Earlier this week, my eye was drawn to an article about the world’s first robot half-marathon, set to take place in Beijing.

There are several places the mind goes when accosted with such news, but as a race director I’m never one to ignore a potential opportunity – and so, it immediately got me thinking about the potential of using these robot-racers as the perfect pacers.

I quickly got to imaging a world where I wouldn’t have to chase around making sure every time slot was filled, worrying if the two hour 10 minute pacer will turn up, or fielding complaints when the runner who was supposed to be guiding people home in one hour 50 romps to the finish in an hour-and-a-half.

Instead, there would be an army of super robots, metronomically ticking off the miles.
But of course, this fantasy is nothing more than a pipe dream. Ultimately, however accurately our new robot friends may be able to tick distances off, they can never replace the essential human qualities that make our pacers so important.

Real-life pacers have the ability to encourage people to reach new limits, to chat about everything under the sun in order to distract their charges from the pain they might be feeling, and to add some human warmth to everyone’s run.

So, here’s to the real perfect pacers – our super humans who help everyone hit their goals!