How to map and embed a run race route

When you visit a running race website, the top 2 important things you need to find are:

  1. the date and time of the event and

  2. the button to register.

Beyond that, the map of your route is probably the next most important thing!

The course defines so many of the great races:

Hopkinton to Boylston, the five boroughs, around Mont Blanc, or under the Brandenburg Gate arches

A great race takes immense pride in its course, and the route is what creates your memories.

Unfortunately, many races still use static route graphics on their site.

These JPEGs or PDFs may look nice, they are not very useful, they're not interactive, and they're poor on data.

Or races link out to a 3rd party route site that monetizes your runners with ads and distracts them away from your content and registration button.

How do you map your course and share it with your participants?

Join races and brands like Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, REI, Lululemon SeaWheeze, BMO Vancouver Marathon, and Six Pack Challenge in powering events with RunGo.

Here’s an example, the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon:

 
 

RunGo's routes are embeddable with a single line of code. With RunGo, races can get:

  • Route map

  • Cue sheets: all your turns and highlights, fully customizable, without having to type them up separately, as most races do. With other route creators, you’ll get navigation messages like “Turn left onto null” or “Proceed onto off-road waypoint. No data available” and no ability to change that!

  • Elevation chart: built in to the same tool

  • Points of interest: drop locations for your aid stations, cheer spots, music, volunteer stations, parking, etc.

  • Partner/sponsor POIs: include branded POI pins for your nutrition partners or sponsors with retail locations (see Scotiabank and Nuun, in the example above)

  • Route in GPX or TCX format: with RunGo, participants can download the route to put on their GPS watch, even without logging into RunGo. Other route sites require an account to download these files.

  • Custom TCX, only with RunGo: while common TCX files support turn messages as well, only RunGo's also include custom turns, custom dialog, custom messages, and custom POIs

  • Add event or group branding, like a logo to the route embed and to the run share image (created from the Run Summary in-app)

  • Route verification: earn the checkmark of validation, upon review by the RunGo content team

  • Custom annotations: mark up the map with more pens, graphics, and text to highlight closed roads, alternate route options, shuttle drop-off areas, etc. Make it yours and useful

And, it's free! Get started by building your own route at routes.rungoapp.com.

Here are are some tutorial videos.

Contact us for custom features or to learn more about how you can also use RunGo to digitally sign your course, supplement on-course signs, create a continuous web-based live tracking page for all participants, have all runs verified by GPS and added to several different types of web leaderboards, and create an engaging run or remote run experience.

Join the thousands of races that trust RunGo: top-tier marathons, epic trail ultras, and multi-million dollar fundraiser events!

Noah Bloom