Honolulu Marathon Technology

We said our goodbyes to Oahu but had the pleasure to see a couple of friends who I admire greatly. We had dinner in Kailua with a former BillP Studios intern Christina who is there teaching special education. We also had lunch and spent some time on Waikiki Beach with our lead researcher Robin who is just beyond amazing. We just happen to be in town for a special anniversary of Pearl Harbor but won't be there to see Robin run/walk in Sundays 34th Annual Honolulu Marathon.


Considering Robin has been legally blind since birth this is a concept that blows me away. This will be Robin's 4th marathon and she's working to beat her best time of just over 5 hours.

The really cool part of the marathon is all participants get a special micro chip that can be used to track their progress during the race. There are five sensor mats along the 26.2 mile route which detect when runners pass by. I'll be tracking Robin's chip #1699 on http://www.honolulumarathon.org/site3.aspx

The next cool tech aspect is that they video tape the runners at each of the sensor mats and use the time stamp to create personalized DVD's edited for each runner. They have what must be video editing software that will go through the entire video extracting clips of an individual runner based on the time stamp created by the chip. That's a great use of technology.

"Each of your personal scenes is edited into the race storyline with the best race highlights, scenic video, narration, music, graphics, and cheers from the crowd.

Personalized titles display your name, race number, and split times on the screen whenever you appear in the video. Other features include a personal digital finisher certificate displaying your official results and an animated course map."