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Jan 2019
5:09pm, 4 Jan 2019
16,443 posts
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Chrisity
I always do my own timing and record that rather than the official time - i'm the only one who cares about it. If going for a pb i would start near to the front, but otherwise i don't really mind and tend to start off in the middle next to some slower friends. Then if i feel like it i can push on for the last 3k or just run with them. This means that i can have a natter with lots of people as i go past. Often i will do the last k with someone going for a pb to help and encourage them.
Really, how often do people go for a pb or fast time? For me maybe half a dozen times a year.
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Jan 2019
5:20pm, 4 Jan 2019
6,404 posts
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larkim
I think quite a lot of people attempt to PB every time to be honest. Couldn't put a percentage on it of course but people for whom running isn't their main hobby often feel that's what they are supposed to do, rather than deliberately run 3-5 minutes slower than PB for a nice cruise around. Definitely some in my family behave that way, and once upon a time I think I would have too.
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Jan 2019
5:23pm, 4 Jan 2019
40,205 posts
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Velociraptor
Many of the road races here have only started to have chip timing in the last year or two, and some still do manual timing.
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Jan 2019
5:24pm, 4 Jan 2019
25,835 posts
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LindsD
Our club race also does manual timing.
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Jan 2019
5:25pm, 4 Jan 2019
40,206 posts
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Velociraptor
And yes, I had to give myself a good eyeroll for the karmic falling over episode.
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Jan 2019
5:34pm, 4 Jan 2019
6,405 posts
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larkim
Club and “runners” races often still don’t have chip times, but I was thinking of the more mass participation type things - not just the VMLM but big-ish local half’s or 10ks. Most have been chip timed for a few years now.
Unless there is some massive change in technology I can’t see parkrun wanting to go chipped. Perhaps you could conceive of a system where they had very cheap RFIDs which were issued to all runners at the start (optionally?) and handed in for re-use at the end, and then correlated with barcode and finishing token? But it would be pricey to implement.
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Jan 2019
5:45pm, 4 Jan 2019
3,548 posts
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jdarun
More realistically, perhaps runners could have their own personal one like the barcodes we already carry. Though it would seem to add a layer of complication until enough runners had them that manual stopwatching could be abandoned completely.
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Jan 2019
5:52pm, 4 Jan 2019
6,357 posts
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chunkywizard
It's not the RFID tag that costs (they are throw-away on quite a few running numbers these days), it's the RFID reader (the bit on the floor you run over) that costs. You would need to get every parkrun one of these and I don't think that is feasible.
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Jan 2019
5:52pm, 4 Jan 2019
263 posts
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Dowse
Presumably it's the chip timing mats and associated equipment that is the expensive part rather than the chips themselves.
Not sure if it's still the same, but the Great Run Local 5ks gave out free electronic tag wrist bands which were then scanned by phones at the end (like contactless payment). There are no position tags to hand out, but equally the process of scanning the band needs to happen in order and as soon as you cross the line if you want an accurate position/time. If GRL could just lay down a mat at the finish line which would read he bands rather than phone scanning then they'd be onto a winner.
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Jan 2019
6:02pm, 4 Jan 2019
6,406 posts
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larkim
CHips are cheap in the context of being disposable when paid for by run entrants, but if they were consumed at 100k+ per week year in year out the cost wouldn’t be trivial. But if they were reused successfully and not lost etc they could be reasonably cheap. Agree of course that that the reading equipment would be the priciest bit.
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parkrun Café
Jan 2025
