Fast Running Blog

Does anybody want to volunteer to do the Wasatch Back webcast? The idea is that the volunteer will periodically communicate with each of the four FRB vehicles during the relay and obtain the split/competitor gap/finish projection info and post it for the readers. If anything, this will be helpful for the post-race analysis.

This would also help for relaying messages when we go in and out of cell phone coverage areas.

I guess the question is how many interested readers we will have (enough to make it worth the hassle?), and if somebody would volunteer. We could even have more than one volunteer, e.g somebody in Hawai could do the early portion of the race, go to bed at a sane time, and then somebody on the East Coast could take over without having to wake up at an insanely early hour, and we would still be able to do it with no huge delay or international calls.

If you go through no cell phone coverage areas, how will anyone be able to call you and get information? And how will that help in relaying messages?

Maybe I'm a little confused...wouldn't it be easier to just take a laptop along in each vehicle and have someone designated (not a runner) in each to add to a continuing webcast thread?

Things get hectic enough to where updating a webcast via a laptop is about the last thing you want to do. However, calling somebody once every 30 minutes and telling him the last split, and the gap is quite manageable.

Regarding relaying messages - e.g Van 1 is currently out of coverage, and Van 2 is in coverage. Van 1 is about to go into coverage, but Van 2 is about to leave coverage. Van 1 has a urgent message for Van 2. Van 1 can leave that message with the web-caster, and he can relay it to Van 2 once it is in coverage.

Also, suppose suppose Van 1 blue wants to know how the white team is doing, and Van 2 blue wants to know the same. This would mean two calls that the white team would have to answer while trying to do a million other things in the van. Much easier if they could just call the web-caster and ask.

From what I remember, there aren't many locations with poor cell coverage- just a few. 

I know Mik'L or Lybi (I can't remember which) did updates for RDS and I enjoyed reading them.  But there were maybe 3 or 4 the whole race and I thought that was adequate.  I doubt you could get updates every 30 minutes, but once every few hours would be great.  Just a rough idea of where each team is and where other teams are (i.e. Blue just passed exchange 18 and is about 10 minutes ahead of White and BYU)- something like that.

I'm OK calling in updates after every leg when our van is on duty if the web-caster is willing to receive them that often.

It kind of sounds fun. If someone had good walkie talkies it would be sweet to have them in all 4 vans to keep everyone in touch during the race. Without having to always call. You can just talk and anyone can respond.

Thanks for the clarification.