Twelve months ago it all came down to 99 seconds for Jasmin Paris at the Barkley Marathons.
That was all she had to spare to make the 60-hour cut-off in that never-to-be-forgotten charge for the fabled yellow gate which meant she became the first female finisher in the notorious race’s history.
But don’t for a minute think she had the latest hi-tech running watch to help her gauge her effort to perfection – far from it!
Lucky dip
And that’s because the 40 runners have no choice around their watches – they have to grab one from those provided by race creator Laz Lake just before the event gets under way.
And as he freely admits, most are deliberately “cheap Walmart” devices that he’s bought, all part of the Barkley puzzle.
Writing on his Facebook page he had a fascinating take on which is the best – or worst – to pick out from a stack of identical boxes.
He explained: He said: “In the Barkley Marathons the athletes are not allowed to rely on technology. It is map and compass time.
“But they need to know the time to make cutoffs so each runner is issued a cheap Walmart watch set to race time on 24 hour mode.
“This means they can look at their watch, and if it reads 7:00 they are 7 hours into the run, and have 5 hours left to finish the loop on 12-hour pace.”
‘Ticking time bomb’
The race start time is within a 12-hour window from midnight to midday which is kept secret from the runners, explaining why the watch collection comes so close to the start of the race.
Laz added: “The runners pick up their watches after the conch sounds and before the starting cigarette. You can’t collect them any earlier, because it would give away the starting time.”
Laz revealed: “Some watches have nothing on the screen but the time in HUGE numbers. Others have busy watch faces with 19 kinds of information the runner could care less about and the time is hidden in a tiny box in tiny numbers… but the tiny number watches are merely a nuisance.
“The ticking time bomb in the stack of watch boxes is the box containing the “touch screen” watch.
“Because touch screen might be the worst idea in watchmaking. Every time something gets close to the screen it changes something. Maybe just the display. Maybe the mode. But resetting it is an ever-present danger and once it starts resetting itself you will never know the correct time again!
“Last year it took two of us 40 minutes to set the touchscreen watch. Then we put it carefully in its box to never be touched again until it was awarded to some poor, unlucky soul.”
But as Laz admits, maybe it’s a generation thing: “Probably an 8 year old could make the watch work by instinct. But for old people it is a nightmare.”
