What is your view of people tweeting updates at races? I hesitate to do it unless I am specifically asked. I was at Vineman this weekend and when tweets stopped (due to the tree falling) I felt like I could help out and post some updates. I heard that Ironmanlive.com wasn’t doing a very good job either. Being at 30 races this season, I feel like I can help out with tweets, but I don’t want to annoy people with constant updates.
That being said, anybody want updates from Newport Beach this weekend or the Vineman full the following week?
Sorry to hijack, but I still need to be brought up to speed on this twitter phenom…
I hate it when someone tweets in front of me, weaving all over the road. They should at least wait until they get to T2.
I’m on an ultramarathon mailing list and twittering events is really popular. 100 mile races don’t generally have online coverage so getting updates from crew or the runner via Twitter is great. I recently watched Badwater and Hardrock that way. There is a multi-day race going on called Vol State, which crosses Tennessee north to south. There is one runner and a couple different race officials Tweeting. Really good stuff.
CaptainCanada and I are doing Ultraman Canada as a relay and I created a Twitter account for us and will be updating it regularly over the weekend. No traffic yet but I’ll start next Thursday when our adventure begins.
So maybe I should set up a different account just for the races. But nobody is bothered when their “friends” are updating from a race? Even if they aren’t at the race? That is good news…
It depends. I set up a separate one because I didn’t want Vince fucking with me and posting really obnoxious stuff using my personal account. 
If you aren’t familiar with Ultraman it is over 3 days and you have crew to provide what you need because there are no aid stations. I figured while crewing whomever has the chance to provide a short tweet as a check-in can do it. I won’t tweet while moving. I will be tired enough during the run and not paying attention to where me feet are going is a recipe for disaster.
I like it and have followed RAAM and Badwater this way in addition to other races
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Definitely in favor of racetweets. Really appreciate the updates from Badwater.
tweeting for races is an extremely good example of what twitter is really good at.
i would recommend setting up a general account (as opposed to your own) and give people lots of forewarning so people can actually follow the account.
i run a blog for our running group and announce the runs and any last minute changes to route, starting time, etc.
for those of you who ‘dont’ get it, if you dont text a lot (or at all) on your mobile or check email more than 4 times a day, you may not have sufficient real time compulsiveness to enjoy/benefit from twitter. and even if you do, your friends/family sort of need to be in the same level of communication or you wont enjoy it.
Definitely in favor of racetweets. Really appreciate the updates from Badwater.
Agreed. Especially good if you don’t want to sit in front of a computer all day and can access from a BB or iPhone.
clm