September 27, 2001
September 27, 2001 - This weekend, nearly two dozen New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. associates from the company's Boston and Lawrence facilities will compete in the nation's longest relay race - the 200 mile Reach the Beach relay in New Hampshire.
More than one thousand (1,000) runners will participate in the event which begins on Friday morning, September 28, 2001 at Bretton Woods Ski Resort and zig-zags across the state for 26-30 hours before culminating at Hampton Beach on Saturday afternoon, September 29, 2001.
In its first year of participation, the Boston-based athletic footwear and apparel manufacturer is fielding not one, but two teams - one co-ed and one all-male. The runners are sponsored by their employer, and have received additional support from individual departments within the company including Apparel, Retail, and R&D.
New Balance has also aligned its teams with FitSense, the Southborough, MA based company that specializes in wireless monitors. While all race participants will confront mountainous terrain and unknown conditions in the round-the-clock race, the 12 runners (including FitSense employee Peter Graham) on the co-ed New Balance team will be wearing miniature sensors that will track their every step.
The FitSense "Speedometers" will give the runners continuous feedback on their speed, pace, distance covered, heart rate and calorie burn on a sleek, digital wrist watch. The runners will use the data to pace themselves as they negotiate the course. After the run, all of the data will be combined to show vital stats for the entire team during the 24+ hour race. Sam Joffe, President of FitSense, said that the key to the Speedometer is the miniature accelerometer sensor that clips to the runner's shoeace and measures every stride. A wireless link sends the data up to the wrist watch -- the watch displays the data, stores it, and uploads it to the Internet.
"We're really excited to be running with the FitSense monitors," stated Peter Ness, New Balance team captain. "It's kind of like a dashboard that tells you what you need to do so you don't run out of gas."
