Montane "Fling" - Electronic Timing?

[iainr]

I think they must send info to a central control station. Maybe email the organisers of the High Peak Marathon or the Caledonian Challenge. highpeakclub.union.shef.ac.uk/hpm/

These people, associated with Sportident seem to be able to provide real time updates.

www.gpprojects.com/si.htm

Having such a system just removes the element of human error, numbers getting missed, being wrong and the organisers know exactly where everyone is.

Maybe just drop Sportident an email with your needs, how far you'd need the data relaying, how many stations to see what can be done and for how much.

The advantage of these over the matts is that these are far smaller to move around the place.

The Welsh 1000m Peaks Fell Race also use sportident chips I think, www.gorphwysfaclub.org.uk/

[Iona Barber]

Hi

Totally get what people are saying about times etc. it isn't really that aspect which worried us - we were more concerned about safety.

With people coming through the checkpoints on sat we were relying on them telling us their number, we would then write that down with a time. In this way we should have been able to tell who had come through which checkpoint and when.

Unfortunately it turned out that people were not always giving us the correct numbers - my sister even had one person give her a false number as though this was funny! This resulted in us not always being certain where people were and there were some people we began to worry about.

It may not be necessary to have electronic timing as this seems a fairly hi-tec solution to a pretty simple problem.

I would suggest a more structured checkpoint system - perhaps a little tunnell with the timekeeping marshals at the end that the runners must run though as they come into checkpoints - before they get to their support people. they could then show their wristband to the marshall as they pass.

This would achieve the same thing but would make life easier for all concerned - and it doesn't cost anything.

hope this is of use.

Iona Barber (Murdo's daughter)

[Tim]

Perhaps runners should just have four wrist bands (each with the same runner's number). One for each check point and one for the finish. Then you could just cut one off and keep it at the checkpoint.

If a runner times out at a checkpoint, all wristbands could be removed indicating their withdrawal from the race. (They could still finish if they want but they'd do so in the knowledge that they are no longer the race organiser's responsibility).

This way runners won't have to cerebrate (I tell you, it can be amazingly hard sometimes to remember a simple three digit number when you're running). I don't think any runner would mind sticking his arm out to have a wristband removed.

[johnk]

Apr 29, 2009 15:25:16 GMT Tim said:

Perhaps runners should just have four wrist bands (each with the same runner's number). One for each check point and one for the finish. Then you could just cut one off and keep it at the checkpoint.

If a runner times out at a checkpoint, all wristbands could be removed indicating their withdrawal from the race. (They could still finish if they want but they'd do so in the knowledge that they are no longer the race organiser's responsibility).

This way runners won't have to cerebrate (I tell you, it can be amazingly hard sometimes to remember a simple three digit number when you're running). I don't think any runner would mind sticking his arm out to have a wristband removed.

GETS MY VOTE lovely and simple.

JohnK

[Bony Peter]

I agree with the above it is so simple and so cheep