Digital marathon

FOR Conrad Kiffin, running a marathon is like starring in his own personal video game. Every mile, he sneaks a look at the global positioning system on his wrist to see if he8217;s keeping up with an imaginary rabbit going at his target pace.

FOR Conrad Kiffin, running a marathon is like starring in his own personal video game. Every mile, he sneaks a look at the global positioning system on his wrist to see if he8217;s keeping up with an imaginary rabbit going at his target pace.

8220;If I see the pacer running away from me, I know I have to go harder,8221; said Kiffin, 41, a photographer in Manhattan. 8220;It8217;s very video-gamey.8221;

Staying on pace is a hard-won skill for marathoners. Only the best are able to estimate their speed with nothing more than a head-to-toe check of how they feel. For those who haven8217;t honed this sixth sense, GPS units and heart-rate monitors help them avoid the 11th-hour meltdowns that follow too-fast starts.

At the New York City Marathon today, many of the 37,000 participants will be wired and, in some cases, wireless including Paul Kaye, from Cape Town, who plans to run with a cellphone strapped to an arm with software that plays music and beeps to let him know if he8217;s on pace.

Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion, will wear Nike shoes with sensors made to send pace data to his iPod nano. Dino Farfante will carry an MP3 player and, strapped to his arm, a GPS unit that gives oral updates on his speed.

And of course there are the legions of iPod users who will run with white wires snaking through their T-shirts. And the cellphone and camera carriers, who will be chronicling their experience for posterity. Every competitor will wear a shoe with a chip to record their progress, and can send e-mail updates every 5 km to spectators who subscribe to the service.

8220;I8217;ve been at finish lines where people come across looking like a hardware store,8221; said Andrew Graham, the chief executive of Bones in Motion, which makes the software Kaye will use in his Motorola Motokrzr K1m phone.

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Technology is adding a new sound effect, beyond the roar of the crowd and pounding of feet, to many races. 8220;In runs these days, it8217;s common to hear beep beeping,8221; said David Willey, editor in chief of Runner8217;s World, referring to the alarms on the heart-rate monitors worn by many runners to track their pulses. 8220;That8217;s definitely something you didn8217;t hear 10 years ago.8221;

Serious runners once thought that music players had no place in races. But that hasn8217;t stopped technology-dependent marathoners. Willey estimates that at least one in five marathoners wear MP3 players as they race.

But MP3s are also being used in novel ways to improve technique. Ideally a runner, to be most efficient, should take short quick steps8212;about 180 a minute. Jenny Hadfield, a coach who lives in Chicago, advises her runners to download the tick tock of a metronome to their MP3s to stay in step. 8220;As runners get fatigued, their turnover gets slow,8221; said Hadfield, author of Marathoning for Mortals. Hearing a minute of a metronome8217;s beat midrace can put competitors back on track.

And some of today8217;s pacers use GPS gadgets. For the first time this year, Garmin, a leading maker of GPS fitness products, sponsored a dozen marathons and provided hardware for the pacers. The devices, worn on runners8217; wrists, track their elapsed distance, average per-mile pace and elevation.

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About one out of five runners carry a phone, up from about 1 in 10 in 2003, according to a recent online survey of 2,732 runners conducted by Runner8217;s World. Marathoning is growing and its culture changing because of first-timers and 8220;back of the packers,8221; Willey said. Runners who take five, six or seven hours to finish 8220;are more likely to carry a cellphone8221; to chat or snap pictures.

As a marathoner with a personal best of 3 hours 9 min 32 secs who chooses to slow down to socialize, Chris Solarz is an exception. In the more than 100 marathons he says he has run, Solarz, 28, has often carried a digital voice recorder to get the names and numbers of people he meets and a Canon PowerShot to 8220;tell the story of the journey,8221; he said.

Not everyone thinks technology is progress. Many runners use it sparingly in training and reject it for races. 8220;When you start adding all this paraphernalia clipped to your waist, running up your shirt into your ears, it gets confusing,8221; said Deena Kastor, the US women8217;s marathon record-holder and a contender to win in New York this year. 8220;It takes away from just getting out there and analyzing the run yourself rather than having a piece of equipment tell you what you8217;re feeling.8221;

Marathoners who compete for prize money are prohibited from using anything more hi-tech than a stopwatch during races.

8212;CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS / New York Times