(Chandler, AZ) December 30, 2020– One 4-mile multi-loop marathon course. 9 timing points. 24 ChronoTrack controllers. 98 elite athletes from around the world. 30,732 tag reads.
The Marathon Project was a one-of-a-kind event, created in challenging times, for professional marathoners training in North America. The event was organized by Ben Rosario, coach of Northern Arizona Elite, and Josh Cox, an agent for many of America’s top distance runners, along with Matt Helbig of Big River Race Management (BRRM) whose team handled all the logistics and timing operations.
Elite Marathoners living and training in North America were invited – all with high hopes of setting big personal records, national records, and getting compete for the first time since February. – to the desert flat, 4.3-mile looped course. While accuracy and timing precision is a must-have at any event, with National records on the line there is no room for error, and ChronoTrack was proud to partner in delivering the timing technology that made it possible.
The course was set up with 9 main timing points staged at start/finish, every 5k, and half-marathon distances; complete with 13 MiniTrack controllers, 13 Flashpoints, and 11 Pro2 controllers. All equipment on course captured a total of 30,732 tag reads.
Race Director and owner of BRRM, Matt Helbig speaks to the intentional decision in making the course flat and looped stating, “From a race management standpoint, we had to make the race interesting and entice athletes to attend, we had to promise a fast and flat course. The looped course allowed us to deliver those requirements. From the timing perspective, the lap course added challenges. You get creative and do everything you can to make it work operationally. With testing and preparation, we were confident ChronoTrack would deliver. ”
For the looped sections specifically, BRRM made capturing reads possible by turning down the power on the MiniTrack controllers and Flashpoint equipment to ensure stray reads were not picked up across the medians as athletes were running back and forth through the loop.
BRRM Timer Nick Walton managed the lap stream on two main screens – tags were streamed through ChronoTrack’s Fusion middleware, with all backend data management handled in ChronoTrack Live Scoring.
While no American records were broken at the event, five national records did fall, and all parties involved were extremely happy with the accuracy of the results for all competitors. Accomplished marathon runner Sara Hall set a new personal best at The Marathon Project, winning the race and running the second-fastest marathon time for an American woman (2:20:32). The men’s winner, Martin Hehir also set a new personal best finishing at 2:08:59 in a fast field that produced 7 sub-2:10 performances by American born distance runners, the most ever at one race.
A huge congratulations to all the athletes who raced and to the teams that made this world-class event possible.
The Marathon Project event results can be found here at Athlinks.com.
