The LA Marathon is offering medals at Mile 18 due to heat. I make the case for why this serves no one, and what runners should do instead.
If you want an 18-mile race, enter one. The problem is, that race does not exist.
The LA Marathon made headlines this year by offering runners a finishers medal at Mile 18. Not the finish line, Mile 18. The decision was framed as a safety measure in response to brutal heat: 79°F at the gun, a heat index pushing above 90°F by Mile 12, and over 300 runners treated for heat-related illness. Twelve were hospitalised. Nobodys dismissing that. The conditions were genuinely dangerous.
But an 18-mile medal isnt a marathon medal. It isnt a half marathon medal. It is, according to USATF and World Athletics, a medal for completing a distance that no governing body recognises, no certified race covers, and no runner signed up to run. Its a category error dressed up as a compassionate decision.
The marathon is 26.2 miles. That number isnt arbitrary, its the standard every runner, training plan, and finish-line photograph is built around. When you cross that line, youve done the thing. When you stop at Mile 18, you havent. Thats not a value judgement, conditions happen, injuries happen, bad days happen. But handing out a medal for a distance you didnt complete redefines what that medal represents.
The half marathon is 13.1 miles. The full is 26.2. Eighteen miles is no mans land, it doesnt belong to either category. Creating an ad hoc medal for it doesnt give it legitimacy. It just muddies what these distances are supposed to mean.
The McCourt Foundation didnt make this call to be popular. They made it because 28,000 runners were out on a course in conditions that were genuinely dangerous, and they needed people to stop. The 2007 Chicago Marathon is a sobering precedent, that race was cut short mid-event after a runner died from heat stroke. Race directors who ignore those conditions arent tough. Theyre negligent.
So yes, theres a real argument here. When the heat index is cracking 90°F by the halfway point and your medical team is overwhelmed, you need a mechanism to get people off the course. The intent behind the Mile 18 option isnt wrong. The execution is.
The runners who genuinely needed to stop, those at real medical risk, would have stopped regardless of a medal. The medal doesnt change their situation.
The borderline runners, those who might have safely finished, now have a prop that makes stopping at Mile 18 feel like an achievement. Thats not helpful. And the competitive runners who trained for 26.2 and earned that finish? Their accomplishment is now sharing category space with a pseudo-finish that cost significantly less, in miles, in effort, in suffering.
This compromise doesnt solve the safety problem. It just creates a new optics one.
Know the conditions before you toe the line. Race-day heat in LA in March is rarely a surprise. If the forecast is brutal, make a plan: run slower, prioritise hydration, or defer. Most major marathons allow medical deferrals.
More importantly: set your own cutoff criteria before the race starts. Know at what point, what heart rate, what symptom, you stop. And actually stop. Thats not weakness. Thats race intelligence.
The one thing that wont protect you is waiting for an organisation to hand you permission to quit via a medal at Mile 18.
If the LA Marathon regularly faces 90°F+ conditions by midday in March, the answer isnt a mid-race medal option. Its a different start time, date, or course. Thats the structural conversation race directors should be having, not how to make it easier to stop, but how to make the race safer to run.
The marathon is the marathon. If LAs March conditions cant safely host one, run it in January. Dont retrofit the race. Change the conditions.
That number means something because the distance means something. The LA Marathons Mile 18 option wasnt born from bad intentions. But good intentions dont fix a category error.
If you want an 18-mile race, there isnt one. Thats the point. And there shouldnt be.
Written by
Committed recreational athlete, entrepreneur, and founder of EverydayPB. Runs, cycles, and trains functional fitness with a focus on performance and recovery.
More from Darren ZwiersEnjoyed this?
Training tips, gear reviews, and race insights. Straight to your inbox. No spam.
241,000+ applicants. 1% accepted. The lowest rate ever recorded. This is not just scarcity. It is a seismic shift in who gets to run legacy races, and...
I was supposed to line up for London to Brighton. I had trained for it, carb loaded, visualised the route. But I woke up feeling awful. For the first...
I have signed up for the London Marathon 2026. Sub four hours. Here is my plan, my promises, and an invitation to follow the journey.