Three important news items about timing

When is the last time you ran a race where you got your mile split times called out to you by a volunteer? If you’re new to running, it may be you’ve never heard a split called, but long-time runners remember the days before lap-counting watches and Garmins, when it was very important to have a volunteer call out mile split times. I’m sure many of you have run races where a digital display gave you your elapsed time along the course, such as the Dallas Marathon, formerly White Rock, but the greatest service is hearing the time called to you, so you don’t miss it.

Except for last year, the Dallas Running Club has provided this service every year at the Half, and they plan to do it again this year on Sunday November 4th. As a runner, you’ll appreciate it I’m sure because you’ll get gun time information, even if your timing device gives you chip time.

Bob Freeman has headed up this volunteer effort for some years, managing the timers, and I’ve had the pleasure of working for him in the past. Basically what happens is this.  The volunteers stage at a convenient location, say a mile or so into the course, then listen for the gun by cell phone and start their watches.  From there they are dropped off one by one at all the mile marks.  I once worked at the half-mile helpfully marked by Ken Ashby, and the runners were grateful to get an early split and adjust pace.

Bob tells me that this year he is short of volunteers, and because I believe the timers provide a real value to the race experience, I promised him I would ask you to step up and volunteer for one of the jobs.  And now I’m going to “sell” you on it!

First, if you’ve never done it before, it’s incredibly fun.  You’ll get instructions on how to yell out the splits as the runners pass you, nice and loud, and you’ll have lots of time to see your friends, get lots of thanks from the runners and have a great view of the race.  So if you’re new to all this and would like to get involved, I promise you’ll get a lot of love from the DRC if you step up.  Also, if you’re injured and want to come to the race, this is a great way to visit and keep busy.

The head of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit gave me an exclusive interview last week on the agency’s restructuring. Chief Supt. Dan Malo said the more that 400 employees of the CFSEU will now be dedicated to tackling gang violence.

Parts of the agency that previously did longer-term organized crime investigations will now be joining the efforts to tackle the most violent gang members instead. The bigger investigations will be done by the RCMP’s federal policing sections in B.C.

Malo also said the Gang Task Force will be eliminated in name, given that all of CFSEU now has the same mandate as the GTF, which was a unit with the CFSEU.

Malo said he has consulted with the 14 member agencies – the RCMP and municipal police, plus the organized crime agency – as well as the BC government, so everyone is in agreement this is the best way to proceed.

There are now 188 gangs and crime groups in B.C., Malo said. That is up from just 51 in 2003. Of course there is a lot more intelligence being gathered now than there was then, so some of the increase is due to more detailed information-gathering.