Tuesday 29 July 2014

Purple Patch DTUF Half Marathon 2014 and REP Arun Waterside Swim

Fantastic weather for sports this weekend, with sundays slightly cloudy weather being perfect for a run or a swim.
Race or Event Race Gallery link
Purple Patch Down Tow Up Flow Half Marathon - Windsor to Marlow

http://bit.ly/PP-DTUF-2014-Photo-Gallery 
Waterfront Festival 1.5km and 3km Swims - free race downloads
http://bit.ly/REP-Arun-Waterfront-Swim-2014-Gallery

Perfect conditions for a run along the river Thames, or for swimming in the River Arun on Sunday. Almost 700 people took off in three waves from Windsor in the shadow of the castle to run up the tow path to Marlow and the finish at the rugby club.
Pic2Go Number 42. Possibly the answer according to Douglas Adams.

Pic2Go Barcodes
This was the first time we have used the pic2go barcodes for indexing on the race numbers for a half marathon in the UK - and our thanks to Claire and Chris and the Purple Patch team for helping to add them as labels to the race numbers - we are very grateful to them for that. The labels helped to stiffen the race number sheets - which meant they didn't crease (creases stop them being squares!) - which also improved their visibility.
The technology has been used around the world for the past two years, so our investment in the technology was made with it already having a good track record at other mass participation races.
The gallery went live at lunchtime, about half a day earlier than usual - so everything is working as intended. That's nice :-)

And - we have confirmation that the Bacchus Half and Full Marathon, and the Ealing half marathon will have the pic2go barcodes on their race numbers - so we should have those galleries on line much faster than normal for such large races. Our aim is to get them onto all the races we cover as standard, so hopefully you'll get used to seeing them about.

As we showed last weekend, there is also the ability to publish images live during the race to peoples facebook galleries using the pic2go system - and it would be fantastic for the Runners to experience getting their race photos this quickly to remember and share their race day ! We are actively looking for sponsors for this - so if you know someone or are that company - please get in touch.
(for comparison the San Francisco Marathon say that their free photos from Sundays race will be online in about 5 days... that's a lot of opportunity being missed there, as it happens we had the REP Arun swim free race downloads online before the results...ok not the same scale on that one, but you get the point).


Here's some of the action shots from Sundays races, I hope you enjoy them and don't forget to get yours too ! - next weekend is the Bewl Tri on Saturday and the Wellington College Tri on Sunday - 


Lots of action at the Arun Swim, including two lifeboat launches, and someone playing about on a water jet thingy and a waterplane flying about... and all the photos for the REP events are on free download !
Feel the love from the Marshal and race management team

Debbie and Sue get Photobombed by someone so rich he has two pairs of sunglasses

Tuff Fitty get ready for action

Contenders ready...

off we go !

The The welcoming committee

My, what big arms you have... like seriously. what. big. arms. you. have.

Nigel looked surprised to have finished so quickly

That Wella moment

Piers Brosnan who ? yeah whatever.

Mick checks the script for the reference to chicken

Meanwhile in Berkshire... Purple Patch were putting on a rather nice Half Marathon - the DTUF
The start in the shadow of Windsor castle by the Thames

Double thumbs up for running along

"moonlight" jazz hands - quite an original impromptu team effort. Good times and boogie next ?

The river is nice through Maidenhead

Cookham looking nice

aaaand just over there is Paul Daniels house. I think.

Not seen at the Commonwealth Games this year, but the MoBot makes it to DTUF

Live long and prosper. Go for a run !


 The Win for Reading Roadrunners from Matthew Green #118 in 1:15:51

Always give it everything at the finish (and don't stop short just because you see a timing mat!)

Everything gone well into the finish

Just waiting for the mother in law, all seems to have gone well !
So that's if until next time, have a great week, and I hope you didn't get caught in the storm Floods yesterday (monday) morning in Brighton, Hove and Worthing - the images on telly looked quite shocking.

Anthony





Wednesday 23 July 2014

REP Arundel Castle Tri and F3 Events Marlow Half Iron Tri 2014 now live

Hiya, 
I hope you're coping with the hot weather !
If you didn't notice, last weekend was a triathlon one. There were all sorts going around the country, and we were focussed on two races, one in Marlow and one in Arundel.

Race Gallery Link
REP Arundel Castle Standard Triathlon
http://bit.ly/REP-Arundel-Castle-Tri-2014-Photo-Gallery
F3 Events Marlow Half Iron Triathlon
http://bit.ly/F3-Marlow-Half-Iron-Tri-2014-Gallery

The F3 Events website has a great post race report here - with a mass start for the men and then the women about 5 minutes later it was a straight race from start to finish which unravelled itself over the three skills of the discipline.
Unknown to many, but shared by the Race director at the end of the day - there had been a car accident on the bike course that had shut the roads. Only with the help of the Race Marshals and team were the police able to open the road in time for the race to continue - with about only 10 minutes to spare before the bikes arrived ! Good job marshals !
Given that the course had already been changed to accommodate the roadworks on the dual carriageway south of Nettlebed, some would say to a more challenging and interesting course up Pishill  it was a great relief for everyone involved that it didn't get stopped.
It's taken a few years but now the F3 Half Iron is a popular race with a flat run and a testing bike ride. I would like to see it get registered for BTF accreditation - that would surely see it more than double in size.
Tom Burkinshaw won by a country mile. And had the best barcodes too.
The Raw Energy Pursuits (REP) Arundel Castle Triathlon is a new standard distance race in the calendar. Swimming in the river Arun on the tide turn, followed by a very challenging bike ride around the South Downs, finishing off with a 2 lap 10k run around the Castle, finishing in the Town Square.

