Chips The Next Big Step For Bloomsday Runners

Soon, all runners will be implanted with computer chips. And they’ll start surfing.

These visions - and more - aren’t from conspiracy theorists. They’re from mainstream techno-nerds, flooding the Internet with road races and plotting to stick computer chips in the shoelaces of every runner.

Like the latest tennis shoe, technology and computers are infecting races. The Boston Marathon, for its 100th anniversary this year, set up a page on the Internet and handed out computer timing chips to all runners.

Bay to Breakers in San Francisco has also set up an Internet page. So has Spokane’s Bloomsday, and more than 3,800 visits have been paid to the World Wide Web site. Officials from both races say the chip will be a reality within years.

“I liked it,” said Angela Lefler, a first-grade teacher at Finch Elementary who just returned from the Boston Marathon. “It was really easy to use. It’s kind of like a butterfly shape.”

The Boston Marathon is the race-technology leader, spurred by its centennial and about four times as many runners as usual.

This year, runners laced a piece of black plastic lattice containing a computer chip into their shoes. The chip recorded each runner’s starting time, halfway time and finish time.

Runners received postcards in the mail listing their official times, recorded the old-fashioned way. They also received their net times recorded by the chip.

For runners farther back in the pack, the chip meant a more accurate time. Lefler didn’t cross the starting line for 13 minutes.

Bloomsday founder Don Kardong, who ran the Boston Marathon, also had to wait.

“The net time realizes it took someone like me five minutes to get to the starting line and adjusted,” said Kardong.

Kardong has been talking for about three years with a chip developer in Canada about its potential.

There are problems with bringing it to Bloomsday:

At about $25 a chip, it’s expensive, which would mean increasing the price of running Bloomsday by about $3 or $4. (The race would reuse the chips and recoup the cost over several years.)

The chip’s not readable from a long distance, meaning they must be close to the sensory pads on the ground for accurate readings.

The technology isn’t practical for the weekend warrior walking Bloomsday at a leisurely pace.

Still, it’s coming - within five years, Kardong predicts. Races in the Northwest may buy the chips in bulk and simply ship them from race to race. Or runners may buy their own chips and use them race after race.

Some technology is already available at the touch of a mouse. Runners already can surf the Internet and download entry forms for Bloomsday and Bay to Breakers.

The Boston Marathon Web site is by far the most sophisticated, including a searchable database of people who ran the race April 15.

Internet users can find their friends. They can figure out that 47 people from Spokane ran in Boston. They can find out that 210 people named Smith ran.

They can find out that Jeff Corkill was the fastest Spokane runner, at two hours, 49 minutes and 55 seconds. They can find out that Jacqueline Davenport was the fastest Spokane female, at three hours, 22 minutes and 22 seconds.

The site was visited more than a million times on April 15 and 16, said Lesley Kurz, a marathon spokeswoman.

The Bloomsday site won’t have a searchable database with all the runners - yet. But the site will list the top finishers, after Kardong goes to work.

“This seemed like the perfect way after the race to allow anyone in the world to see what happened - assuming someone in the world, in this case me, sits down to enter all the data,” Kardong said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: RUNNING SITES There are many Internet sites devoted to running. Here are a few: Lilac Bloomsday Run - http://splnet.spokpl.lib.wa.us/bloomsdy.html Racing and Running News of the Northwest - http://www.ontherun.com Boston Marathon - http://www.bostonmarathon.org Bay To Breakers - http://www.sfo.com/(tilde)hulaman/bay2b.html The Running Page - http://sunsite.unc.edu/drears/running/running.html