“Pinned you again.” – Nala in The Lion King
There’s no more space on my basement wall! Although these numbered, multi-coloured chest coverings help decorate my otherwise drab and dark laundry room, what real purpose do race bibs serve, specifically in ultra running? As I perused the photos in the latest edition of the Ultra Running magazine this thought struck me: why the heck do ultra marathons issue race bibs?
I can understand the relevance and importance of bibs at large road events. For instance, most marathons have thousands of participants. These events take place on city streets and not all municipalities are able to completely close the roads to vehicles. Although law enforcement officials offer some protection, sadly some intolerant and aggressive motorists have struck, injured, and even killed runners. Also, there have been well-publicized deaths caused by heart attacks at some high profile races. A runner’s bib does not deter a driver from being an idiot, and it certainly will not prevent heart failure, but it is a place where a runner is instructed to list emergency contact information in the event of an accident. I get that.
Furthermore, some will advocate that bibs are necessary to give major sponsors a place to include their logo and allow them to advertise on thousands of moving bodies. No sponsorship would inevitably force organizers to either cancel races or charge insanely high registration fees. Although I prefer trails, I also enjoy participating in road races, so let’s please keep the fees reasonable.
ING logo on 40 thousand runners
Also, the race photography industry has gotten extremely important and provides racers with all kinds of memorobilia such as mugs, posters, plaques and even DVD’s. Without bib numbers, it would be pretty darn tough to identify a runner or find your picture among the thousands on a website. I must admit that I have been known to purchase pictures from these photographers on more than one occasion.
Finally, if the chip timing system fails, bibs will serve as a backup method to accurately record finishing times à la old school. These are but a handful of arguments in favor of continuing the age-old tradition of providing every runner with a numbered race bib. But are these bibs really necessary for an ultra marathon?
The majority of ultra races are held on wooded trails, so there is little chance that a participant will get mowed down by an irritated driver. Also, nowadays many ultra races are chip timed so the numbered bib to identify a runner in order to record a finishing time is redundant. I have even attended events where runners are responsible to record their own times on a Bristol board at the finish line. “Fat Ass” events usually follow this honor-system method. Of course there is still a chance that a runner gets injured on these runs, so I suppose some sort of runner identification would be a good idea. However, I’m sure this I.D. doesn’t need to come in the form of a 9” X 6” piece of paper. What’s more, photographers appear more and more frequently at ultra events. Seeing as most ultras have fewer participants, even if you had to scour the website to find your picture, it likely wouldn’t take that long.
Next time you’re at an ultra event, notice what runners do with their bibs. Many runners take the bibs and fold them as small as possible and pin them to their shorts or hats (although I have seen one runner literally pin his bib to his bare chest by putting the safety pins through the holes of his pierced nipples).
Notice how ultrarunners fold their bibs
So if we are to continue to require numbered bibs at ultras, someone should patent a much smaller, water-resistant version of a running bib with an adhesive backing. There could be a small area to include emergency contact information and runners could glue the smaller number wherever they wish. This sticky back would eliminate all those annoying pin holes in your expensive moisture wicking running clothes. My M.E. partner and techno-geek Bill even suggested that these smaller bibs have RFID tags and be GPS enabled and therefore all racers could be tracked…whatever the heck all that means!
Do you have thoughts on this subject? Should we do without traditional racing bibs? What do you do with your old bibs?
Please leave us a comment below!
Gotta run,
Vince
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I had the bib or no bib debate as a child. Lets be honest, bibs in general just aren’t cool, although judging the way I eat and drink some days, I probably should still be wearing one.
Now I am not a runner (unless we can include running from our past…in which case, I am an ultra marathon speed runner) but it would seem to me that this is an area that is ripe for someone to come up with an innovative idea.
All those points Techno-Bill brought up are perfect solutions. There are so many amazing technologies out there that could be used (I know you thought my idea of twittering while wondering through some wooded forest at 3am in the morning was stupid).
Here is my idea (this is UNcopyrighted so feel free to steal it…unless it makes millions, then I want in.)
The carrying case itself should be independent of the race organizers. Quite frankly it is too expensive for them anyhow.
This should be something that runners buy for themselves like everything else. It would be small and lightweight. It would contain a GPS so we could track you from race to race (hell we could even track you on your training runs…how cool could that be?). Emergency info would also be included in there at all times. There would be a transparent part on the front where your issued number would go. Organizers could literally make them about a 1/4 of what they are now. In fact, people could print them off at home and have it all set up to go before they even get to the race.
When the race is over…take out the number and put in the next one.
hey huh??? What do you think of that? This is actually a great project for someone to undertake.
DD
Hi Dean, thanks for the comment!
I completely agree that the realm of athlete tracking could use an injection of technology. I haven’t yet begun researching this. However, off the top of my head my first reaction is to integrate race services into a athletes watch. Perhaps a race-specific, downloadable app or something. I mean, if I just paid $400 for a fancy GPS enabled runners watch, why can’t it replace race chip timing, hold my relevant emergency info, and track me in real time while I’m racing.
The latter doesn’t solve the identification problem for photographers though. So it’s probably just dumb. Anyway, I do think race numbers/bibs are worth exploring for an upgrade.
Cheers
Bill
Great title by the way. LOVE IT!!!
I like the bibs. Everyone gets a number, that number is linked to your contact info and you don’t have to worry about any techno problems. Not everyone has money to spend on silly toys, some of us just want to run.
The safety pins sometimes rust before you get them out and you have an stain on the shirt.
Ah, those pesky little pins! Thanks for the comment! That has hapenned to me in the past too!
Gotta run, Vince