After Monday’s deadly bomb attacks at the Boston Marathon, security is the top priority for those organizing the Bolder Boulder, the largest 10K footrace in the state, which takes place on Memorial Day.
The route winds through residential streets lined with spectators and ends at Folsom Field on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus.
More than 50,000 runners have participated in recent years, according to the Daily Camera.
Organizers wouldn’t talk details with the paper, but said that they would be meeting with local police in the coming days to assess the event’s security.
“I’m hesitant to talk about specific precautions at the Bolder Boulder in case somebody is eyeing the playbook,” organizer Cliff Bosley told the Camera.
He added that hundreds of law enforcement and private security officers provide safety at the event and that security measures were amplified in the wake of 9/11.
Bosley told the Rocky Mountain Collegian that race organizers will watch what happens with other major races that take place before the Bolder Boulder on May 27. There are major races scheduled in the coming weeks in Spokane, Wash., San Francisco and New York.
“It sounds sort of cliché,” he said, “but there will be best practices that evolve out of each of these things that I think we will be able to benefit from, and so will local law enforcement.”
The Bolder Boulder began in 1979 and holds a reputation as one of the largest non-marathon races in the world. It lures professional runners from dozens of countries, as well as kids, walkers and wheelchair racers.
It’s also a major social event in Boulder, with runners serenaded by as many as 30 bands set up along the route and with onlookers decked out in costumes.
But some runners apparently think the atmosphere is a little too loose. A commenter on the Camera’s article with the handle “smokerise1” wrote that he or she no longer runs in the Bolder Boulder because “security is terrible.”
“Many of the spectators are out of control,” the poster wrote. “In smaller neighborhoods there are too many people partying and get nasty with the water guns. It’s not a good race for young children.”
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