Running Events Editing and Proofreading Services

At mile 21 a race official in a pickup truck told her the road was reopening and she would have to get in. She had entered in November for a race the following May and trained through the winter. The cut-off had been in the event information, printed as an average pace of 13:45 per mile, and she had never turned that into the only number that mattered to her: the time she had to be at the Route 9 bridge.

The documents we edit for Running Events

Course descriptions carry the cut-off information, and both come to us months before entries open. Entry terms and transfer policies follow, together with race information packs, pre-event briefings, and aid station details. The work also covers results and timing information, volunteer and course marshal briefings, road closure notices, communications with residents along the route, and the messages that go out when a race is shortened, rerouted, or canceled. Our editors work on documents that runners plan a year around.

What the editing involves

The cut-off is where a runner's winter is either used or wasted, and it usually fails by being expressed in a form nobody runs to. Nobody runs an average pace; runners arrive at places at times. Every cut-off should therefore be given as a clock time at a named point, with the distance to that point stated beside it. "You must maintain 13:45 per mile" asks for arithmetic at mile 21 on tired legs, and "you must be at the Route 9 bridge by 12:40 p.m." does not. The consequence at each cut-off matters as much as the time: swept off the course, diverted onto a shorter route, or allowed to continue without support are quite different outcomes, and a runner is entitled to know which one applies.

The elevation profile should be described by where the hard part is rather than by a total. A flat course with one climb at mile 20 is not a flat course, and the runner who reads "320 feet of total gain" will not learn that. Surface changes need locating for the same reason because a marathon with two and a half miles of gravel through the middle is a different shoe decision. Aid stations belong in a table by distance, with what is at each one, whether the fluid comes in cups or bottles, and whether there is anything solid.

Conditions the race has actually had should be described with specifics: the year it reached 81 degrees and the year the wind blew head-on for the last six miles. The transfer, deferral, and refund position belongs in front of a runner before entries open rather than in an email in March. The last two miles deserve their own paragraph, because that is the stretch where people most need to know what is coming. Descriptions written this way get runners to the finish line.

Confidentiality and the limits of our role

Everything you send us is treated in confidence, including event documents, entrant data, and operational plans. We are editors, not race directors, medical advisors, or safety officers, and we offer no opinion on course design, cut-offs, or safety. What we can do is give runners the numbers they will actually use.