For the men and women taking part in the 50 kilometre race walk at the ongoing International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Qatar's capital, in the early hours of yesterday morning, the humidity was, thankfully, down from the 73 per cent levels that were registered during the running of the women's marathon on Friday night and Saturday morning.

The distressing scenes that came to pass on the floodlit Corniche as 28 of the 68 starters in the women's marathon dropped out had been predicted. It was not a good look for the event.

European champion Volha Mazuronak of Belarus ran a long, lonely race to finish fifth, but still had energy left at the end to lambast the conditions in which the action had taken place.

"The humidity kills you," she said. "There is nothing to breathe. I thought I wouldn't finish. It's disrespect towards the athletes."

In the aftermath of that race there has been much discussion, some of it sensible, some of it perhaps fanciful, over how such circumstances could be avoided in future.

Amid the buzz of conversation in and around the Khalifa International Stadium, one idea was mentioned several times to me – separate the road events from the stadium events. 

The result would be flexibility in terms of staging the track and field, less risk of potential harm to the road athletes and the possibility of a greater focus upon their efforts.

One organiser of a major European meeting told me there would be no problem in a bundled marathon-and-walks package finding a home in many big cities.

And it is an idea that is certainly entertained, with a twist, by Tim Hutchings – who knows whereof he speaks.

Hutchings won European and Commonwealth medals over 5,000 metres in 1986, and silver medals at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in 1984 and 1989, chasing home the legendary John Ngugi through the mud and slush of Stavanger on the latter occasion.

In recent years he has worked regularly as a commentator on athletics and road racing for Eurosport, and nine years ago he founded the hugely popular Brighton Marathon.

"It may be a good idea to give the road races to established cities who would welcome them with open arms, you'd get bigger crowds, you'd have maybe an elite race that starts before the mass race," he told me as we perched high in the stands of the basketball arena currently serving as the Main Press Centre alongside the Khalifa Stadium, gazing down upon the busy media scene below.

"Would Chicago, would New York, would London? There's a lot of cities that would go 'yes please'.

"It's nice to have a world champion in the marathon, which is what having a World Championship road race over the marathon distance provides. Should it be linked to the World Championships? I think it's debatable.

"Because I have felt for a long time now that while the Olympic champion is remembered and respected massively, and it's a race that everybody wants to do, even though there is no prize money...ironically with prize money the World Championship marathon race is one that is eschewed by the majority of world class marathon runners from the absolute top level, who of course focus on an autumn marathon.

"They look at Berlin, Chicago, New York and many others that they can choose from in the November-through-to-December period.  

"And therefore, in my humble opinion, the world marathon champion at the IAAF track and field championships is often not respected in anything like the way they should be.

"And there should be another format, another way of recognising and deciding a world champion at the marathon distance.

"What I have wanted to have happen, and privately proposed to mates over coffee, is that the World Championship road race, primary road race, should be a half marathon. It makes enormous sense in the August/September period which then would be perfect for the whole marathon community, from top to bottom, to target, because of those autumn marathons.

"Everybody wants a half marathon a few weeks before their major marathon. If you had a half marathon World Championship it would be a fantastic race, it would be a highly respected title. But it would mean there was annually a World Half Marathon Championship.

"At the moment the existing IAAF World Half Marathon Championships – Cardiff 2016, Valencia 2018 – those races are in the alternate years either side of the World Championships. The half marathon distance is the road race distance, from the portfolio of road race distances, that is very, very healthy and growing.

"Just three weeks ago I helped in the launch of the Super Halves Series – a series of major half marathons around Europe, but the ambition is to make it more global. 

"A series of half marathons around Europe have joined together to promote themselves and the distance, the culture of those cities, the health benefits. They are even environmentally focused on pushing those sensitive issues about our planet. It's a very positive force I think.

"And the reason they have come together and they want to be stronger than they would be as separate parts, is because they are still growing. They are massive events. A lot of other road race distances and a lot of road races around the world are struggling to hold their numbers.

"Of course you've got the huge marathons like Chicago, New York and London which are very healthy in terms of their numbers, they are over-subscribed massively, they fill up very quickly, but a lot of other road races at marathon distance and 10k and so on are struggling to hold their numbers in the western world, in the established markets.

"Part of that is because, I think, saturation, because of too many races in too many territories, and part of it is because people are looking for something a bit different. You know, you have got a community that has run the 10k many times, they've run the marathon several times, they are looking for something different.

"But the half marathon is a more accessible challenge to run as a road race than the marathon, but it is still a substantial physical challenge, so it ticks those boxes of wanting to achieve something special but actually not having to adjust your lifestyle so dramatically as you have to do for the training associated with a marathon.

"So for many reasons a half marathon is a good, generic partner to a lot of runners' lives."

So Hutchings, one took it, could see the benefits of the separate World Championship road package?

"I think that's got legs," he said. "You could spread it around. You could say to some of the established marathons, maybe some of the B-sized marathons that have got, say, 10,000 runners, 'would you like to stage the World Championship marathon?'

"You could say we will throw in the half marathon as well, although maybe you would keep the half marathon at the World Championships. You could say 'maybe we will have a road 10k championship'. 

"Because at the moment there is no world 10k road championship. And that's a vacuum."

The idea, or something like it, may be a way forward.