joseph tokyo marathon 14Some of you *may* recall that in the spring of 2009 I ran the Tokyo Quarter Marathon with an iPhone strapped to my head, which broadcast live video throughout the race. It also enabled viewers (of whom there were about 1000) to support me by sending comments which made the phone vibrate upon delivery.

On February 2010 I shall run my first ever full marathon. In a bid to reduce the the chances of it killing me, between now and then I shall be following this 16-week training program, with my co-runner and trainer, Tom.

The following plan emerged tonight from the minds of a man named Jim (who is also running), and Joseph.

The Big Plan

We want to make this marathon as interactive as possible for all of you who are either too sensible or too lazy to run yourselves.

We believe that given the power of the technology many of us now hold in our own hands (iPhones / eMobile enabled netbooks / Skype / uStream / Qik / Google Latitude / Twitter etc) we will be able to create a live online sports event unlike any other yet seen. It will be online and interactive, available to everyone to watch or particpate in.

We envisage having a central studio, manned by a member of our team fielding questions and feedback from our audience of thousands around the world. A second member of the team will be managing the live video streams coming in from our team of runners, and from additional cameras stationed around the course.

GPS technology will mean that you can track individual team members in real time, thus helping you get to the right place on the course at the right time to wave them on.

You will be able to talk directly to runners, and send in your words of encouragement by email and Twitter.

You will be able to ask them fiendeshly difficult questions, allowing them to become distracted from the pain in their legs.

It wll be a great challenge, something that everyone who takes part in will never forget.

We’ll be setting up an online group to enable all those who want to take part to do so.

We welcome your feedback and ideas – and get in touch if you’re a runner!

4 Responses

  1. GPS is great, but a heart monitor with an RSS feed or whatever would be very cool too.

    – Karamoon

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