The Midstate Massive Ultra Trail event, a point-to-point trail race with distances of 100, 50 and 30 miles in Massachusetts, has offered RaceJoy since its inception of 2019. This popular ultra New England event attracted close to 350 participants this last weekend and 78% opted to use Runsignup’s RaceJoy’s tracking and spectator features. Each participant had about 5 people tracking them and sending cheers in RaceJoy. An impressive 1,600 people used the RaceJoy app during the event.
The longer distance events such as these tend to have higher usage in RaceJoy for several reasons. Many of its features are uniquely supportive for ultra runners:
- RaceJoy delivers continual audio progress alerts to help manage the participant’s, pace which is key to completing longer distances. Nearly 134,000 progress alerts were issued during the Midstate Massive Ultra.
- Ultra runners are more likely to stay on course with RaceJoy’s Off Course alerts.
- Participants have access to an interactive course map they can view whether they have cell connection or not.
- When enabled by event organizers, audio cues are provided for key instructions on the course so they don’t miss important turns.
- Runners also have a direct connection with event organizers with an SOS alert feature (option that is enabled by event organizers).
Moreover, spectators show up in droves in RaceJoy during longer endurance events and provide a significant motivational lift for ultra participants. Spectators are able to track the participant’s blue dot and see exactly where they are on the course and can better stage themselves to personally cheer participants on. Plus, they send supportive audio cheers to their favorite participants (5,800 cheers were sent to participants during the Midstate Massive Ultra event).
Other tools race directors can take advantage of include an at-a-glance view of participants that are using RaceJoy on the course, the ability to communicate directly to individuals or all participants using text-to-speech technology, and publishing official race results within the app. Many ultra events that are in remote places or carry into late hours will ask participants to use RaceJoy as a safety tool so that they can be aware of their location.
RaceJoy is definitely a popular tool for Ultra events as was made further evident with the 70,000 visits to the Midstate Massive Ultra’s homepage in RaceJoy! If you have an ultra event and would like to offer RaceJoy, check to see if your timer is certified in RaceJoy. If they aren’t certified, you can find one here or ask them to become certified. Timers can email us to receive the free certification materials.
RunSignup offers a lot of helpful tools for ultra event organizers in addition to RaceJoy such as:
- Mobile Timer App (free app that is a great alternative to stopwatches and WebScorer)
- Free Email Communications tool
- Free Custom Websites (basic to advanced)
- RaceDay Photos (no photographer needed. Participants or volunteers can load themselves)
If you’d like more information about using these tools, contact your RunSignup account manager or send us an email.