A half-marathon race on Sunday in Paramus, N.J., nearly turned disastrous, as heavy rainfall flooded parts of the course and forced runners to wade through several feet of water.
No injuries were reported, but several runners posted videos to social media showing them traversing knee-deep waters throughout the course at Saddle River Park. The entire area had been placed under a flash flood warning on Sunday, and the organization behind the race, Racefaster, was criticized for going forward with the event despite those warnings.
Racefaster did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The race was supposed to start at 8 a.m., but organizers on Saturday opted to delay the half-marathon by two hours.
Samantha Spitaletta, a Bloomfield, N.J., resident who has run dozens of half-marathons, said it was already raining heavily when the race started. She said an organizer informed the runners to be aware of “ankle-deep water” in an early section of the course.
“So, I thought by him saying that, that they checked the course and that’s the only thing I have to worry about,” said Ms. Spitaletta, who had run this same race in the rain last year. “As I’m running it, I was thinking, ‘I don’t think they really checked the course.’”
Zac Clark, the chief executive of the addiction treatment center Release Recovery and a former contestant on “The Bachelorette,” described running the race as “bizarre.”
“I set out with a goal time to run under 90 minutes,” he said. “I knew after the first couple miles that was going to be smoked because you were having to walk — I don’t know — every three-quarter to quarter of a mile.
“And then what happened was the water was actually cold. It was almost this bizarre experience of you were sprinting in between bodies of water.”
On Instagram, Mr. Clark said he finished only 10 minutes slower than his desired time. While the entire course was not flooded, the high water levels came earlier than expected, Ms. Spitaletta said.
“I’m five-foot-zero. So things that are, like, knee deep are a little bit higher on me. So I did get a little frightened at times,” she added.
One of the most harrowing parts of the race was at an underpass, where the water was up to Ms. Spitaletta’s chest. To get through this, runners had to hold on to a railing and inch their way sideways.
“Kidding around, I said, ‘I should just swim this part.’ But another runner said, ‘Well the currents probably won’t let you and now the currents are really strong,’” she said.
As to whether the race should have been canceled, Mr. Clark said he wasn’t sure.
“Safety always has to come first, period, and if they knew that the course was going to be even a fraction of the condition that it was in, yes, canceling the race would have been a good idea. I acknowledge as a human I had a choice,” Mr. Clark said.
Ms. Spitaletta said, in hindsight, she felt the race should have been canceled.
“All I hear from other races is safety first, safety first,” she said, “and that was not apparent here.”
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