Update (2/26/15): You can now RaceJoy Enable your race directly from your Race Dashboard. Instructions are here.
We just announced a partnership with RaceJoy to allow any race using RunSignUp to RaceJoy enable their race for free. Adding Runner Tracking is a great benefit to your runners and spectators and will put your race on the cutting edge!
For RunSignUp races, you can now configure this on the dashboard under Race Day Go menu for RaceJoy. You can define a digital map URL, or you can upload an image of the map.
For other registration systems, the way to do this is simply send your course map to us or addrace@racejoy.com, and then simply promote the RaceJoy app download to runners and spectators. Note it takes two weeks to have Apple clear the addition of a race and payments, so make sure to do this early! Over time, we will develop a simple way to enter your map right on the RunSignUp Race Director dashboard. Here are some more details.
Course Map
One of the things that makes RaceJoy so powerful is knowing your course map. This way, when GPS position points are taken, they are put onto the map, rather than try to aggregate a whole bunch of points to say where a runner is and how far they have gone. For example your position is taken at the 13.1 mile point and because we match that against the map, we know it is within say a 10-25 meter radius of the real 13.1 mile point. The way a normal GPS watch or training app does it is to collect a series of points and calculate the distance, which is less accurate (the reason why GPS watch runners always tell you your course is long!).
RaceJoy uses two common mapping formats called GPX and KML. These are common formats, and we will be offering a number of tools to convert maps, such as http://www.mikepalumbo.com/MMRConverter/ which converts a MapMyRun course map into GPX format. We will also be offering a mapping tool to let race directors lay out their maps on their RunSignUp Dashboard.
For the near term, you can send your map to RaceJoy and they will set it up for free.
RaceJoy Mobile App
The RaceJoy Mobile App has a lot of nice features for races, runners and spectators. We are focusing initially on the “Killer App” of runner tracking. RaceJoy has developed a PhoneTrak Promotion Toolkit (Powerpoint format so you can easily copy images and links) so your race can promote the use of RaceJoy.
You will want to point people to search in their App Store for “RaceJoy”, or you can point them to the following links:
http://www.racejoy.com/download.html.
Apple Store.
Google Android Store.
Also, make sure you point runners to the RaceJoy FAQ page (and you might want to read this too!) – http://racejoy.com/faq.html. Also point to (or copy and post on your website) the Self Help at http://racejoy.com/selfhelp.html.
Here is an overview video fast forwarded to the Race Tracking feature:
RaceJoy for Runners
The RaceJoy app is simple for runners to use. They will search for the race and see a screen that looks like this:
The runner will need to do an “In App” purchase to enable tracking for your race for 99 cents.
Once they purchase the app, they can then select whether they are going to be running the race or want to track someone.
The runner then sets up their profile (this may be saved already and auto-populate). This allows others to find them and track them.
Note that runners need to turn on Tracking for the race and before and after so people can find them after the race or meet up with friends before the race. Tracking is enabled 30 minutes prior to race time.
Spectators
Spectators need to follow the first few steps to get the app installed and enabled to track others with the 99 cent fee. In the search screen, only those runners who have signed up to be tracked would display (in future versions, we will show all participants like we do in Find A Runner in RunSignUp so spectators will be able to sign up early before a runner does). The little phone icon on the left of the name shows this runner has enabled tracking for this race.
We are looking forward to your feedback on this great app!
Thanks for providing useful info about the Racejoy app, I’ve been using Runkeeper so far, but I would try this one too, as I like to test apps. For conversions, I warmly recommend trying this free tool http://gpx2kml.com/ which enables users to easily make gpx to kml format and vice versa.
We see Runkeeper and RaceJoy as being synergistic. Runkeeper is best at tracking training and RaceJoy is best for a race day experience. So you should have both on your phone! You will see us put up more info on mapping tools over the next month or so.
Thanks. Our race is in 2 weeks so it looks like we’ll miss it this year. Too bad it takes so long – not sure why it would take more than a few seconds.
As for GPS watch users, the reason they say the course is long is because they don’t run the SPR – the shortest possible route as defined by USATF certification.
We should be able to get your race map imported within 2 weeks. Can you let us know what race and upload it on the RunSignUp race director dashboard? Thanks.