As a former runner in the Tokyo Marathon 2012, my thoughts as a cheerleader: The need for frequent information on current location is greater than expected

(*The photo was taken last year when I participated in the Tokyo Marathon 2011)

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Tokyo Marathon 2012!

Well, unfortunately, I didn’t win the lottery for the 2012 Tokyo Marathon this year, so I was watching it at home on 1seg and the internet. It’s true that I was relieved inside (laughs).

This year, I’m in a position to watch over the “sender”.

I’m usually on the running side, so this is actually my first time to watch a race like this.

Fortunately, some of my direct acquaintances participated in this race as well, and one of them broadcasted live on twitter as needed, and gave me his number in advance. I was blessed with the opportunity to see exactly what I was doing as a “transmitter” last year.

実際に自宅で観戦してまずはじめに感じたことは、なんといっても予想以上にあっという間だったということでしょうか。

I was rather surprised that it was over so quickly.

From the perspective of the runners, they are standing around from early in the morning, and when they actually run, 42km feels like quite a long time, but I felt empty in a way, wondering if time passes so easily when you are not a part of it.

Is the need for real-time information dissemination quite high?

By the way, another thing that I found very interesting was that the day before and on the day of the Tokyo Marathon 2012, my Tokyo Marathon related blog that I wrote last year saw a sharp increase in traffic.

This is a Google search by the words “Tokyo Marathon passage time” or “Tokyo Marathon location”. This can be read from the access analysis of Google Analytics.

However, since I started writing this series in order to have people refer to it from the following year onwards, I expected it in a way, but it seemed to be caught by Google’s search more than I thought.

In particular, these are the posts that received the highest number of hits.

After all, everyone seems to be curious about the current status of people they know who are running.

Real-time current location information transmission: Runner Update

Let’s take a look at what is used in the actual real-time current location information transmission.

もっともオーソドックスかつ大会開始当初よりあった現在地発信方法はこの「ランナーアップデート」だと思います。

Of course, I also used it last year.

This is a website that allows you to enter your number and see your passing time for each 5km.

Actually, until now, I’ve been on the running side, so I didn’t really know how and when the updates would be made. But this year, I’ve got a friend who’s going to be running, so for the first time I’ll be able to keep an eye on him.

しかし、スタート直後からずっとページを立ち上げてままこまめに更新をしていたのですが、なんと最初の2時間くらいは全然更新されないんです…。

After a while, it started to update, but I thought that this was far from real-time transmittability at all.

In the first place, every 5km itself is not real time at all.

また、ランナーアップデートは更新が遅いし自分でいちいち見に行かなければならないので、正直”現代的”な発想ははないです。

At the very least, I thought it would be a good idea to create a system where people could register for an email and have an email automatically sent to them when the person with the number they want to know passes a checkpoint, or feed it to them via RSS.

Real-time current location information transmission: Twitter

There are other ways to transmit your real-time current location.

It is no longer necessary to explain that one of the standard, and most effective, information dissemination tools is Twitter.

(*From last year’s contest in 2011)

However, it’s a fact that there are a lot of difficulties in using twitter while running.

まず走りながらの投稿は慣れないと難しいですし、歩きながらも同様なことが言えます。そもそも元気な時ですら走りながらの入力が大変ですから、マラソンで体力を消耗している中でそれを実行するとなると想像以上に負担となります。

In addition, the touch panel of the iPhone, and even in the case of flick input, it becomes difficult to operate because the hand is dirty with sweat. This also becomes the cause of the burden.

If you want your location to be more widely known, you can (probably) use the official hashtag #TM2012, which is now officially available, but it is also very tricky.

Because, as you know, iPhone, the input of the alphabet is very annoying while running because it is difficult to input even just because the software keyboard is small. In the first place, it is troublesome just to change the input from Japanese to English.

Therefore, it will be difficult to tweet with hashtags while running unless you are familiar with the iPhone twitter client and have prepared carefully by registering dictionaries and hashtags in advance.

さらには、いくらハッシュタグを利用したからといっても、ある程度つぶやいておかないと、よほどの有名人でない限り存在を認知されません。

At least, if you don’t use apps like I did last year, such as Konkoko Now, or use Hootsuite’s tweet reservation function to frequently tweet your current location information in real time, it’s hard to get recognized.

In other words, sending out information via Twitter requires a certain amount of preparation and getting used to it, and since it uses more mental energy than expected, it puts a greater burden on runners than expected because it drains their physical strength.

Why don’t you make a “GPS device” for the competition?

In any case, there seemed to be no significant change in the transmission of information about the runners’ current location both in 2009, when I participated for the first time, and in 2011, when I participated for the second time.

That’s why I think everyone is “searching” and exploring different methods.

There should be tremendous room for improvement in this area.

であればいっそのこと、今の時代は簡単にGPSを利用したデバイスが作れるわけですから、大会側がリアルタイムで現在地情報を発信できる専用デバイスとかを有料を提供して、ランナーの位置をリアルタイムで発信しやすいサービスくらい作ってもいいのではないかと思いました。

Well, I don’t know if I can do that because I don’t know much about the technology, cost and so on…

もちろんiPhone等のスマホアプリを作成しても構わないのですが、その多くは常に立ち上げて置かなければ起動しないことが多いため非常に使いづらい。

The fact that I had to check from time to time if the app was running properly by leaving it up was more of a burden than I thought it would be based on my experience.

Because it is necessary to calculate the consumption of the battery of iPhone at the same time, it is natural to bring eneloop, and careful preparation such as when to switch the charge is necessary.

(However, as far as iPhone apps are concerned, now that we have iCloud, we may see the creation of convenient location-aware apps that can be updated in the background using iCloud.

いずれにしましても、以上のような背景から、専用アプリよりもむしろ「専用のGPSデバイスを作ってレンタルもしくは販売する」ほうが間違いなく強い需要があると思います。

I wonder if it’s possible to make a device in China or Taiwan and use a suitable SIM free card to communicate at a reasonable price…

It’s a marathon in the world’s metropolis, so it’s okay to be high-tech ahead of the rest of the world.

来年はもっとひとりひとりのリアルタイム現在地情報発信方法が、より使いやすく応援側のニーズにもより応えられるように進化することを願っています。