Beeps of technology heard among marathon’s throngs
Posted on Monday, November 13, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/172948/
NEW YORK — Once upon a time, pacers were not allowed in the marathon. The winner not only ran faster than everyone else, he managed his time better than they did, too.
That’s changed. When Lance Armstrong ran the New York Marathon on Nov. 5, not one but two human pacers helped him stay on track to his 2: 59: 36 finish: world-class runners Joan Benoit Samuelson and Alberto Salazar.
Armstrong also wore Nike + shoes, with sensors made to send data about his pace to his iPod Nano.
He was hardly the only one in the crowd running with help.
For Conrad Kiffin, running a marathon is like starring in his own personal video game. Every mile, he sneaks a look at the global positioning system on his wrist to see whether he’s keeping up with an imaginary rabbit going at his target pace.
“If I see the pacer running shoes. away from me, I know I have to go harder,” said Kiffin, 41, a photographer in Manhattan. “It’s very video-gamey. You are competing against a guy who is not even out there.”
Staying on pace is a hardwon skill for marathoners. Only the best are able to estimate their speed with nothing more than a head-to-toe check of how they feel. For those who haven’t honed this sixth sense, GPS units and heart-rate monitors help them avoid the 18 th-mile meltdowns that commonly follow too-fast starts.
This is only a glimpse of the electronic gadgets used by marathoners, who not long ago shunned such devices as a distraction or somehow impure. At the New York City Marathon on Nov. 5, many of the 37, 000 participants were wired and, in some cases, wireless, including Paul Kaye, from Cape Town, South Africa, who ran with a cell phone strapped to an arm; it used software that plays music and beeps to let him know if he’s on pace.
Dino Farfante carried an MP 3 player and, strapped to his arm, a GPS unit made by his company, MotionLingo, that gives oral updates on his speed.
And of course there are the legions of iPod users who run with white wires snaking through their T-shirts. And the cell phone and camera carriers, who chronicle their experience for posterity — or at least for Aunt Jane. Every competitor wore a shoe with a chip that recorded progress, and could also send e-mail updates every five kilometers to spectators who subscribed to the service.
“I’ve been at finish lines where people come across looking like a hardware store,” said Andrew Graham, the chief executive of Bones in Motion, which makes the software Kaye used in his Motorola Motokrzr K 1 m phone.
Technology is adding a new sound effect, beyond the roar of the crowd and pounding of feet, to many races. “In marathons these days, it’s really common to hear beep beep beeping,” said David Willey, the editor in chief of Runner’s World, referring to the alarms on the heart-rate monitors worn by many runners to track their pulses. “That’s definitely something you didn’t hear 10 years ago.”
Serious runners once thought that music players had no place in races. The editors of Runner’s World believed that listening to a music player was “unsafe and somehow not pure,” Willey said, and the magazine advised readers against the practice until it was so common it could not be ignored.
Many event organizers still discourage headsets because wearing them makes competitors less aware of fellow runners. But that hasn’t stopped technologydependent marathoners. Willey estimates that at least one-fifth wear MP 3 players as they race. Music players provide distraction and motivation. “You don’t notice the time going by,” said Pamela Ribon, who credits Britney Spears’ “Toxic” for her “fifth wind” during the 24 th mile and sixth hour of the ultra-humid Maui Marathon in September. Ribon, author of Why Moms Are Weird, said the song helped her recover from a muscle cramp. But MP 3 s are also being used in novel ways to improve technique. Ideally a runner, to be most efficient, should take short quick steps — about 180 a minute. Jenny Hadfield, a coach of 16 years who lives in Chicago, advises her runners to download the tick tock of a metronome to their MP 3 s to stay in step. “As runners get fatigued, their turnover gets slow,” said Hadfield, an author of Marathoning for Mortals. Hearing a minute of a metronome’s beat mid-race can put competitors back on track.
PACING THE PACERS At many marathons, event directors provide pacesetters who lead less-experienced runners. And some of today’s pacers use GPS gadgets. This year, Garmin, a leading maker of GPS fitness products, sponsored a dozen marathons and provided hardware for the pacers. The devices, worn on runners’ wrists, track their elapsed distance, average per-mile pace and elevation.
Not all gadgets are lugged along marathon routes to improve times or technique. Like contestants using a lifeline on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, some runners whip out cell phones to call friends and relatives for encouragement — often to the dismay of those within earshot.
“If you’re using your cell phone, are you really trying your hardest ?” asked Peter Cleary, a Seattle runner who has finished more than a dozen marathons.
About one out of five runners carry a phone, up from about 1 in 10 in 2003, according to a recent online survey of 2, 732 runners conducted by Runner’s World. Marathoning is growing, and its culture is changing because of first-timers and “back of the packers,” Willey said. Runners who take five, six or seven hours to finish “are more likely to carry a cell phone” to chat or snap pictures.
Not everyone thinks technology is progress. “When you start adding all this paraphernalia clipped to your waist, running up your shirt into your ears, it gets confusing,” said Deena Kastor, the American women’s marathon record-holder. “It takes away from just getting out there and analyzing the run yourself rather than having a piece of equipment tell you what you’re feeling.”
Marathoners who compete for prize money are prohibited from using anything more high-tech than a stopwatch during races. And racers who depend too heavily on technology risk disappointment. MP 3 s freeze. GPS units have glitches. Batteries die.