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The biggest event of upcoming 2013 Taiwan marathon or known as International Tour de Taiwan Ultra-Marathon will start on the 30th of March. This foot race will be Taiwan’s first ever international marathon event. It also will be the longest distance (1100 km) and the longest period (14 days) road race event in Taiwan.

How to use Google Earth to demonstrate the race is quite interesting to me. First of all, I easily created a navigation tour by using the function of dynamic flying to browse the entire journey. Then, I created a “Trial running Glance Tour” for each day of the race. Last, I complied those fifteen flying Glance Tour on the same page. It is then completed. But, there is something else I would like to do which is to add the runner’s instant position, especially in the events of this roundabout.

There is something special about this event which is that every participants will be assigned a GPS cell phone from Leadtek. This way, we will be able to trace the runner’s live position through website. However, Leadtek is using 2D Google Map platform. I thought to myself, it will be wonderful if I can display those information on Google Earth. Therefore, I asked Leadtek to transfer GPS location to KML format. After few tried, I did not succeed. Although I was quite disappointed, I came up with another ideal which is to put “Rabbit” on the track. These “rabbits” is also known as “Marathon pace”. Like this long-range multi day race, most of the organizers will set a minimum threshold speed of six kilometer per hour along the road. The depots also serve as control station, withdraw the station once time is up. The runner who did not meet the threshold will lose the eligibility automatically (There is a rule at International Tour de Taiwan Ultra-Marathon which is “whoever did not complete accumulate three days within the time limit will be cancelled the qualification”). Therefore, I set up a rabbit per kilometer between the speed 6 – 12 kilometers. Seven rabbits were connected into a team. We can monitor the status of the entire tournament through the website. Meanwhile, it will put the static websites active in the game during two weeks time.

If you open this 3D navigation web, the program will calculates the speed of each rabbit based on the system time. And instantly to know its current location. It will also calculate how long distance the rabbits has run. I set it up to update it once every 10 second. Therefore, each rabbits are moving dynamically. Incidentally, I also meet the design of the rabbit, change the page, click daily itinerary to itinerary map, then fly to the range closer, you can see the rabbit Road team mobile, the right of the “Flying Glance dynamic fly Glance Preview daily 3-5 minutes, I also add instant time for everyone’s convenience.

<This post was translated to English by Chiuwen Ray>

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On January 23, 2006, Boston, Virgin London, BMW Berlin, Bank of America Chicago and ING New York City marathons collectively launched the World Marathon Majors – a new series offering a $1 million prize purse to be split equally between the top male and female marathoners in the world.

I have made dozens of marathons in Google Earth in my other Marathon.GE blog. To collect this top 5 marathons in a new web page is one of my goals. By now, I have a more mature skill to make it. I made ​​5 dynamic marathon tours, with moving route, as well as a moving runner icon. When the runner run to the per kilometer mileage, at this same time the mileage marker icon will zoom display, and photo will be displayed on the screen. These photos is taken from the Google street view or a Google Search, or Panoramio photos.

Talking about this runner icon, I have to make a special description. He, Backman Tony, is the number 1 crazy retro runner in our Globe villege. I clipped this icon from the photo that photographed in 2006 NewYork marathon. This icon is most suitable as the test runner in the marathon tour. Backman Tony have run more than 225 marathons by retro-running, include some untra marathons such as Deutschlandlauf 2007 in 17 days for 1205 km, 24 hours non-stop ultra marathon in Atens Greek, Osaka 100km, Jeju 100km, and other 5 challenge for 100km in Taiwan. He is the only person invited by Taipei 101 building in six years for 101 floors run-up challenge. Especially when he run marathons abroad, he always holds a very heavy Taiwan Nation flag. So he usually says his arms was always tired than his legs.

You can find more details in this post on his blog page.