The Prez Says Technology Opens Doors
Felton Wright,
Technology has certainly changed the way we do many things. I had the pleasure of recently running the Garmin marathon at their headquarters in Kansas. Seeing their technology and learning of the recent NSA revelations got me thinking -which is a scary thought. What if Gulf Winds had access to all of the NSA’s technology?
Think about it. GWTC with Peg Griffin and Bill Hillison’s chip timing system could team up with the recently disclosed NSA’s surveillance system. With this combined technology, GWTC should be able to log into any member’s GPS watch satellite and track exactly how far and how fast members are running at any time. This would produce many benefits to the club. Peg Griffin and David Yon could post a link on our website where you could log in and check exactly what anyone in your age group is running on any given day. If your competition is on vacation, you could see exactly how they are training and with whom. If your spouse says they were on a long run, you could see if they were really just sitting in Panera Bread for an hour. If someone claims they ran negative splits in a race, it could be verified. If someone says, “it was a hilly course”, that can be checked. Out of town PRs on short courses could be nullified. There are several people in the club when asked, “how much have you been running” always respond “hardly any”, and you know who you are! With this new combined technology all of the above could be confirmed.
Having our very own GWTC spy satellite would also make many of our club member’s jobs easier. Peg and Bill could probably chip time a race from the comfort of their own home. If a runner crosses the finish line without a number showing, facial recognition software could quickly identify them and place them in the correct age group. Wouldn’t it be scary what photos Herb and Fred could take if they had their own satellite? There are also simple solutions available. Turkey trot could post real time info on which porta-potty lines were moving the quickest. Of course hundreds of millions of dollars worth of technology could never replace a Bill Lott at the finish line.
Oh well, maybe we’ll have this in next year’s budget.
It used to be that there was not much going on running-wise in a Tallahassee summer. That has certainly changed! In 2013 there is a local race every single week all summer long. We also have some different types of runs from: Devil take the Hindmost, 8 summer track meets, a new series of 4 trail races, an organized SMIRF program for kids, two grand prix races in August and a youth triathlon If you are not sure when these events are, I urge you to check our website. In addition we have several lecture series events scheduled this month. It is going to be a great summer!
Run fast. Run safe.