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closeEDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 14th in a series of weekly stories leading up to the May 25 Ski to Sea race that will give a behind-the scenes look into the largest annual community sporting event in Whatcom County. Each story will be written by a member of the Ski to Sea Race Committee. Second-year race director Pete Coy, who has been involved with the race for more than 30 years as an athlete and a volunteer, wrote this week’s entry. For previous stories, please visit TheBelling hamHerald.com/skitosea.
When the first Mount Baker Marathon was run in 1911 competitors did not worry about how long it took to run a race as long as they won.
Since the modern Ski to Sea race was started in 1973, the time it takes for each racer to complete their portion of the race has been important to them. These are called split times, and racers like to compare their times with friends or their time with the year before.
In years past, the timing data has been physically taken to the finish line at Marine Park where they’ve been assembled and posted. Data had been manually collected on Palm Pilots at each leg finish and downloaded to a computer.
Since the timing crews could not leave their posts until the last racer crossed the stage finish lines, this data was not available to racers until late on race day.
This year we expect to electronically transmit data to Marine Park every 20 minutes so each racer’s split time can be posted long before they arrive at Marine Park.
Those familiar with the Ski to Sea race will remember that last year we tried electronic chip timing for the first time. As part of this we were forced to use the electronic registration system provided by the chip timing company.
After hearing from the racers at last year’s race and running our own evaluation, we concluded that while electronic registration and chip timing were successful, the execution and delivery of the results were not satisfactory.
Since last year, when we also had accurate split times for each racer, we also started the “Top Gun” awards for the fastest man or woman in each leg of the race. We will have “Top Gun” awards again this year and it will be interesting so see if any of those racers repeat as winners.
For 2008 we have changed nearly everything about the registration and timing process.
We have hired a local company to create our own registration system, which is available now for racers to register at www.skitosea.com. We expect teams to find this system easier to use, and they will not have to pay a separate registration fee this year. The second step in the process is the actual timing of each racer at each finish line. We have hired a new chip timing company and will have racers run over timing pads at each finish line to record a time.
Racers will then transfer their timing chip to the next racer on their team. The times are stored on a computer at each leg finish line until we transfer them to Marine Park for posting.
Remember that each of the upper finish lines record a finish time for one racer and a start time for the next racer on the team. Until we match the team number with the chip number and the total elapsed time for the racer between the two finish lines, we do not have a split time.
This year we also have our own volunteer crew receiving and printing out split times and posting them so that racers can see their split times as they arrive to cheer on their kayaker.
A great deal of thought and preparation has gone into the new registration and timing process to make it better for the racers. We hope to see the results at the finish line on May 25.
For more information on the race go to www.skitosea.com.
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