Cosequin Results

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Cosequin Challenge race@fastpony.com
Wow... sure was a lot of interest in the event.

This should answer some of the whys and hows concerning the live results for the Cosequin.

Three days before the race a wireless microwave local area computer network was installed at Virginia Ingrams home which is the base camp for the Cosequin. The use of the hardware, which included laptops, desktops, scanners, digital cameras, wireless lan cards, video monitors and a NEC 1800, were all donated by one of our newest sponsors GTE Information Services LLC.

Using this equipment we envisioned having the base camp vet check info entered live via laptops from the vet check to the internet server located 2/10 of a mile away. Preliminary testing two weeks prior indicated this would work. We did not take into account signal blockage from the circus sized bigtop tent and horse trailers and rigs located between the headquarters and the vet check. Acting quickly, IS LLC took a laptop, put it in a garbage bag, placed it on the roof of the headquarters and reconfigured the web server to look for the data from the roof instead of the vet check. The vet check was then redirected to the roof. Things then started working fine as far as connectivity was concerned.

We knew going in that all of this would be a big experiment as IS LLC was not familiar with the processes involved in an endurance ride, and we were not experienced in their forte. As the day wore on we realized that the 5 mile to finish statistics and the finish line info would not be entered in a timely fashion because the five mile to finish site did not have connectivity back to camp, and the finish line computers were not part of our lan. We knew this going in and planned to voice relay those results directly to headquarters and input them manually, however, since we became unexpectedly short staffed as the ride wore on into the evening, the priority was placed in areas other than updating the web.

The only reason we were able to maintain some constant input during the day was due to the high level of automation used at the base camp vet check. This was not present at the five mile to finish or the finish line itself. Hopefully next year it will be.

Further complicating matters, the machine that drove the three web cams began to have problems on Friday, mysteriously rebooting on its own, locking up, etc.... This was caused by someone (who will remain anonymous) who went into a restricted area and decided to use our system to pick up their email and attachments and subsequently infected our web cam server with a virus. After looking into what would be required to overcome this problem, and still do everything else that needed to be done to prepare for a 4:00 am start, the decision was made to disable the web cam system.

As to why the 60 mile stats say 50 miles and why some of the numbers are screwy, we did not explain very well to IS LLC all of the intricate workings of an endurance event. The average speed was inacurrate because the hold times were included in the averaging. The fact that the page said it was a fifty mile event instead of sixty was due to the template file being developed in June when it was a 50 mile event. And as far as the 60 mile event showing weird distances in excess of 60 miles, this was because the 60 mile data template was exactly the same as the 100, but we forgot to change the distances when we copied it. We spotted it during the day but didn't want to monkey with a semi functioning system.

All in all we were very impressed with the capabilities IS LLC provided us, and now that we know some of the mistakes that we made we can look forward to an even better posting next year.

It should be noted that IS LLC commented during the event regarding some of these issues but were directed to leave the system functioning as is for the duration of the event.

One exciting thing that came about from IS LLC's attendance at the event was there exuberance in staying involved. They have some really high technology solutions which include the Defense sector. One of their rep's watched the Vet Check most of the day and had a number of comments about things he would like to investigate such as;

Placing a transponder the size of a half dollar on the riders which beacons out to satellites and reports the rider position, altitude and speed (this is something IS LLC uses right now and may make available to us in 2000, they also own their own satellites).

Another cool idea was the in and out timer, they want to look at placing "toll gate smart card" technology at the gates. When the riders pass these planes their rider number and time are recorded automatically. This would be great because we wouldn't have to enter the data into laptops and it would free up about six volunteers.

Our ISP for the web site is located in New York City, they told us that at 5:00 pm they took our site down and relocated it onto another server due to unexpected traffic entering our site. They also told us to remind them next year because they configure their sites based on traffic generated and this unexpected hit generated alarms in their network monitoring software.

We pushed the data every two minutes from Shenandoah County Virginia to Rocky Mountain Internet which then transferred it to our other ISP in New York. Our ISP in New York reported that during the period from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm our site was being hit over 18,000 times per hour. (evidently some of you really wanted to know what was going on and clicked the heck out of refresh. Next year we'll use a java applet and you wont have to refresh...)

You should also know that we did all of this with a 50k connection. (If you've been to Fort Valley then you know that we were probably the most cutting edge thing going... the local tel-co isn't ready for us yet.)

We will be posting the final results tonight and later in the week you'll be able to click on the riders and see pictures, p&r cards, vet cards and other neat stuff.

Anyhow, although some of the posts here appear to be pretty negative, we will continue to work on providing an avenue for those that cannot attend our event to still be part of it virtually, whether it works perfectly or not. We have identified and will work out the bugs that contributed to some of these problems and really look forward to doing this again, we may even look to go to another ride and volunteer the technology and try out our fixes.

It should be noted that this years live updates were a huge success over last years which were completely scrapped due to lack of personnel to perform the postings (which were manual at that time).

Congratulations to all of the riders and thanks to all that continue to support the event!


P.S. all of you that have old browsers .... UPGRADE THOSE MACHINES for petes sakes!!!

Later
Tracy Ingram
1999 Cosequin Challenge - Event Manager


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