I probably should have scheduled the Lost Dutchman Marathon on my training schedule 16 weeks ago, rather than decide at lunch on Friday to run the 26.2 mile course on Sunday. Come to think of it, where is my training schedule?
Okay, okay, before the masses rise up to decry my sanity, I'll confess that my role is to act as a pacer for a first time marathoner who only wants to finish. So my time will be dependent on the person I am helping. No ego, no clock. I do however need to be able to run 26.2 miles, which is never a given for anyone. But it will be okay. I will, right?
Funny enough, after deciding to do this and after telling my wife, (I wasn't exactly sure how that would go, still not), Mighty Mo and I went to RoadRunner Sports to get him new shoes and Lost Dutchman was doing packet pickup there. Hey it saved me a trip to the expo on Saturday to sign up because online registration had been closed down.
I'm looking forward to the run but I was bit frustrated with the multiple comments to not fold the bib because of the new fangled timing chip on the back of it. A strip of magnetic tap six inches long runs vertically along both sides of the bib. Excuse me? Don't fold it?
First, its a bib and I have a habit of taping them to my beer fridge in the garage but I am not gentle with them. In fact it is about the very last thing on or in my body I care about during a race. I am not going to think of it like some ridiculous "8th grade sex ed, this chicken egg is your baby for a week item". So if these strips fall off during the race, thats a design flaw not a racer issue.
I remember when I crossed a finish line a volunteer would yell out your bib number and someone behind them would write it on a piece of paper with a pencil. Then you would argue with the RD after they screwed up your finish time because they couldn't read the writing. It sucked but it was the stubby pencil era and had worked for a couple thousand years.
I remember when it was bar codes. Bib's where given to you with a perforated strip along the bottom that had a bar code on the front and you wrote in your race information on the back. When you crossed the finish line, you entered one of many chutes and someone would pull the strip off the bottom and run it under a time clock and the bar code held all your race data. That was pretty slick.
Next came timing chips, a radio transmitter zip tied to a shoe, the runner stepped onto a mat at the start and finish lines and hopefully an extra couple on the course and it relayed your time and place to a computer. Not only did this help with correct times, it didn't count the time it took to get your start group to the starting line. So you have Clock Time, (when the race started for everyone) and Chip Time (When you stepped onto the mat) If you borrowed one from the race like most people did, it was like signing out an M-16 from the supply room in the Army. It was like they were going to send IRS agents after you. Nothing worse than getting into an accident during the race and as your being carted off to the hospital some knucklehead running over with scissors to cut your chip off before you left. Can't lose that chip. Maybe I was an early adopter, maybe I went to the hospital a lot during races, but I was an early adopter of the ChampionChip. I loved it so much I bought one from the Arizona Road Runner Club. Still have it.
Then we had to go 'green'. Timing technology evolved from zip tied plastic poker chips to a concert bracelet wrapped around your shoe laces. Now instead of a volunteer sitting on a bucket at the finish line staring at feet so they could cut chips from shoes, you got to do it yourself at home. Another was to keep volunteer numbers low, but it wasn't a 'green' move. At least the chips were reused.
Now, I can't tousle my bib least I disturb my timing chip? Good grief.
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