To Chip or Not to Chip
The Downtown Dash featured chip timing which was the primary cause for registration problems as the volunteers had to enter the chip number and race number into only one computer so 2 volunteers had to service one runner at a time. Chip Timing might be overkill in this case as they gave awards to the top 5 males and top 5 females and had 230 runners( I was at a seminar where the speaker basically pointed out that to purchase much less rent chip timing for a race with less than 300 runners/walkers is not the best use of time). Two of Cincinnati's larger races, The Reggae Run(with over 6,000 runners/walkers) and Run Like Hell(with over 2000 runners/walkers) give awards to the top 50 males and top 50 females and do not use chip timing as the party is the main draw. They use a couple of people to determine the winners as they finish. However to promote the race, chip timing may have gotten the Downtown Dash a few more people to run the race than they otherwise would have gotten. Also, runners from competitive to recreational want more accurate timing even if the race has only 100 runners. Chip timing is the most accurate, but it is more manpower intensive than bib pull tags(direct a race and see how much manpower it takes to make a large race much less a small race to be successful). If a race featured chip timing, are you more likely to run it?(see poll question)