User Guide

About

This site was dreamed up by a couple of runners turned race timers who among other things wanted to create tools to help us improve our ability to deliver accurate and timely results. We also recognized there are certain pieces of information that race day staff are asking us to provide. How many people started? How many are still left out on course? What is the status of the Age Group Awards? We have added functionality that allows our users access to this information and more in real-time.

As I mentioned above, we are runners first and part of our hope for this site is to provide our athletes another way to access and compare their results over time. We started this project by adding results to our database from events we have timed in 2023 and are now working our way backwards adding historical data. We've uploaded nearly 200 races that we've timed from just the last 2.5 years! The majority of the events we time are in Northeast Ohio, but we are always looking for new events to add to our portfolio.

Results:

Public results can be found within the results dropdown menu. It is made up of two main pages (Results and Statistics) and provides athletes with the ability to search past results that have been uploaded to our site. The Results page allows you to search by first and last name and then to filter the results by the race's name. This can be a neat way to compare results from previous years. If you happen to compete in the Full Moon Trail Series, then filtering by "Full" will display all of your results in chronological order! Another fun filter can be "Cleveland Marathon", which includes finisher results for the past 3 years for all 4 event distances. The Statistics page provides metrics such as your average chip time and average pace. The columns are sortable and you can also search by last name to quickly locate a specific person's stats. Setting a min and/or max distance will return calculations based only on races whose distance falls within the specified range. In other words, setting the min and max distance to 3.1 will only take into account 5K races.

Dashboard:

The main dashboard was designed with race staff in mind. The basic functionality is free to use and share with anyone. It provides staff and volunteers access to how many runners started the race and real-time updates on the number still out on the course.

Many of our races utilize dynamic bib assignment, which can save significant time and money by not having to prep bibs with labels in advance and reduces waste from bibs that may end up not being used. In most cases, we are in favor of utilizing dynamic assignment. One challenge we have seen with dynamic assignment is race day staff and volunteers may not save the bib number to the participants record when they check them in. This results in what we call an unknown. Our timing system records reads for a bib, but we do not know who they belong too. These unknown bibs can be uploaded so that race staff can be on the lookout for these athletes when they cross the finish line. The athletes can be sent to the timing tent allowing us to properly pair their bib to our timing data increasing runner satisfaction and overall result accurracy. We highly encourage races to reach out to us in advance so that we can share stategies from our experiences that will significantly reduce this particular problem.

Email Notifications (requires a user account):

  1. Total Starters
  2. Unknowns
  3. Questionable Age Grade Percentage
    • Our application will automatically generate email messages for any runner who finishes with an Age Grade Percentage greater than 75%. This has proven to be especially helpful at races with multiple event distances that do not have the option to place verification mats on the course to identify runners who dropped down to a shorter distance. The timer can utilize our database of past results to help them decide if the athlete's event should be changed

Race Menu (requires a user account):

The Race menu is used to configure a race.

  1. Submenu one is for Unknowns. The timer can use this screen to enter in any unknown bib numbers and to send an email notification to all registered users with the list of bib numbers. Using the Upload Bibs option, the timer can export a csv from their timing application and import it directly into our application. The only column the csv file must contain is Read Bib. An added benefit of this option is the application will automatically remove any duplicate bibs from the csv file. When using Race Day Scoring, you can export the unknown bibs as a csv from the main dashboard and then import them from this screen. The RDS file includes the Read Bib column by default so no changes are necessary. Please make sure reports generated from Runscore include a Read Bib column.
  2. Submenu two is Manage Races and is used to create, edit and delete races along with their associated events. The list includes all upcoming races plus any races from the previous 6 days. Creating a new race is a two part process. The first step is to create the top level race. The Race Name should be the primary name of the race and the events are often simply the event distances. For example, the race name for the Cleveland Turkey Trot that consists of a 5 Mile and 5K would be Cleveland Turkey Trot. For races with multiple event distances, you can enter the longest distance for the Race Distance. Clicking on Events for each race opens the event management area. Here is where events are created for a race. Using the Cleveland Turkey Trot example, you could create one event named 5M and one named 5K. This is also where you find the RaceId and EventId for each race. These two numbers must be included in the csv file used when pushing results from your scoring application.
  3. Submenu three is New Race and provides a direct link for creating a new race.

Timer Dashboard (requires a user account):

The Timer Dashboard provides the timer with a wide range of information within a single view.

  1. Sortable Results with additional metrics such as an athlete's average age grade and average pace calculated from past results in our database
    • You can click on an athlete's result and see their times from their recent races. This is useful when additional research is required for an athlete due to a questionable result.
  2. Total Starters - send email notifications to registered users
  3. Live number of runners still in progress
  4. Leaderboard - top 5 by gender
  5. Age Grade Leaderboard
  6. Age Group Report - highlights age groups with runners still on the course who could place in their age group
  7. Missing date of birth