All is fairly quiet here at present (which makes a nice change in some ways while disappointing in others).

Unfortunately we still don’t have a broadband link in Athens, and with Tim getting some no doubt much needed sleep  I haven’t had any new phone messages from the crew to report, and no forwarded photos yet.

The Championchip site in Greece, which didn’t provide data until about 29hrs into the race, then updated every couple of hours before switching to 12 hourly updates, is currently not doing anything and is still showing figures from the 72 hours mark (as I type we are little over 86 hours into the race).

I had expected the site to update at least at the 84hr point (3 and a half days in to the race), but having now waited up for about another 2 hours  without result, I think I’ll cut my losses and grab a few hours sleep (which will make a nice change).

The lack of updates from the Championchip site has been disappointing. The switch to displaying results as PDF files hasn’t improved things, in fact quite the reverse. At previous races Championchip has displayed results using  direct feeds from the race, giving at least hourly updates, often updates every 20 mins, and occasionally even every lap. The lack of data at present is a little frustrating.

For most people, realistically, 12 hour updates are enough, especially during an event of this length, but for anyone really seriously interested in the specifics of the race, a snapshot twice a day isn’t really enough as while one can easily see how much distance an athlete has covered in the past 12 hours one can’t assess how fast they are actually running a lap, how many breaks they are taking and for how long, if their pace is consistent or variable – and so on. Probably this isn’t of all that much interest to the majority of people following the race, but it is rather important to athletes, coaches, crews etc. Alan will undoubtedly be busy filling in spreadsheets on William’s own performance, but it is very useful to compare data with other runners, and it is a shame, as it is all being recorded by the Championhip system and will be viewable on screen at the race itself, that this isn’t being made more accessible on the internet.

Oh well, unless I get more updates momentarily, in the immortal words of Zebadee,

“Boing – time for bed”.

More as and when,

Shaun