Bay to Breakers Brings Laurel’s High-Density Tracking and Personalized Race Stories to 30,000+ Participants

May 27, 2026

One of the nation’s largest road races selected Laurel’s timing technology, live tracking, detailed course insights, and custom race app to create a more connected experience for runners, spectators, and supporters across San Francisco - marking Laurel’s largest deployment to date.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (May 27, 2026) /ENDURANCE SPORTSWIRE/ – More than 30,000 runners registered for this year’s Bay to Breakers, with many thousands more participants and spectators filling the streets of San Francisco for one of the world’s most iconic road races.

This year, for the first time, participants received personalized Race Recaps powered by Laurel’s dense checkpoint tracking network, creating a more connected and immersive race experience before, during, and after race day.

The deployment represented Laurel’s largest implementation to date and one of the largest uses of high-density checkpoint technology in road racing.

Unlike traditional race timing systems, which often provide only a handful of split times across a course, Laurel delivered detailed course insights, live supporter engagement, and interactive race-day experiences through its technology platform and the official Bay to Breakers race app.

Features included:

• Detailed split tracking captured at intervals as fine as every half mile across hundreds of checkpoints
• Real-time athlete tracking and live leaderboard experiences
• Live supporter engagement through messages and race-day interactions
• Personalized Race Recaps highlighting each participant’s fastest mile, toughest segment, key race moments, and supporter engagement
• Official Bay to Breakers race app experiences built and powered by Laurel
• Enhanced course insights including segment-based experiences and race-within-a-race competitions

Biofreeze Pain Relief Zone

Laurel’s checkpoint network brought a new level of measurement to sponsor activations as well. At the BioFreeze Pain Relief Zone, Laurel captured verified engagement data for 7,980 participants, quantifying not just foot traffic, but actual time spent in the zone, from quick 15-second visits to extended stops of five minutes or more. For BioFreeze, this transformed a traditionally hard-to-measure race-day activation into a concrete, data-backed story: how many runners engaged, how deeply, and how the zone performed across the field. That kind of activation intelligence has historically been available only to digital advertisers. Laurel is bringing it to live events.

Hill Club Recognition and Segment Tracking

Raw split data tells runners how fast they went. Laurel’s AI-powered Race Recaps tell them the story of why. For Bay to Breakers, Laurel Intelligence was given full course context, including the notorious climb at Hayes Hill, and wove that understanding directly into each participant’s personalized recap. Rather than leaving runners to interpret a slower split on their own, their recap explained it: the terrain, the impact, and how they responded coming out the other side.

One participant’s recap captured it this way: “His first two miles came in at a 9:16 min/mile, efficient and controlled. Through the Hayes Hill section between miles 2.2 and 2.7, his pace naturally settled to 11:01 min/mile, a reflection of the climb’s demands. By mile seven, he had found his stride again, posting a 9:07 min/mile as he pushed toward the finish.”

That kind of narrative, contextual, specific, and personal, is what separates a Race Recap from a results page.

“For decades, race timing has focused on delivering a result. We believe the future is about telling the full story of the race,” said Phil Dumontet, CEO of Laurel Innovations. “Bay to Breakers showed what becomes possible when every participant’s experience – the climbs, the momentum swings, the supporter interactions, and the defining moments – can be captured and brought to life in a richer, more meaningful way.”

“Bay to Breakers has always been about creating an unforgettable experience and bringing people together,” said Crystian Kumnick. “As we evaluated technology partners, reliability and consistency at scale were incredibly important to us. Laurel helped deliver a seamless experience for participants while also creating new ways for runners and supporters to engage with the event before, during, and after race day.”

The implementation reflects a broader shift happening across endurance events, where race organizers are increasingly looking beyond traditional timing infrastructure to create more immersive and connected experiences for participants and fans.

Laurel is on track to power more than 500 endurance events nationwide in 2026, ranging from community races to major marquee events with more than 30,000 participants.

Participants from Sunday’s race can access their personalized Laurel Race Recaps from their Results page.

About Laurel

Laurel powers next-generation race timing, live tracking, and storytelling for more than 500 endurance events nationwide, supporting races ranging from fast-growing regional events to marquee experiences with 30,000+ participants, including Bay to Breakers, Boston 10K for Women, Boulderthon, Every Woman’s Marathon, Surf City Marathon, Saucony Philly Love Run, and 2XU Long Beach Marathon.

With dense checkpoint networks delivering updates as frequently as every quarter mile, fully white-labeled race apps, and real-time athlete tracking, Laurel transforms race timing data and static finisher results into dynamic, rich race stories. From personalized AI-powered Race Recaps and fan engagement to safety visibility and broadcast-ready data, Laurel helps organizers create race experiences runners remember, relive, and share.

Media Contact
Phil Dumontet
CEO, Laurel Innovations
phil@laurelt.com