Following a friend or family during the New York marathon can be more complicated than it looks. One must identify a point of the path, arrive before its passage and be able to recognize it among thousands of people. Those who want to see it more than once must also deal with the closed roads and the metro trips.
Sunday, November 1st, when nearly 60,000 runners will face the 42,195 kilometers of the New York City Marathon, there will be a rather simple way to know where they are. The New York Road Runners (NYRR), the organization that manages the race, offers a free application with which to follow the participants along the route, from Staten Island until arrival in Central Park.
The app is called New York Road Runners and is available for iPhone and Android. To search for a runner just enter its name or the number of the race chest. Once detected, you can add it to people to follow through the Follow function, so you can find it without having to repeat the search every time.
During the marathon the app shows the recorded time, pace and progress along the track. You can activate notifications to receive updates in the main moments of the race, for example at the start, at the passage of certain points of detection or at the reach of the half marathon. However, the location shown on the map is not equivalent to a continuous GPS location. The system uses the steps recorded along the path to update the times and estimate where a participant is located between a detection and the next one, and then, if a runner suddenly slows down or stops, the expected position can be different from the actual one, at least until the next check.
The function is useful especially for those who are on the way. Knowing the runner’s gait and its last recorded pass, you can estimate when it will arrive in a certain stretch of road, avoiding to wait unnecessarily for a long time or to reach the chosen point too late.
For those who want to organize more meetings, the app also contains an interactive guide for spectators, with the map of the track and some points recommended by the organizers. The route crosses Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx before returning to Manhattan for the last kilometers.
Among the sections accessible to the public there are Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, where the runners transit after the Verrazzano bridge, and First Avenue in Manhattan, which run after passing the Queensboro Bridge. It is not possible to attend the race from the bridges or the starting area in Staten Island. To move between the districts, the organizers recommend using the subway, by checking in advance any changes to the service on the MTA site.
The app also offers the possibility to watch some images of the race live. Connections are available from the cameras located along the route, including those dedicated to the departure and arrival, as well as the coverage of professional male, female and car categories. The same platform allows you to consult the updated rankings, while the official results will be published at the end of the event on the NYRR website.
For those who want to follow the marathon from Italy, this year there is also a free direct. The Corriere dello Sport has announced that it will broadcast the race on Sunday 1st November from 14, on its website and on the official YouTube channel.
In the United States the national coverage will be entrusted to ESPN2, from 8 to 11:30 in the morning, now in New York. A Spanish live will be available on ESPN3. In the area of New York, WABC-TV, Channel 7, will begin the connection at 7 am, with the coverage of the race until 13 pm. ABC7NY website. com will also transmit the images of the finish line up to 18 premises.
To follow a specific participant, however, television is not necessarily the best solution: filming focuses mainly on professionals and the main moments of the race. The app allows you to follow those who take four, five or six hours to get to Central Park.
And it can be useful even after arrival. The organizers warn that, in the area of the finish line, the high concentration of people can make it difficult to use the phone. For this reason they recommend to the runners and to those who wait to establish in advance a meeting point, outside the reserved area to athletes.
L’articolo You can follow live who runs the New York marathon proviene da IlNewyorkese.
