what color tape for marking out a race course

by Stephen Wintheiser 8 min read

Racing event and course tapes install quickly and can be wrapped, tied or stapled to poles, trees, barrels, and posts. Banner Guard® marking tapes are available in white, yellow, orange, red, blue and green background colors. Material choices range from lightweight to super heavy duty to suit your durability requirements.

Full Answer

How do you mark a race course?

Here are a few things you may still safely use to mark a running route:Small piles of stones.Chalk markings.Twigs in the shapes of arrows, X's, etc.Brightly colored yarn or strips of cloth.

How are cross country courses marked?

Chalk (powdered granite) or biodegradable water-base paint that will not harm grass can also be used to help mark a cross country course. While marking the course with a sold white line start-to- finish is ideal, the areas most in need of marking are turns and intersections.

How do you mark a 5k course?

Keep it simple. Avoid using elaborate or over-explicit marks. Most of the times you'd want to either point direction with an arrow or affirm direction with a dot, square or other symbol. Do, however, make sure your marks stand out against the trail background and look clearly man-made.

What does a red flag and cross country mean?

a. Red or White Boundary Flags—These shall be used to mark the starting and finishing lines, to mark compulsory passages, and to define obstacles. They are placed in such a way that a competitor must leave a red flag on his right and a white flag on his left.

What is the best tape to use for marking trails?

Barrier tape. Usually hung from tree branches at eye level, barrier tape is an excellent choice for marking trails. It is lightweight, easy to put up and can be highly visible against vegetation even from a distance.

Where to place paint marks on a race?

Place marks on ground or at eye level. Most runners in a race will be looking out ahead and down for obstacles and the fastest amongst them will barely glimpse ahead or on the side for course marks. Keeping your tape at eye level and paint marks at eye or ground level makes sense.

How to test how well marks hold together?

To test how well marks hold together with time, take a sample of your marking materials out on the course and put down a few test marks, then revisit those marks a few days later and observe how their quality degrades over time.

What to do before marking a course?

Before marking your course, make sure local authorities, residents, the police and all relevant agencies are fully on board with what you're planning to do. If your marking requires private access permission, get landlord consent before you begin. Be consistent.

What is the importance of marking?

Marking should be a balancing act between providing as much information as is necessary to ensure a safe navigation and having as little of an impact on the environment as possible. If you can, try re-using and maintaining existing marks before adding new ones. Communicate.

How many marks should be visible on a trail?

The textbook advice is that only one mark should be visible from any one point on the trail, in order to avoid confusion. We say it's ok to have more than one visible marks (but not too many), as long as additional marks are necessary in laying out direction and can easily be distinguished from the nearest mark.

How to figure out night sections in a race?

The way to figure out the night sections in your race is by figuring out two points along your course. The first point is the point where dusk will catch up with the slowest runner in your race. The second point is the point where dawn will catch up with the fastest runner in your race.

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The Rules

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Before the hows and the whats and the what-nots, it's useful to take in some ground rules. 1. Be explicit. When it comes to course marking, there is no such thing as "obvious". Something that may be obvious to you, will not be obvious to a first-timer on the course. Furthermore, something that is obvious to a 12min/mi ru…
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Marking Materials

  • Depending on the exact nature, budget and time of year of your race, there will be a range of materials you could use on your course. The following list includes some of the more common choices of marking materials.
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Planning

  • Before you start marking any trails, there are several things you can do to make the whole process more efficient:
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Execution

  • The way you lay marks on the course can make a big difference. You won't get all this right straight away, but with time and practice this should become second nature.
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Before Race Day

  • You've got all the information from your long days marking your course, now it's time to share them with your participants - and your teams on the ground. 1. Add information about your marking scheme (including pictures) on your race manual. If you are not providing runners with a race manual, write a blog post or article with that same information and mail it to your participan…
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Race Day

  • If you've invested the time to mark the course and plan for race day, chances are everything will go according to plan. Nevertheless, be ready to take action even during the race if necessary (e.g. you notice that despite your best efforts participants report confusion to staff on the ground about particular marks on the course).
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After Race Day

  • Well done - the hard part's taken care of :) Still, work doesn't quite end there for you. Here's the last couple of things you'd want to do to make sure everyone keeps coming back to the race for years to come. 1. Take feedback. This is the time to ask runners what they thought of your marking and whether there are areas you could improve on. Usually, if you do this within a couple of days afte…
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