So the New York Road Runners are abolishing the “permanent bibs” runners have used for years after this weekend’s 8000K run. I have a better idea: let’s abolish running bibs entirely.
For you non-runners out there: the bibs are what we call those numbers runners attach to their chest at races. For years they were needed to keep track of finishers, so runners could get their official times. But around a decade they haven’t been used for that at all: runners attach a small chip called a ChampionChip to their running shoes that records their time when they cross the start and finish lines.
So we need bibs… why? It’s inconvenient to force runners to head over to the NYRR headquarter to pick up their bibs before each race. (Many runners, like me, have bought our own chips so we don’t need to pick that up).
Why do we need to wear bibs, especially on a closed course like Central Park on weekends — where 90% of NYRR’s races are held? For some races where the photography company Brightroom is there, bibs are useful so they can tell who is who and try to sell you photos. But that’s a small minority of races.
NYRR should at least experiment with doing away with bibs at some of its races.
P.S. My other big idea — get rid of cotton T-shirts at souvenirs for half the races and instead have more Coolmax or other “technical” sweat-wicking shirts that you can actually wear while running…
I actually like the bibs since I collect them and hang them up on my wall. I see your point, and can understand that not being an issue after a hundred races…
There’s one main reason for bibs that you’ve forgotten, and that’s to get people to pay for the races. Without the bibs a lot of people would just run the races to take advantage of the water stations and digital clock. What holds most people back is that everyone else has a bib, and it feels like people will know you haven’t paid.
not only that-but I think part of the deal with a lot of the sponsors is that their names/logos are on the bibs…without the sponsors, race prices may go up even more…we don’t want that, do we?
And with the move to wave starts and corralling by pace-well, that info would be on the bibs.
Danny makes an excellent point too-it would lead more people to bandit, like the races aren’t crowded enough as is!-and also, what happens when there’s a chip malfunction and you need a backup identifier? It happens, it’s happened to me before.
And even if brightroom isn’t there, there are other people who take race photos (your own teammates included)-and as someone who captions the Flyers’ photos, it makes my job (and everyone else’s) a lot easier to cross-reference bib numbers rather than guessing who it is in the photo…
If you don’t like bibs-then *you* don’t have to wear them. Plain and simple.
Danny – Eh, I feel like (aside from general honesty) most people also want to get an official time and be listed in the results.
Flygirl – I hope the reason why the NYRR makes people trek over to its headquarters to pick up bibs has nothing to do with sponsorship! If that’s the case, why not just drop the pretense and force us to wear big ads for Nike or Toyota or whatnot? Ugh.
If NYRR is concerned about money, they should adopt my other bright idea — get rid of cotton T-shirts for half the races and use some the savings to have more technical sweat-wicking shirts as souvenirs. I really like the one I got at that Healthy Kidney race last year.
How does the bib work as a backup identifier? It’s not like anyone’s recording bibs out there?
And technically you do have to wear bibs… or so the NYRR says. I’ll admit there have been times when I couldn’t find my permanent bib and just ran without it. Nothing bad happened, but I believe technically I was risking disqualification.
I’m all with you on the coolmax shirts. I see the prices have gone up for the coming races (11 to 15 – that’s 35%!). how many stupid cotton t-shirts can one person use? either give coolmax, or lower the price and forget the shirt.
(and i still use my healthy kidney shirt from two years ago!)
I sent a message to the Flyers rep on the NYRR council, they said the T-shirt issue has been tossed around for years. “there is a greater percentage of non-new yorkers coming in for races and they feel this is something they can’t get rid of… too much opposition in the other direction. The cost for the T-shirts is ridiculously mininmal to boot.”
However I actually went back and looked at the results of the recent Colon Cancer Challenge. Out of 2695 runners I counted 62 outside of NY/NJ/CT. So that is like 2.3%. Seems silly to have shirts just for them.
The bibs are still needed, I think, for a couple of reasons. 1) The vast majority of them are listed in the database with your name – they DO serve as ID to some extent. 2) On a related note, it frees runners up from having to carry their ID. 3) In the marathon, in major races, the medical information on the back could be lifesaving (you do fill yours out, right?) 4) In the NYC marathon, if you need to walk off the course, the bib will get you on the subway or buses for free, so you can get home, and 5) the munchies at the end of the race are fairly limited and I don’t want people who didn’t pay a fee getting any. My chp is gone by that time, but the bib is a marker. And believe me, as a back of the pack runner most of the time, the munchies are all too often GONE by the time I get there.
Well I am certainly not talking about abolishing bibs for marathons or even half-marathons. Just for the four- and six-mile races in Central Park. I do not really think that the bibs (or lack thereof) prevent anyone from taking the bagels or whatever.
Bibs are a must! On April 16th, 2007, I ran in and completed my first marathon. It happened to be the famous, historic Boston Marathon. I am so proud of what I achieved, but this is being overshadowed by no times being tracked for me at all. For some reason, my chip did not register my splits when I crossed the mats. I made sure I hit every mat.
I have been emailing the BAA about this, but I have not heard from them yet.
I was told by someone, that there will be a pool of “orphan” chips out there that the BAA must match to runners. My information is most likely floating out there, so the BAA will have to look for my BIB number with the clock in the background to match my chip time to me.
I am hoping this is how it will work. I worked so hard to raise over $6,000 for The American Liver Foundation so I could do something good while running Boston officially with a number. Here I sit with the irony that as my situation exists right now, I could have run as a bandit.
This is why Bib numbers are a must.
Lori. I said very specifically in the comment before yours that I wasn’t talking about marathons, just the four- and six-mile races they have in Central Park.
that s a very interesting ideas. i came across your post when i was looking to buy bibs online for the Front Runners XC race coming up in september 🙂 and in an oxymoronic way i write a column for front runners called bibs and chips. I suppose I will need to make my column “just chips” if the bibs go away 🙂