Race Numbers or Bibs

Each runner should wear a number with a tear off tag on the bottom. You can buy these at Rainbow Racing Systems.. If you are having both a five and a ten-kilometer race you can get black for the ten and red for the 5K. On the tear off portion is a space for the runners name and other information. In an area on the side is a place for a color-coded tag, which is used to identify age group and sex. Usually you will have different colors for each agegroup and different shape for men and women. Before the race you should prepare a list of tags of each color and shape and what age group or sex it represents. All of this is to speed results tabulation. The runner will usually pin the bib number including the tear off portion on their shirts with safety pins. The tear off portion being removed at the finish line. If you are using the pop sickle stick method this may not be necessary. After the tear off portion is torn off there is a hole one side to put them over a spindle and give them to the results crew who may staple or tack them to a sheet of foam or other lightweight material. A spindle may be a fishing stringer or a recycled wire hanger. The perfect spindle will allow you put them on from one side and take them off from the other. From this they can select the age group awards using the color-coded labels. You may want to lean a sheet of plywood against the wall as backing for the foam sheet. If you can, raise it up since working near the floor is hard. Some clubs have easels to support the results boards but the fewer heavy things you have to carry around the better. Whatever you use it should be sturdy enough to withstand tacking on the tear-off portion from each runners bib number to it. You should also get some plastic totes to store all race tools such as tack guns, spindles, clipboards pens, pencils or whatever.

Here is a results board with sequential numbers ( the order the runners crossed the finish line) and bib numbers stapled beside them. Notice: the hole for the spindle, the times have been matched up from the Chronomix tapes and written here by results crew, the bib number is printed on them, this race director has written 5K male or 10K female on them rather using different color coded tags, names of runners are hand written by registration personnel. Each color represents a different age group regardless of which race they are in.