Marathons embrace fan-friendly tech

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One of the most tech-savvy races is the Houston Marathon, which started an alert system in 2001 and has since added an online map of a runner's progress, an elaborate post-race summary of a runner's results and video clips searchable by a runner's name.

Houston's offerings — free with the $75 entry fee — benefit participants while pleasing corporate sponsors because of high traffic on the marathon's Web site, spokesman Steven Karpas said.

The systems aren't foolproof. Running her first marathon in New York last year, Lara Kail registered her own e-mail address, her brother's cell phone and her aunt and uncle's e-mail.

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Kail, 30, got the correct updates which she wanted for posterity's sake. But her brother received just one blank message. Her aunt and uncle: nothing.

"It was a little disappointing," the New York market researcher said. "Lucky for me, I had a good day, but what would have happened if I'd fallen way off my target and they had no clue where I was on the course?"

Image: ID chip
Kiichiro Sato / AP
This small device that runners thread through shoelaces contains computer chips that allows fans to monitor a runner on a race day.
Keeping track of a runner can also be costly, a factor as race fees for some marathons top $100. Systems can cost $1 to $2 per runner — charged as part of the entry fee — or up to $20,000 for a marathon with 10,000 competitors.

Major vendors include chip company ChampionChip, of Nijmegen, Holland, and timing companies Active.com of San Diego and Mika Timing of Cologne, Germany.

After introducing text messaging in 2005, the San Diego and Nashville marathons didn't offer any alerts or online tracking last year because of the expense.

This year, both races plan an experiment with real-time tracking of phone-carrying runners via Global Positioning Satellite technology, and they may reintroduce traditional alerts and online tracking after turning to sponsors for help.

The updating adds a space-age twist to an event that legend dates to ancient Greece. The modern race started at the reborn Olympics in Athens in 1896, and early marathons consisted of a few dozen runners at best.

Today's larger races can feature 30,000 or more athletes, all having fans who want results quickly if not instantaneously.

Computer chips were introduced in the mid-1990s to replace results manually compiled from tags ripped from runners as they finished. They also serve as checkpoints as race directors hope to avoid fiascos like the 1980 Boston Marathon, where Rosie Ruiz was crowned female champion after jumping into the race less than a mile from the finish.

The biggest challenge is managing a complex system of electronics within a short amount of time, said Harald Mika, founder of Mika Timing, which times Chicago and about 200 other races a year.

"If you do have a problem, you'd better fix it within two minutes," he said.

In some cases, rubber mats aren't placed correctly; in other instances, a timing company doesn't send the information properly. Sometimes a phone company or e-mail service blocks messages as spam, although race officials try to notify companies that tens of thousands of e-mails may be coming on race day.

While the systems can misfire, sending blank or delayed messages, they can also work too well — coldly updating friends with the details of a poor race.

That's a lesson Valco learned as stomach cramps slowed her time in New York. The chip, she realized, added insult to injury.

"Even while on the New York course I was thinking, 'Everyone in Columbus knows it just wasn't the race I had hoped it would be,'" she said.

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