Heads up! The massive Sports Tech Deals list is here! Including huge discounts on Apple, DJI, Fitbit, Garmin, Google, GoPro, Peloton, Samsung, Tacx, Wahoo, and tons more! From the Garmin Epix at $449 (insane!) and Forerunner 965 deals, to the slightly newer Garmin Epix Pro & Fenix 7 Pro at $200 off, to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 deal, and the Tacx NEO 2T for $899. There’s huge savings, and constantly updated!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
Have some fun in the travel section.
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
How funny is this and yet an app unrelated to the MCM, Runkeeper, actually released something like this and for the most part seems to work, albeit with an additional cost. Well maybe next year they will charge you for using your own phone to track yourself and friends
I think all race organizers should learn from this. After trying to track runners at various races for the last 5 years, one thing is for sure. Very few races have enough band width to support the demand on thier systems during race day. I don’t know how many times I have stood at the 10K point waiting for a runner only to get the 5K split on texted to me after the runner passes at the 10K mark.
Ray, it was actually MCM that was deleting comments from their Facebook page. Any comment or question that you posted about the app was deleted. Anything negative you had to say about the app was deleted. If you had a question about why there was no texting service – it was deleted. Even people who had unrelated problems – people whos final times were not showing in the results page – those questions were deleted.
Huge FAIL on the part of MCM mgmt for this. This is no way to treat a customer base.
FWIW RaceMate at least left the negative comments up and provided a response eventually.
I just dont understand how MCM could have made this decision for an unproven app and an unproven company. The “chip->database” link seems to work since I’m told the Results page was updated in real time and seemed to work. How hard can it be to spend a year focusing on the “database->public” part of that? It does not seem that hard.
Good post – point #3 is especially well taken!
semper fi… let’s get back to racing and having your time written on your bib when you finish. That’s all you need 🙂
I am surprised at how many races do not offer text message tracking, especially long ones like Mdot, where it would be _very_ helpful to the spectators. We paid enough. In this day and age, it should be seamless and part of the base package to send a text message within a very short time frame (single digit seconds) of crossing a split mat at anything more than a local 5k. If you use a chip, SMS tracking should be included. It can’t be that difficult to do a chip>email/SMS lookup>send even with thousands of hits in a small time frame. I am surprised that real time tracking is not ubiquitous.
There are free (instamapper) and paid (accutracking) java apps which run on bottom end Boost/nextel phones (and many smartphones) which allow realtime tracking and geofence SMS.
I hope they don’t can the app, but take their knocks and rise from the ashes better for the experience. I want this at my events.
Ouch. I hope the NYC Marathon app this weekend works out better. It’s done by Participant Sports Inc. No clue what their setup is. But in the past, the NYC Marathon text or email notifications have never worked. Always severely delayed.
there’s a sucker born every day….
I’m seeing a trend here…race organization companies seeing how powerful social media is. And actually responding to it. It’s a good thing
On another note, did anyone else feel the water/aid stations were wayyy to far apart? I was thirsty and then dehydrated from the half on….
Great post! I didn’t purchase the app, but there is a similar one for NYC this weekend and I’m telling my friends and family to track me online and not bother with the app.
+1 ForestGlen! There was NO water from just before mile 19 until just after mile 22. 3+ miles with no water so late in the race?? Obviously, not paying enough attention to the course map was on me. I guess I just assumed there would be water every 1-2 miles at the end, BECAUSE EVERY MARATHON I’VE EVER RUN DOES IT. To hell with the smart phone app; I would have liked some water on those darn bridges!
You know, MCM actually brought one of the app developers from Mobomo onstage at an evening event that they conducted for first-time marathoners on the Friday before the marathon.
Had the guy appeared at the finish line, he probably would have met a very grim end at the hands of hundreds of angry people armed with banana peels…
Interesting today a search of itunes for 26.2 shows this same app as #1.