Can the Honolulu Marathon solve their timing problems?

Run­ners from the main­land, Japan and other coun­tries are arriv­ing on Oahu for the 2008 Hon­olulu Marathon, which starts this Sun­day, 14 Decem­ber with the usual fireworks.

(See the end of this billso.com arti­cle for updated information.)

Race offi­cials have pledged that run­ners will get accu­rate fin­ish times this year for the race’s Cham­pi­onChip system.As I dis­cussed in my billso.com arti­cle of 8 March 2008 titled Hon­olulu Marathon limps to the fin­ish line, the 2007 Hon­olulu Marathon was marred by heavy rains and other prob­lems that took down the race’s Chrono­Track tim­ing sys­tem.

I’m not run­ning the Hon­olulu Marathon this year, as I’ve con­cen­trated on shorter dis­tances since I ran my sixth and final marathon in 2001. I’m not even run­ning or walk­ing the first 10 kilo­me­ters of the course as I did in 2005.

An orange D-tag attached to a runner’s shoe

The 2007 edi­tion became an unfor­tu­nate exper­i­ment with an RFID sys­tem that relied on frag­ile paper-based devices called D-tags that are printed onto a detach­able por­tion of each runner’s race num­ber. Many run­ners who did fol­low the instruc­tions man­aged to break the tags while tuck­ing the devices into their shoelaces. Each D-tag has an adhe­sive strip, as seen in this pic­ture by dharmabumx. Some run­ners voided their D-tags by bend­ing or fold­ing the del­i­cate com­po­nents — even a sin­gle fold was enough to break the elec­tron­ics inside the tag. Other run­ners failed to remove the D-tag from their race num­ber and then attach the D-tag to their shoe.

Chrono­track posted this YouTube video called Chrono­Track D-Tag Instuc­tional [sic] on 21 March 2008 with Eng­lish instruc­tions on attach­ing a D-tag. It’s inter­est­ing that this video appeared after the Hon­olulu Marathon dropped Chrono­Track from the 2008 race.

Of course, another pos­si­ble rea­son the D-tags failed in the 2007 Hon­olulu Marathon was that many race vol­un­teers and Japan­ese tour group direc­tors were not told or did not know how to remove and attach the frag­ile D-tags prop­erly. Few of the run­ners and vol­un­teers had ever seen a D-tag before, and the instruc­tions and demon­stra­tions pro­vided at the race num­ber pick-up site in the Hon­olulu Con­ven­tion Cen­ter did not seem to help.

Accord­ing to Hon­olulu Marathon offi­cials, there were 21,945 entries ear­lier this week, and 13,676 or 62% are from Japan. It turns out that proper train­ing before the marathon is just as impor­tant for the sup­port staff as it is for the runners.

The 2008 Hon­olulu Marathon will use Cham­pi­onChip sys­tems as they did prior to the 2007 race. Both the Cham­pi­onChip and Chrono­Track sys­tems col­lect tim­ing data from run­ners dur­ing the race. RFID read­ers are embed­ded in rub­ber mats that are laid across the course, usu­ally near impor­tant splits like the half-marathon mark. When I run a race, I rely on my split time to help me check my progress against my pre-race plan. If I don’t have my own stop­watch, there’s almost always a race clock or announcer at the split that will have the race or gun time available.

RFID sys­tems help fac­ers record the run­ners actual time on the course, as there are mats at the start­ing and fin­ish line. In a large race like the Hon­olulu Marathon, most run­ners will cross the start­ing line sev­eral min­utes after the start­ing gun has fired. Run­ners can use the offi­cial chip time pro­vided by the race to enter another race that lim­its entries to qual­i­fied run­ners. A ver­i­fied chip time that is deliv­ered within days of the race is quite valu­able to seri­ous run­ners. The 2007 Hon­olulu Marathon had to impro­vise a video review sys­tem to pro­vide times to fin­ish­ers months after the race ended.

All each run­ner has to do is make sure their chip is attached to their show and run across the mat. Most races that use these sys­tems, includ­ing Honolulu’s other big run­ning event, the Great Aloha Run, set up test­ing mats at the race num­ber pick-up site so run­ners can check their chips and D-tags. When the mat detects a tag, a speaker beeps. In the test­ing setup, a com­puter and mon­i­tor are avail­able, so run­ners can make sure their name and num­ber appear in the system.

Why can’t I use my own chip?

Every chip-timed race that I’ve run in Hawaii has required me to rent a chip for the event. But I have my own Cham­pi­onChip that I pur­chased at the 2000 Chicago Marathon and have used at the 2001 Austin Marathon and other main­land races. My chip has its own ser­ial num­ber, and I can update my con­tact infor­ma­tion on the Cham­pi­onChip web site when necessary.

billso’s Cham­pi­onChip

I’ve never been able to use my own Cham­pi­onChip in Hawaii. I could ask the race orga­niz­ers if I could use my own tag, but that’s not the point. The race entry forms in Hawaii don’t even have a field to add my tag num­ber, and the Hon­olulu Marathon’s FAQ doesn’t address the issue at all.

Cham­pi­onChips and D-tags don’t have bat­ter­ies because their RFID trans­mit­ters get power when the run­ner passes over a charged tim­ing mat. This induc­tion charg­ing method, which relies upon small capac­i­tors built into the chip or tag, pro­vides enough elec­tri­cal power to get a radio sig­nal from the chip to mat’s RFID recep­tors. This is yet another rea­son that the chip or tag must be placed on the shoe, as close as pos­si­ble to the mat.

