Race program explores ‘psychogeography’
Scientists to study how runners react to green space along the course
Drew Bailey and Alex Cruikshank hope to do more than just entertain runners and spectators during this weekend’s Chattanooga Marathon while they ramp up the brainwave- monitoring program they piloted at the race last year.
The duo also hopes to gather enough data to begin exploring an emerging scientific frontier.
Nine runners in Saturday’s 5K and 10 in Sunday’s full marathon will wear headsets that transmit a reading of their brainwaves to an app on their phones and back to a website that will be streamed live on a monitor in the First Tennessee Pavilion during the race.
The race-supported project is one piece in an effort by the city and the Chattanooga Sports Committee to create an engaging atmosphere near the race’s finish line. It will also be a first step in exploring Chattanooga’s psychogeography.
“It was more entertainment last year than anything, just to see if we could make something happen,” said Bailey, an assistant professor specializing in outdoor recreation research at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “This year, we’re changing the visuals. But the biggest thing, I think, is we’re tying it in to more science.”
Bailey’s students have gone through each halfmile of the 26.2- mile full marathon course, helping their professor develop a heat map that highlights the areas of the course with the most green space.
“There is a whole line of research out there about how outdoor environments are conducive to restoring mental attention,” Bailey said. “ADHD is relieved by green space.”
They plan to track changes in runners’ brainwaves to see if those areas cause mental changes. The two believe that areas with lots of spectators could also cause a fluctuation in excitement that is picked up by the brain monitors.
“It’s really exciting, the idea that we can start to talk about how the course itself affects the runners and actually have some science behind it,” said Cruikshank, the general manager of Chattanooga’s office of Carbon Five, a tech company.
Cruikshank designed the app and the website, chattanooga- marathonbrainwaves.com, where data will be livestreamed during Saturday’s 5K and Sunday’s full marathon.
“We’re interested in doing a whole psychogeographic map of Chattanooga and just seeing how people respond to different places, which of course has an impact for urban planning and all kinds of stuff,” Bailey said. “That’s where we’re headed with this, and the marathon is a great place to start.”