Runner's Corner

September 2009 :  Chip Timing and It’s Benefits

September Runner’s Corner

By Kitty Consolo, Ph.D.

The early days

        We’ve come a long way from some of the first road races I ran in the 1970’s when the timing system consisted of the starter starting his small stop watch after saying go.  If you were lucky, you would finish in ear shot of his yelling the finish time to get your time.  As for placing and awards, you were often handed a stick with a number on it or a card to fill out and put in a box with your appropriate gender and age group.  This system can work fairly well when you have small races.  But nowadays, it’s common to have thousands of runners and hundreds crossing the finish line at once. 

Problems with the “old system”

          As you can see above, not only is it nearly impossible to time large crowds of runner’s accurately using the old stop watch system, there are other difficulties as well.  Though it doesn’t happen too often, there are runners who cheat and do not run the whole course.  In the old system, as long as they go through the finish area, they get a time and place.  There are also runners who run in races but do not register or pay, we call these runners bandits and they can mess up timing systems by taking a place and time and are impossible to identify with the system.  And finally there is the problem of getting the runner’s real running time if the crowd is large.  It may take them several minutes as in the 2002 Chicago marathon, it took over eight and one half minutes for a runner on average to cross the starting line once the starting gun went off. 

Advantages of chip timing

        The great thing about chip timing is it can take care of the above problems. What is most important to runners is that they get an accurate time of their race. What runners want is their “running net time,” the time it took them to run and finish the race once they cross the starting line. Chip timing allows their time to start as they cross a matt on the starting line and land on another matt at finish.  It can also track runners during the race and if there are more mats out, look at split times and easily spot cheaters.  Bandits will not have access to the chips so they will not be recorded.  It won’t matter either if runners get out of order in the finish shoot as their times are recorded and awards computed by the chips. 

How the chip system works

        Runners wear a small lightweight chip that can be attached to their shoe or an ankle wrap that has a chip in it. The ankle wrap types are popular for triathlons when no shoes are worn during part of the event.  Chips can also be in a bracelet.  All chip timing systems have a timing mat at the finish line.  More complicated systems have mats also at the start and during the race.  This is especially nice in marathons and one can actually track a runner on line and see their progress during the race plus as mentioned above, it cuts down on cheaters.  I am glad to see the Boston marathon is using this system as I was there the year Rosie Ruiz took the subway and was awarded the gold taking away the winning ceremony from Jackie Gareau, the rightful winner who was later awarded her first place but after the crowds had gone.  Those races that have the mats at the start and finish can compute the actual running time which is important to runners who want to know what did they really run the race in if it took a long time to cross the starting line.  However a lot of races still make awards on the actual time that includes the additional time it took to reach the starting line so if you think you are competitive enough to place, talk to the race director ahead of time and see if you can get what we call a “seated” number.  This allows you to start near the front and minimize the time it takes to reach the starting line.

The technology involved

So how do the chips, the mats and the technology all work?  The chip itself is housed in a waterproof home, usually plastic and lightweight so it can be worn in any type of weather and not be damaged.  It can be used over and over and has inside it a transponder.  It sends no signals until it is placed near the mats which create a magnetic field that energizes the chip’s transponder to send a signal that reported it’s own identification number.  This signal is captured by the antennas in the mat and recorded by computer.  This process is very fast and therefore race directors can get results out very quickly and accurately.

While chip timing has many advantages, don’t think that every race you run has to have it to be a great race.  The “old fashioned” methods can still work great for smaller local races and for small races on a budget, they really are not necessary and may put the race in the red.

Check out premierraces running calendar—they have many chip and non-chip timed races and always do a great job either way which is why I like to write for them and compete in many of their events.

Hope to see you on the roads.

--Kitty

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