Recently I had the chance to help provide radio support for the Salt Flats 100 Endurance Run. My radio buddy and I got to our assignment at aid station 13 just after 8pm as the sun was setting. The road we traveled was more of a nasty Jeep trail that was impassable in any vehicle without high ground clearance. We'd been given this spot as we had such a vehicle that was more than capable to get to such a remote destination. Even though most of the race is held in the Salt Flats of Utah, this particular checkpoint was actually in Nevada.
My buddy and I arrived and met the helpers at the station before setting up our radio equipment. Once we turned on the radio, we started getting reports from station 12 which straddled the Utah/Nevada border. As is the fad these days, they were using their mobile phones to provide the times that the runners arrived and departed. Unfortunately the close proximity to the Mountain and Pacific timezones was wreaking havoc on their information. One runner would come in at 11:20 pm and then leave at 12:30am, but was only stopped for 10 minutes. Worse was when someone would come in at 12:30am and then leave at 11:40pm. Eventually they figured out what was going wrong and radioed the correct times to the start/finish crew.
We didn't have that problem at aid station 13 as we were so remote, we didn't get mobile phone service. To keep my battery from running down, I just turned off my phone. When it came time to provide times for the runners, I just used my wrist watch. It may not have been as accurate as the time kept by my phone, but when you are measuring times in hours, a few seconds difference is no big deal.
For the record, the winning time was 17 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds. His next closest competitor came in at 19:13:36. I'm fatigued from the event and I had the luxury of riding around in a Jeep. I can only imagine how tired they are.
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