This past weekend, the Fifth Third River Bank Run offered RaceJoy’s live tracking and cheers as an extra service for participants and spectators. The technology was highly embraced with a usage rate of almost 40% of the race’s finishers taking advantage of RaceJoy’s interactive race day features across all courses.
The 39th Annual River Bank Run took place in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, and offered a full race experience – from the pre-race Sports & Fitness Expo on Friday to the post-race Finish Fest on Saturday. The race provided many different course options so that all could participate, including a 25K, 10K, 5K, Wheelchair 25K and a Handcycle 25K.
The USATF certified loop course started in downtown Grand Rapids on Monroe Avenue and headed south, leaving the city to weave through parks and along the Grand River before finishing back downtown on Ottawa Avenue at Lyon Street.
Continuous GPS Tracking
Race organizers treated participants to RaceJoy’s live continuous GPS tracking, as captured below. Friends and family, both at the race site and from their homes, tracked participants and knew exactly where they were throughout the race.
GPS-Based Progress Alerts
Participants and spectators also received progress updates at every mile that included location, pace and estimated finish time. At this year’s Fifth Third River Bank Run, 32,200 progress alerts were sent! RaceJoy’s GPS-based progress alerts are just one of the many ways race organizers or sponsors can extend their branding when they opt for the buyout. The sponsor showcased at this year’s race was Starbucks Double Shot Protein as shown with the progress alerts below.
Participants can also choose to post these alerts to Facebook and Twitter, providing Fifth Third River Bank Run and Starbucks with additional branding promotion by reaching an extended audience.
Cheer Sending
Another very popular feature of RaceJoy is Send-a-Cheer, which includes the ability to instantly send fun pre-recorded cheers or custom text-to-cheer messages to participants at any time. Supporting friends and family embraced this by sending close to 7,000 cheers to race participants! This was a much higher number of cheers per participant than what we normally see. Now that’s some serious support!
Thank you to the race organizers of the Fifth Third River Bank Run and to Starbucks for providing RaceJoy. Congratulations to all the finishers and thank you to the supporting family and friends! Don’t forget to sign up for next year’s 40th year as race organizers are sure to roll out the red carpet!
You can offer advanced tracking and cheers at your next race by creating a race in RaceJoy at no cost and in a few simple steps through RaceJoy’s Website or your RunSignUp dashboard. If you would like to provide these features to your participants for free, please see our buyout options during the RaceJoy setup.
