Welcome, Race Directors
Already have a certified course? LIST YOUR RACE on our Website.
Ready to contact us about certification? Send us this form.
More and more runners are expecting race courses to be certified. Due to the emergence of GPS devices that can be worn during races, runners no longer have to rely on a stopwatch and their anticipated time to decide if a course is the correct length, or if the mile markers are in the correct location. While GPS devices are not accurate enough for certifying a course (typically, a GPS device may be anywhere from "pretty darn close", to "not even close", depending on many factors, few of which people can control), runners are relying on them to form opinions about your race. Why trust your reputation as a Race Director to an inaccurate device?
When you advertise that your event course is a certified course (and you should advertise certification, if you have a certified course!), you are telling your runners/participants that you value them enough to certify the accuracy of your course distance and mile locations, so their finishing time is accurate. This is important to runners who run many races, and who use finishing times to measure their own progress. This is very important if you want them to return to your event the following year. Few things keep runners from returning than feeling that the course was not the advertised length, or that the mile locations were not accurate. For a USATF discussion of course certification, follow this link.
Based in Denver, Colorado, we have access to course measurers who can measure a race course anywhere in the USA. If you are outside Colorado, let us know where you need a course measured, and we will work with you for pricing. Most courses can be measured at the rates listed on our site, but some markets have a different price structure.
Fees vary according to what you need, and possibly by where your race is. See the pricing guide, or Email us regarding special situations. Due to scheduling, if you contact us less than 5 weeks before your event, you will likely be assessed a 15% procrastination fee. We don't like to charge this, but it is often difficult to schedule an additional certification into the calendar with short notice.
Questions that will need to be answered before we can give you a firm price for measuring an event course are:
A) Where is the running route, and what is the distance? (Use MapMyRun.com for planning your course)
B) Is it road, trail, paved path, or a combination?
C) Is there complete access, or are there gates or other impediments to access while we measure?
D) Do you have the course identified, just the Start, just the Finish, Start and Finish but not the course? (Use MapMyRun.com for planning your course)
E) How long until the race? If you want a certification number in time for brochures, allow 30 days before your brochure copy is due, for us to do our work.
Don't forget, we also can make a map for you. If you already have a certified course and just want a nice map, let us know.
We strongly advise against putting a course map in your brochure, as courses have been changed after printing the brochure, due to construction, weather, or law enforcement requirements. We will give you the link to the map in our site, which you may publish in your brochure, where your participants can view the map. Any changes will be reflected on our Website, so in your brochure, encourage participants to check back the day before the race, in case there were changes.
View a certification contract (it may answer most of your questions).
Be sure to check the Colorado page in the race listings to see some of our mapping work (Denver Marathon [October], AirLife [May]). We encourage our clients to link to their race page on our site, as we can make modifications as-needed, and they don't have to do any maintenance on their own site.
