Bloomsday innovation lets you hit the couch running

Today’s normally jaundiced view of humanity will be suspended so that I can gush – yes, gush – enthusiastically about the greatest invention since the iPod, the cell phone and “American Idol.”

I refer to the much ballyhooed microchip-imbedded timing anklets to be used in this year’s Bloomsday.

To paraphrase a recent news story, each runner in Spokane’s famed 7.46-mile lemming drive will pound the pavement with one of these babies strapped to an ankle.

It could be worse. Bloomsday officials turned down a company that offered a cheaper timing device – but in suppository form.

The anklet version is called the Winning Time Chip. It is similar to what zillionairess Martha Stewart was forced to wear during the home-arrest phase of her incarceration, but with fewer sequins.

Inside every ankle strap is this tiny magnetically activated gizmo that is way too technical for any of my readers to possibly comprehend. All you need to know is that this contraption is designed to accurately register a participant’s race time.

Must I spell out the obvious angle here?

For sheer speculative purposes, let’s imagine that I happen to ask one of those fleet-footed Kenyans if he would be a sport and wear my ankle strap during the race.

“Just slip it under one of your socks,” I say, handing the good fellow a few greenbacks for his trouble.

About 35 minutes later, Voila! Doug – the non-aerobic couch monkey – has not only earned his Bloomsday T-shirt but is seeing his name listed among the elite finishers.

What joy.

Granted, it may be a lot more complicated than this. But consider the edge in bragging rights you could have:

DOUG – “Hey, Don, how’d you do in Bloomsday this year?

DON – “Not bad. I finished in just under an hour. How’d you do?”

DOUG – “Tied for second with Gilbert Okari.”

True, this may become cost prohibitive once the real runners catch on and a bidding war erupts over Kenyan ankle space.

For a cheaper alternative, I suggest tying an anklet around a dog’s neck.

Hopefully the beast will follow the crowd. There’s always the danger the mutt may give chase to a marmot and wind up finishing your race somewhere around Colville.

But this is better than the old-fashioned Bloomsday system, where it took considerably more skulking and effort to cheat. I’ve heard stories about people finding a hiding place and jumping into the heaving herd in the middle of the course.

After that they still had to do some actual running.

Running. Is there a worse way to defile a Sunday?

No wonder Bloomsday attendance has been tanking faster than George Bush’s approval ratings.

But mark my words. The addition of anklet timers and proxy runners could pump up Bloomsday bigger than Anna Nicole’s implants. I’m even thinking of dusting off the red, white and blue running shoes I wore for Bloomsday 2005.

You may recall that last year I was challenged to a Bloomsday duel by a former fatty who had dropped 470 pounds.

I broke like the wind – for about five blocks.

Approaching the corner of Sprague and Monroe I was overcome by chronic nipple chafing and a low-pain threshold. I veered off course and straight into the Spokane Club cocktail lounge, where I spent the remainder of the morning guzzling tequila sunrises.

Bode Miller did practically the same thing in the recent Winter Olympics.

A few words of warning about cheating. There is always the chance you might get caught and summarily banned from all future Bloomsdays.

But when you think about it, is that really punishment?