The 2008 Hon­olulu Marathon is requir­ing par­tic­i­pants to buy a com­mem­o­ra­tive Cham­pi­onChip that each run­ner can keep after the event. The chip cost is included in the race entry fee.

A hard rain’s gonna fall

Diesel gen­er­a­tors are usu­ally used to power the mats. In 2007, the gen­er­a­tors failed when pud­dles formed by the heavy rains flooded the sys­tem. Here’s another YouTube video from Chrono­Track called Chrono­Track Sys­tem Test — Water & Rain, and posted on 21 March 2008. The audio track includes sev­eral exam­ples of the tell­tale beep that tells the run­ner a chip was detected. In prac­tice, the beeps are use­less at the start line, as too many run­ners are mov­ing over the mats. The back­ground noise in the audio is not thun­der, just some light wind hit­ting the microphone.

Notice how the water in the “heavy rain test” is applied to the mat. There is no gen­er­a­tor in the video, as the testers are using an exten­sion cord from an AC elec­tri­cal out­let. The D-tag in the video is immersed in water for a few sec­onds, but the power sys­tem is never tested. We’ve had light rain the this morn­ing in Hon­olulu, and it’s likely to rain here on Sun­day morn­ing, too.

In the 2008 Hon­olulu Marathon, Sport­Stats is using pri­mary and backup sys­tems with more durable gen­er­a­tors at four split loca­tions as well as the start and fin­ish areas. I hope the gen­er­a­tors will be placed on dry, cov­ered plat­forms and not set in the gut­ter or on the ground. Split times will be avail­able at the marathon’s web site:

• 10 kilo­me­ters (6.2 miles)
• half-marathon (13.1 miles)
• 30 kilo­me­ter (18.6 miles)
• 40 kilo­me­ter (24.8 miles)

See the Star-Bulletin’s arti­cle called Marathon per­se­veres in face of sour cli­mate for more details. The Star-Bulletin’s arti­cle iden­ti­fies the 2007 tim­ing sys­tem as Chrono­Trax.

Updated 14-Dec-08: It was rain­ing when the start­ing gun and the fire­works went off at 5 am HT this morn­ing. By 9 am, the rain had stopped in down­town Honolulu.

Updated 13-Dec-08: It’s rained most of the day here in down­town Hon­olulu.

Of course, we woke up to more rain this morn­ing in down­town Hon­olulu, and an arti­cle from the Hon­olulu Adver­tiser called Hon­olulu Marathon returns to rain-proof timers after ’07 fiasco. The arti­cle pro­vides yet another name for the Chrono­Track sys­tem: SAI. Adver­tiser writer Michael Tsai, also reported that:

• The Hon­olulu Marathon spent 1200 to 1500 addi­tional man-hours an $50,000 to recover the lost fin­ish­ing times from the 2007 race
• The Hon­olulu Marathon sued Chrono­Track for $30,000 to recover those addi­tional costs
• As we reported in this billso.com arti­cle on 8 March 2008, the 2007 Las Vegas and Philadel­phia Marathons also had sig­nif­i­cant tim­ing prob­lems related to their Chrono­Track systems.

Updated 12-Dec-08: Here’s the local news­pa­per arti­cles on yesterday’s storm. No rain dur­ing the day, but the rain resumed dur­ing the evening.

• Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin: Rain, pain to remain
• Hon­olulu Adver­tiser: Storm wal­lops Oahu

Updated 11-Dec-08: We’ve had heavy rains and winds all day long on Oahu. At times, the rain has been falling at the rate of 3 inches an hour. See the Hon­olulu Adver­tiser for more details. Kapi­olani Park, which is the stag­ing ground for the Hon­olulu Marathon’s fin­ish, will be just as soaked as it was last year, even if it stops rain­ing tonight.

The Star Bul­letin has an excel­lent arti­cle in this morning’s edi­tion called Vol­un­teer army about the event’s 4500-member vol­un­teer staff. I’m happy there are so many voun­teers each year, but it’s impor­tant the vol­un­teers have cor­rect and up-to-date infor­ma­tion. I’ve seen other races on the main­land where race vol­un­teers sent run­ners in the wrong direc­tion and mak­ing the course either too long or too short. The Hon­olulu Marathon is ranked 3rd in size behind the New York City and Chicago events among US marathons.

There’s also an edi­to­r­ial in the same edi­tion called Solid rep­u­ta­tion keeps Hon­olulu Marathon in the run­ning. It reads more like a civic pride piece, although the Star-Bulletin does acknowl­edge the mas­sive prob­lems of the 2007 Hon­olulu Marathon.

Images cour­tesy of dharmabumx and McBad­ger on Flickr through their Cre­ative Com­mons licenses.

Related arti­cles and pages on billso.com

• 8 March 2008: Hon­olulu Marathon limps to the fin­ish line
• 16 April 2008: New reader can track sev­eral RFID tags at once

Tagged as: austin, championchip, Chicago, chronotrack, d-tag, electricity, hardware, Hawaii, Honolulu, japan, marathon, Oahu, power, rain, reliability, RFID, running, sports, time, training, usability, video, water, weather