MarathonFoto/Road Race Management Lifetime Achievement Award Goes to Alan Jones

December 16, 2024

Computer Engineer was First to Score a Road Race By Computer in 1970; His RunScore Software Served as the Industry Standard for Over 25 Years

December 16, 2024 /ENDURANCE SPORTSWIRE/ – Alan Jones will be honored with the annual MarathonFoto/Road Race Management Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Road Race Management Race Directors’ Meeting in Hollywood, FL on December 14. The award is made for contributions to the sport of long-distance road running over the course of a lifetime. Many nominations were received that read like a Who’s Who of running. The 10-member committee had the difficult task of reviewing the nominees.

Phil Stewart President of Road Race Management said, “Alan is an unsung hero in the race directing and running worlds, marrying up technology with his favorite past time. In an era when timing and scoring races involved mostly popsicle sticks, index cards and clipboards, Alan was ahead of the pack by applying fledgling computer technology to organized road races. His advances in scoring and timing truly opened the gates for an efficient way to produce results at a time when the sport was surging in the 1980s.

Alan was born in Ridley Park, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. He ran track and cross-country in high school. In his senior year, he qualified for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Cross-Country championship. Alan was also a member of the Penn State cross-country and track teams his freshman year and on the varsity cross-country team the next three years.

In 1970, he timed what was probably the first race scored in real-time by a computer. The race was an invitational race in the Southern Tier of New York State. He connected a terminal, via a phone line, to the mainframe computer on the campus of the State University of New York at Binghamton. Using this system, a few years later he timed the Section 4 Cross Country Championship and the New York State Intersectional High School Cross-Country Championship.

In 1981, he wrote his popular RunScore program which was the first commercially available computer scoring program for race directors. His software was literally the only game in town for two decades. The software remained hugely popular well into the 21st century. In 2019 RunScore was sold to Race Roster as a way for that company to broad its reach from serving as an online registration program to providing both registration and race timing services in a single package. Since then, Alan has stayed involved with RunScore as a consultant to Race Roster.

In 1971, Alan created the Vestal XX 20K race in Vestal, NY and, at the same time founded the Triple Cities Runners Club. He was the race director of the Vestal XX and president of the club for its first 25 years. Beginning in 2025, the race will be known as the Alan Jones Vestal XX. In addition, RunSignUp now annually awards The Alan Jones Timer of the Year Award.

In 1971, Alan invented the Jones Counter to measure the first Vestal race. Alan’s son, Clain, made the device for nine years. During that time, he made 2341 Counters including four for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Committee. The Counter is now used to measure almost every road running course in the world. The Counter has been used to measure every Olympic Marathon since the Montreal Olympics (except for the 1980 Games in Moscow.)

The award will be presented on December 14 at the Road Race Management Race Directors’ Meeting keynote dinner. (Due to family commitments, Alan will not be able to attend.)

Road Race Management (www.rrm.com) publishes the E-Newsletter designed for race and industry professionals, hosts the sport’s leading website for industry news and features, and conducts a prestigious annual national race directors’ meeting and trade show. MarathonFoto (www.marathonfoto.com) is the leader in race and endurance sports photography.

Road Race Management, Inc.

Jeff Darman
Office: 610-925-1976
Cell: 610-299-4436
jdarman@rrm.com
www.rrm.com

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