Today marks the 113th running of the Boston Marathon: a race I came close to qualifying for about 10 years ago, but missed by a smidge. Now I’ve seen hundreds of races where folks run with a phone, but this might be the first time that a phone actually runs the race.
If you’re in Beantown today, keep an eye out for the giant iPhone in the field. It’s part of a promotion for RunKeeper, a free iPhone app that tracks your workouts. After checking out the application, I know I’ll be adding it to my iPhone once I upgrade later this year. It doesn’t make sense for me to use RunKeeper just yet since it uses the GPS radio. I do run with my iPhone for music, but my first-gen device doesn’t have GPS.
This RunKeeper promotion is very smartly done by the students at Emerson College; I had a chance to meet with the class over Skype last week and they shared the innovative idea. Let’s hope that Jason Jacobs from RunKeeper doesn’t get a cramp in his antenna during the 26.2-miles!

{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/04\/20\/iphone-running-in-113th-boston-marathon\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_3ea4dca54974c111b2f0da4ad9d432a1","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}