Saturday, December 3, 2011

TNF50 Ruined by Atrocious Coverage

Saturday was awful.  I ran out of Frosted Flakes after 3 bowls and forgot to put the sugar-milk in my coffee, Colorado State football traffic forced me to take a several minute detour, and I had to suffer through the irunfar.com coverage of The North Face 50(copyright)(trademark)(patent).  Twitter?  Color pictures?  I have an HDTV for this exact purpose - ie; to watch sports unfold in real time.  Golf was on TV today for 3+ hours.  3 HOURS FOR GOLF.  All I got was a picture of a bloody Mike Wolfe smiling at the finish line.  

So, how do we fix this problem?  Hot-air ballons are a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to float above the ground.  You could even mount HD cameras to the bottom of them!  Since most ultrarunners make tons of money, I would propose giving each frontrunner a gift certificate to Chipotle, in exchange for the inconvenience of wearing wireless microphones and giving constant stream of consciousness updates.
 
Plan A could take a while,  I've come up with a Plan A(1); Iphone Facetime.  Mount the smartphone on the handlebars of a mountain bike and follow the leaders.  Sell the footage to NBC, wait 4 months for them to edit it and add an inspiring soundtrack, and watch it on TiVO.  We could even get Bob Costas to narrate it!  I have lots of other ideas too, GoPro cameras at every bend on 50 miles of trail, SPOT receiver tracking, infrared cameras, trained deer with mounted cameras...the list could go on and on!

Until someone takes the initiative on one of these (I'm too poor to afford an Iphone, let alone a hot-air balloon) I'll settle for Irunfar's twittering.  I guess it's not that bad.

5 comments:

  1. GoPro + carrier pigeons! New school and old school, plus the news coverage of the PETA protests would bring some media attention to the BIGGEST, MOST IMPORTANT ULTRA RUNNING RACE ON THE CONTINENT!

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  2. Brendan - I volunteer to be blimp pilot.

    Jim - Trained carrier pigeons, that's a great idea!

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  3. Clearly you shouldn't let those asshats off the hook so easily. I mean...

    * They have a camcorder and a cell signal. Make it work!
    * They clearly hate womyn. Their female correspondent call the womyn's leaders "g!rls".
    * Coverage is better in Europe (everything mountain trail is better there) and on Flotrack ... and probably LetRun, too.
    * Again, no live streaming video coverage of the entire course? WTF!
    * They didn't minute-by-minute updates of [Insert name of favorite elite runner who wasn't with the leaders... or even in the race], let alone ANY updates of people from like 950 people. Elitest fucXwads.

    I'd say more, but then I'd be as unnecessarily bookish, overly wordy, and thorough as the iRF clowns.

    Sincerely,
    Anonymous

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  4. Oh Crap! That post was supposed to be anonymous. I don't want anything I post on the Internet to be traced. If I don't leave my name, no one can ever figure out I am... so please remove it.

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  5. iRF lost all credibility when they tweeted about Ryan K being a "Colorado Fastie" at the WS lottery. Unless they just misspelled fattie.

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