Freescale Marathon Chip Time Response from RunFAR

This picture below and to the right is the only proof that I have of what I ran at the Freescale Austin Marathon on Sunday! (And I don't want to hear from you Oliver Stone conspiracy theorists that I engineered the time on there either!) Even the NewsLady thought this was a great idea!


Here is an e-mail that I received from RunFAR, the timing company responsible for the problem. I don't know if all runners received this or just those whose gun and chip times were the same.

Freescale Marathon and Half Marathon
Chip Timing and Results Issue

Dear Jon Walk
Spring, TX
Bib #: 5846:

RunFAR Racing Services, Inc was responsible for the timing and scoring of the 2006 Freescale Marathon and Half Marathon. At the start of the race, we misdiagnosed an interference problem and failed to review how our staff set up the digital antenna controllers. As a result, we missed half of the participants at the start line. We regret to inform you of this mistake and we are truly apologetic for the mishap.

We are able to do manual inserts of participant's start offset or the time it took for you to get to the start line after the horn was sounded. If you know your start offset time you may contact us to adjust your chip time. If you have already contacted us with your start time, please do not re-email as we are working to adjust your chip time. (NOTE: We will only authorize those start times with comparable paces between the 1st 10k and each other split throughout the course.)

4:57:51.6 is what we captured as your Gun Time and also shows as your Chip Time. You can contact us by replying to this e-mail.

We appreciate your attention to this matter and thank you for you patience. At RunFAR, our goal is to take the best care of our customers as possible. If you have any other questions or comments, you may reach our office at 512-326-1600.

Sincerely,

Raul Najera
Owner/President
RunFAR Racing Services, Inc.
Austin, Texas

Mistakes happen. Although this has to be the biggest blunder at a major marathon since last summer's debacle at the Lakeshore Marathon in Chicago on Memorial Day Weekend when participants ran 27.2 miles instead of 26.2.

I'm not sure what the backup plan would be in an event this big (digital video cameras on both sides of the start line that had the clock superimposed on the footage?); however, you would think that there are solutions out there. (Hmmm ..... wonder if they had been discussed at the Race Director's Conference there the first day of the Expo.)