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Posted by steve outing on 5/28/2007 on steve outing's blog
I did the Bolder Boulder 10K this morning, alongside my youngest daughter (age 9, hence my time of just under 2 hours) and with apparently around 50,000 other runners and walkers. We all had these little chips from Ipico tied to our shoelaces -- the first time that the venerable race has gone digital. (Hurray! It's about time.) In theory, the system is great: It tracks your overall time and mile splits, and at the end you can send in a text message via your cell phone and (supposedly) within 20 minutes get a message back with your results. Nice. Alas, 50,000 runners perhaps overwhelmed the first-time system. More than 4 hours after the first wave set off, results were available only up to wave E. And cell phone results were backed way up, according to the folks manning the results area. That many runners also seem to have been too much for the BB website. Its pages came up as I checked the site in the afternoon, but each click took a couple minutes to return a new page. We'll have to give this shoe-chip system a chance. As I write this, results aren't posted online. (Let's hope all the data is there.) Next year, I hope race organizers will be ready with a system capable of handling 50,000 runners. | |
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Digital Bolder Boulder: Version 1.0 seldom works well |
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8 comments
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Gena says:
This was my first time running the BolderBoulder. It was great fun, but I'm very anxious to get the results. I wish I knew that number to text message! Did that system fail completely, or is it still in use? Oh well. Patience is a virtue. (I guess?)
steve outing says:
I believe to use your cell phone to get results, you send a text message (containing your bib number) to 94872. (Not that it's working.)
Here's what's currently on the Bolder Boulder website:
"Bolder Boulder 2007 set a record! More than 50,000 of you answered the call of the 'Oh yes you can' challenge. Unfortunately some difficulties have delayed results publication. We have a solution and are working towards posting the results by noon on Wednesday. Thank you for your patience, and for being part of a record setting year."
Gena says:
Thank you for the text message number - you were absolutely right. I didn't get my results, but I did get a reply. Apparently my results will arrive on my phone when they are ready. :)
-Gena
simon says:
Not a good start, seeing as how the chip company was hoping to get the contract to chip-time the Big Five marathons.
The Bolder Boulder always seems to have problems with its timing, whatever system it uses. The first BB I ran a couple of years ago, they kept revising the finishing times. Last year they trialled chip timing with the "A" Wave - it seemed to work OK -- and had everyone else on the "old" system. We didn't get split times. Maybe they've just tried to be a bit ambitious this year with full split timing for everybody, including the walkers, and a record entry of 50,000?
Last year I won the Grand Master "title" in the Cherry Creek Sneak 5-miler in Denver, but they didn't show me in the official results for nigh on two weeks. Chip timed again. Luckily, Derek Griffiths of Colorado Runner had a couple of finishing straight photographs showing me in place (18th overall), so eventually I was reinstated.
What some race organizers don't seem to realise is that our times are important to us; many of them seem to think that getting accurate results out quickly is some kind of optional extra. Humpf.
Mika says:
I can tell you the IPICO fiasco was totally predictable. I am not aware of any high density race that IPICO has successfully timed a with out heavily or completely relying on video or pull tag back-up. I would bet that you will see many people with times that are off. Because their equipment can't handle the high density of a mass start they will use the wave start time instead of the "mat" start.(GUN time vs. Chip time). Also I doubt that you will see mile splits at all and if you do i would have to wonder if they weren't "extrapolated" from an average of the overall time. You will get an overall time because they will score the race from pull tags which is more than likely why the results are taking so long. I don't blame the race director for using something that was basically free but the runners deserve better. IPICO should get all of the blame and be transparent about their product.
Anonymous says:
I too am anxious and frustrated. So, I text my bib # a full 2days after the race and the reply: "thx 4 participating. U will receive ur splits when u finish the 2007 BolderBOULDER on Monday, May 28th." Hmmmmm, interesting...
steve outing says:
So, they finally got their act together today (Wednesday). Got my time, and my mile splits (and the splits were not extrapolated).
Oh, and my 9-year-old, who I was run/walking with, cut 25 minutes off her time last year! Shouldn't be long before she's faster than me. (I'm a mediocre runner -- my typical 10K time is around 50 minutes -- so I can envision the day soon when I'm left in the dust. 8^)
timer says:
Chip timing has been used for more than 10 years already by competitors of IPICO such as ChampionChip. Bolder Boulder has never wanted to use this proven technology, but has decided to go in at the deep end with the IPICO system. If Bosley would have checked references he could have known that this systemhas failed before in big races in Australia.
Now they are spinning the story. "the system was so good that it overloaded the data capacity" Never heard such nonsense. At ChampionChip the raw data is filtered in the box and only the significant timestamp is out to the net.
Live splits, Messaging, results within minutes after the race, splits every mile are here now, not in a few years. That's the state of the industry.
IPICO has done the timing industry a bad service with this amateur achievement.
Next Time, get in the pro's
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