Live tracking for a trail race or ultra

Trail races and ultras are the hardest races to follow from home: long hours, remote valleys, patchy signal. With RunFast and livedot, each runner who chooses to be seen is a live dot on your course, with their pace, the heat where they are and their finish time against the cut-off, and their family follows from anywhere. This guide is for organisers of trail races, mountain races and ultras, anywhere in the world.

How do I set up live tracking for a trail race or ultra?

It's the same three steps as any running race, and it's free.

1. Put your race on livedot. Create it in the free RunFast app with its course and start time, or tell livedot about it at livedot.me/organisers and a person sets it up with you.
2. Runners join it. In RunFast, they join the race, choose who sees them and can set a goal time. Runners with a Garmin add the free livedot app and link it once.
3. On the day, they go live. They tap Go live, or press Start on their Garmin near the course at the start time. Followers open your race's page at livedot.me in any browser.

What about dead zones with no signal?

Nothing is lost. When a runner's phone has no signal, RunFast keeps every position and sends them all as soon as the signal is back, so their line on the map fills in. While they're out of signal, followers see when they were last seen. Live tracking with no signal.

Tell your runners to expect it, and tell their families too: "last seen 40 minutes ago" in a valley is normal, not a worry.

What do followers see?

Each runner on the course, with what matters on a long day out.

• Pace and finish time, against the race's cut-off and the runner's own goal.
• The heat where they are, and on the course ahead, at the runner's own pace: the afternoon climb in the sun shows before they get there.
• The whole field, with the runners furthest along, and a box to find one by name, if that runner allows it.
• Taps on the back, sent from home, that the runner sees arrive.

How should runners prepare their phone?

A long ultra is a long time for a phone. Ask runners to:

• charge to full the night before, and carry a small power bank on races over about 8 hours;
• on Android, set RunFast's battery use to Unrestricted, so it keeps sending in the background;
• allow location while using the app, and keep the phone in a pack, not deep in a drop bag.

The race-day phone checklist has the rest. Runners with a Garmin can let the watch do the tracking, with the phone in the pack.

Does it cost anything?

No. It's free for organisers, runners and everyone following, thanks to ProLend. If you'd like your race's live page in your own styling, with your sponsors and the live map on your own website, a bespoke page is $200 per event. Everything above is free without it.