Sunday, August 14, 2005

Map Me, Track Me, Watch Me


Those of you who've been reading Life Is A Tri for a while know that last year's Accenture Chicago triathlon was, in many ways, my least favorite race of the 2004 season. Too big, too many people, that long run back to T1 and, oh yeah, my performance sucked. But I'm returning this year for another try (tri?) because the city is great and how many times do you get the chance to hammer right down Lake Shore Drive's center lane?

Also returning as one of this year's coolest features is Accenture's Athlete Alert System allowing family, friends and tri-bloggers everywhere to receive real-time text messages as racers of interest complete each segment of the race. It's free though registration is required. (I am bib #10010 if you are interested in tracking me.)

New from the finish line this year is live streaming video. During the race, you can view a map of the course and see how I'm doing as I cross each tracking mat. Then, after the race, come back to the site and you'll see a 30-second video clip of ME crossing the finish line (vertically, hopefully) along with all my splits. How utterly cool is that? You'll have all that data long before I will. Call me and let me know how I did, OK?


Oh, the photo above is of the last third of the Olympic-distance swim. I'm the little dot in the middle, the one freaking out.

5 comments:

Born To Endure said...

Well that is completely cool!!! I plan on watching you guys finish then!! Have a blast, i've heard what a great race that one is!!

Nancy Toby said...

So, uh, do you think it's going to take the full 30 seconds to crawl across the mats? What do they do if you take longer than that?

Tracy said...

That sounds SO awesome!!! I'm going to try to get into this one, if the in-laws can babysit over night and there's actually a hotel room left open within a 50-mile radius, count me in.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

We have that for the Houston Marathon, and I've heard it works well, even though I always get sick or injured right before marathon day.

I'll be signing up to keep tabs! You'll do great!

:) said...

Woohoo...signed up and ready to hear about your awesome day! GO GO GO!!!