To learn more about RaceRaves (spoiler: no gamma radiation or radioactive spiders were involved), read About Us and our Founders’ Welcome.

Why should I sign up for a free RaceRaves account?

If “free” isn’t a good enough excuse, signing up for a RaceRaves account allows you to rate & review races, organize & track your races including personal bests, post comments on editorial articles and connect with other members of the RaceRaves community. Not to mention you can personalize your My Staging Area page to show the world you’re a proud member of the coolest new community of runners in the galaxy.


What do your subratings mean?

Our subratings are intended to cover a broad spectrum of race-day variables, without becoming unwieldy for the reviewer.

  • Overall rating takes into account the race experience as a whole—this is a separate rating and NOT an average of the individual subratings.
  • Course difficulty and Course scenery are self-explanatory, with higher ratings equaling greater difficulty or more agreeable scenery.
  • Race production is the most all-inclusive subrating and speaks to overall race organization including the pre-race expo, course markings, aid stations, spectator support and post-race food. Your review is the ideal place to expound on what the race director did well and what they could have done better (e.g. crowded course, terrific spectator support, etc.).
  • Race swag refers to the goodies that runners receive as part of their race registration fee – t-shirt, finisher’s medal, age-group award and any unusual offerings that make the race stand out. For instance, registrants at the 2014 Mississippi Blues Marathon & Half Marathon received a harmonica as well as a CD featuring various local blues musicians, while age-group winners at Run Crazy Horse receive a Native American dreamcatcher.

Runners do love their swag, even those who won’t admit it.


Why can’t I find my race?

There are several possible reasons:

  • Check your search term for typos & misspellings. Our search algorithm is smart and getting smarter all the time; unfortunately it does not yet play well with typos & misspellings.
  • Title sponsors change frequently, so in many cases we omit sponsors from the race name to avoid confusion. For example, the ING New York City Marathon became the TCS New York City Marathon, and the Honda LA Marathon became the Asics LA Marathon became the Skechers Los Angeles Marathon. In each case the common thread is the core race name, i.e. the New York City Marathon or the LA Marathon. So when in doubt, try omitting the sponsor name and searching on the core race name instead.
  • It pains us to admit, but even with as many races as we have, we still may not have yours. This is particularly true for 5Ks and 10Ks, given their sheer numbers. Don’t despair! If all else fails, feel free to submit your race and we’ll add it to our awesome database, pronto.

We have opted to exclude untimed races from our database, so please don’t submit your favorite Color Run or Neon Vibe Run. Unfortunately, we have to draw the line somewhere.


How do I edit my races and reviews/raves on My Staging Area?

It’s easy to edit a date, distance, result (finish time) or review on your My Staging Area page. In your Future Races or Past Races table, simply click the blue pencil icon in the Update column next to the red delete button:

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What does it mean to “Follow” someone?

If you “Follow” another member—by clicking on the Follow button located either at the top of their My Staging Area page, or beneath that member’s profile image in any of their review capsules— that member’s reviews will appear under the “Lunatics I follow” tab, located on your Home page and My Staging Area page.

By Following another member, you’ll also be notified by email when that member posts a new review or has an upcoming race that week (so you can wish them luck!).

You can Unfollow a member at any time by clicking the orange “FOLLOWING” button at the top of their My Staging Area page.


What’s up with your five-year weather data?

Weather is an untamed beast. With that in mind, our Race Day Weather (powered by Dark Sky) displays past weather for the exact date of the upcoming race. And within one week of the race date, this weather updates to display the forecast for the current year’s race. This feature is designed to let prospective runners know what to expect on the exact date of the upcoming race. Our historical weather data do not necessarily reflect the conditions experienced by past participants. Make sense?


What if I run multiple distances of the same event on different days?

This situation might occur for example with the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, for which the date listed on our race details page is Thursday, January 5, 2017, the date of the Walt Disney World 5K. This event, however, also features a 10K on Friday, a half marathon on Saturday and a marathon on Sunday. Runners can register for and run all four distances or any combination of the four; however, the race date in their Past Races table will show as January 5, 2017. Luckily, this race date can be manually changed after the fact as described above under How do I edit my races and reviews/raves on My Staging Area? And more than one review may be submitted per event, as long as the distances differ.

For the special case of the WDW Marathon Weekend, in addition to each individual distance we’ve included the Dopey Challenge (all four distances = 48.6 miles) and Goofy Challenge (full and half marathon distances = 39.3 miles) as distance options. Please don’t hesitate to bring other similar scenarios to our attention, and we’ll be happy to consider each event on a race-by-race basis.


Do you guys have an app?

Nope! Since RaceRaves doesn’t rely on real-time location or behavior tracking like a Yelp or Uber, we’ve chosen instead to focus on optimizing our site to create the best possible mobile experience for our users. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

PRO TIP: You can still enjoy an app-like experience by tapping the “Add to Home Screen” icon to add RaceRaves.com to the home screen on your mobile device. Voilà!

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I’m a race director—how can RaceRaves help me promote my event?

Glad you asked! We probably already list your event for free—if we don’t, let us know so we can add it pronto. Our community of “Raving Lunatics” is growing fast, and we currently feature thousands of race reviews from all 50 states (+DC) and nearly 40 countries. According to the recently published Millennial Running Study, millennial runners read reviews from previous finishers before deciding whether to run a race. So in an increasingly competitive race landscape, it’s crucial to showcase your event to prospective runners. RaceRaves empowers both runners and race directors, providing a golden opportunity for the latter to reach the former. And we overcome the noise & static of social media by providing an enduring reviews platform dedicated to the race experience, a place where runners of all levels come to discover and learn about new races.

You put blood, sweat & tears into planning your event, and your finishers are your best evangelists—they want to tell other runners about the awesome race they just ran. We can help you harness those post-race endorphins to keep your finishers talking, while the race is still fresh in their minds. As further incentive, our program costs you nothing—we appreciate race budgets are tight enough as it is. Contact us for more details—we’re ready to help promote your event to the worldwide running community!


How do I contact you with an addition, correction or other issue?

In our site footer next to FAQs you’ll find links to Submit Race (if you’d like to submit a race for inclusion in our ever-growing database) and Contact Us (for all other inquiries, preferably site-related… e.g. we don’t know why “11” isn’t pronounced “onety-one”).


I’m out! How do I delete my account?

Knowing a little piece of us will die with your account 😉, please email us at [email protected] with your request (and if there’s anything we can do instead to keep you as a member, we’d love to know!). We’ll delete your account immediately.

Thanks for checking us out, and welcome to RaceRaves!