Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Cell Phone Chicks

Grandma's '02 was my second marathon. It was also the first, and only, time I saw cell phone use during a race. I'll repeat that.

Cell phone use. During a race. Wha???

It was at mile 22-ish. I wasn't having a particularly good race. My legs felt heavy from the start, but perked up a bit at mile 17 due to some amazing cheering (more on that tomorrow). Since my pace picked up, I started catching & passing people.

I caught the cell phone chicks just after Lemon Drop hill. They were in their early 20s, wearing lots of makeup (that tells you something) & on pace to run a 3:50 marathon, give or take.

One of the girls reached in to her water bottle belt pocket & pulled out a phone. She called her mom & said "Hey, we're at mile 22 so we'll finish in about 30 minutes."

I thought, "Well that's pretty clever." Then she called her boyfriend & chatted for a while. Then the other cell phone chick called her boyfriend & had a minute-long conversation about where to meet after the race. Then she gave the phone back to the original cell phone chick, who made another call!

Call me old fashioned, but when I'm running a marathon I like to concentrate on running the marathon. Post race meeting plans are best finalized before the race is underway.

Great leaps in cell phone technology have been made since '02. Now the cell phone chicks could buy little bluetooth headsets & yak with their friends the entire race. "Omigod, I'm totally running a marathon! Did you watch The Hills last night? Omigod, I just spilled blue Powerade on my cute top..."

1 comment:

Tom@RunnersLounge said...

The use has increased a bunch since 2002.

While I understand the interest in sharing the excitement and struggle with friends and family, I can't imagine taking the time or energy to carry on a call during a race.

tom@runnerslounge.com