There's a great race report here on Tri247 

Mick Dicker the race director has been a long time supporter of us providing free race photos for competitors at his races. It seemed an ideal opportunity for us to test the new Pic2Go system which can put competitors race photos directly into a Facebook album for them - live during an event.

Mick got the Pic2go barcodes printed onto his race numbers at very short notice, and then we also tried to back this up with stickers. Given we know the price of bikes, bike helmets, wetsuits and all other kit that makes triathlon we were seriously concerned that these very very sticky labels would damage anything other than fabric that they touched. So some very straightforwards instructions were given - stick it on the swim cap and fabric only.
 There was only one problem that we hadn't anticipated after testing it on everything we have in terms of running technical fabrics - a lot of good tri suits are apparently covered in teflon - you know - the non-stick stuff. We didn't test it on a good tri suit... we came unstuck...

So, saved by the tyvek race numbers with the barcodes printed on them, we were able to get the shots where barcodes could be read from the swim and bike start onto peoples Facebook pages whilst they were on the bike course! Then as soon as the run was complete the remaining images were uploaded through the system which meant that within 2 hours of the event almost everyone (96%) had images available.
Later that day we manually indexed off the rest of the images, put them onto the gallery as usual and made sure all 100% of competitors had images on their facebook albums.

In conclusion, triathlon continues to be one of the hardest events to try to number up. The rules dictate front and back numbering at different stages of the race, cover yourselves up with wetsuits that can't take any markings (one day perhaps someone will design one with a small panel on the front for numbering ?), and then crouch over on bikes to hide any markings that you did have (again a bike helmet manufacturer is one day going to design one with a numberplate space on the front ?)

Overall for a small race with 150 competitors, over 14,000 people were shown the race pictures via the social share, so if nothing else - it's had a load of publicity to increase the size of the race for next year !

pic2go barcodes
We will next be testing the barcodes only for faster cataloguing of a race on Sunday at the Purple Patch DTUF (Down Tow Up Flow) half marathon - they still have entries on the day if you are interested

Soon we hope to get all races that we cover using the barcodes - this will speed up the service we can provide for races and better for you by getting the galleries on line faster.

Race Numbers
In the meantime we have invested in the technology to print race numbers onto tyvek and can match very competitively on pricing for them, so we can help races include this technology as easily as possible.

And - Here's a quick summary from the races in pictures...
All setting off near the famous Marlow Bridge

calm and collected into T1, or not so if you're struggling behind

Doffing your cap to the locals as you pass

Fast downhills through the roadworks

Not a difficult "guess the word he's saying" caption competition

Yaay for high fives

ROB. You're the best.

Correct Finish technique

Well done Jessica

Taking a bow on the red carpet

Well, he does have Nikon as a sponsor name on his top.

Over in Arundel
THAT picture postcard background 

Barcode Tags on hats seemed to work well

Off out for a ride from the foot of the castle

Damn those south downs !

Running along near the lake

Past Historic folleys

Down into the town centre along the Castle Walls

Flying into the finish at the foot of the hill
Very well done to everyone involved with F3Events and Raw Energy Pursuits on putting on two great events in hot conditions. I don't think we saw a single dehydration case at the finish line in any of the races - which is a testament to competitor sense as it is to course safety.

So for those of you keeping track of these things, just so you feel older, our eldest finished Infants school today. If you've been reading this Blog since before then (It's 8 years old and 505 posts in that time) then I hope that gives you a small marker of the passage of time that goes too quickly.

Until next time - I hope you all have a good summer holiday planned, and to the chap who rode past during a race shouting "love the blog" - thank you, that makes us all just that bit happier !

Anthony






Friday 18 July 2014

RPAC and Phoenix Summer 10k 2014 Race galleries now online

One of those quick updates today with this Wednesday Evening mid-week Summer 10k races, both in perfect conditions for an afternoons racing after work...

Race logo Gallery link

http://bit.ly/Phoenix-10k-2014-photo-gallery

http://bit.ly/Phoenix-10k-2014-photo-gallery

In other news - there's a handful of entries available on the morning for the REP Arundel Castle Triathlon - so if you're someone who likes to leave it late - get yourself over to their website RIGHT now http://www.rawenergypursuits.co.uk/ to sort yourself out for a 5am wakeup call, mass start river swim, and a lovely ride and run around the Sussex Countryside.
And yes - This race is the first event in the UK to use the Pic2Go system to allow race photos to competitors facebook pages during the race. So if you know anyone taking part - get prepared to see their facebook feed on Sunday morning...


And here's a few shots from Wednesday evenings two races...

First up the RPAC summer 10k...

It's boring out front. Well ok its probably not.

Dave is back, where have you been ?

double thumbs up

happy days

running in strongly at the finish

BHR go north to Reigate

good team work

slow motion finishing for added cheering effects...



All off strongly at Hove for the Phoenix 10k

past the pretty beach huts

All smiles with the wind behind on the return leg after the joys of the power station

"Seaside!!"

Ben Tickner - 30:05 - is quite sharp really

Racing for the line

Everyone is allowed the winning arm

Double thumbing from the Fit Bitch (no seriously, that is their training group name)

Ouchy ankle. Be careful out there everyone.

 Right, that's it until the weekend. If you're at either the F3 Marlow Half Ironman, or the REP Arundel Castle Triathlon - remember to put your barcodes on in the right place - just like crash-test lego man thank you !!

Have a good weekend, don't get caught in the rainstorms if you can help it and have a great race on Sunday whatever you're doing, and don't get sunburnt or dehydrated !!

until next time
Anthony