Packing and planning for race day

Race morning is the worst time to remember the safety pins. Write the list once, keep it with the race, and tick it off as you go.

A Race Checklist — your own list for one event — has two halves: the things to pack, book and do, grouped into categories, and an itinerary of where you need to be and when.

Starting a checklist

Open Checklists in the menu and choose New checklist, or ask your coach to build one. A new checklist starts with five categories — Gear, Nutrition, Travel, Race morning and Post-race — and nothing in them.

Your last race is usually the best starting point. Start a new checklist as a copy of an earlier one and you get its categories and every item, all unticked, with their notes and links. When you already have checklists with items on them, your coach asks whether to copy one or begin blank before it creates anything.

A copy leaves the old trip behind unless you ask for it: the location and itinerary come across only when you choose Bring logistics too. That is right for the same race again, and wrong for a new city — last year’s hotel confirmation is worse than an empty line.

Items and categories

An item is one thing to pack, book or do. It can carry a short note — a time, a hall number, a confirmation — and one link with a name you choose, such as “Map” or “United trip”. Links have to be ordinary web addresses.

Categories belong to each checklist, so a trail race can have “Drop bags” and a road race never sees it. There is no “skipped” state: if something might not apply, put it in a category of its own, such as “Optional”.

Tick items on the checklist page. The box changes the moment you tap it, and if the save is refused the page reloads to show what is actually saved. Turn on Hide completed to see only what is left; each category still counts everything, and turns green once it is all done. The page remembers the setting on that device.

The itinerary

The itinerary holds what you look up rather than tick off: travel, where you are staying, venues such as the expo or the start, and general information such as how to get to the start. Each line can have a time, an address, notes and a link.

Give a venue or a hotel its street address and the checklist makes the map link from it, so the link and the address can never disagree. Tap an entry to read it, map link included; the pencil edits it, and Delete asks first. The itinerary heads the checklist page, grouped by day. Fold it to a single line — it shows the next timed entry when there is one — and the page remembers on that device whether you left it open.

Linking a checklist to a race

A checklist can be linked to one race on your current plan, and a race can have one checklist. Linked, the race shows its checklist’s progress on Plan and in History, and you can open it from the race.

The checklist keeps its own name and date, so it does not move when the race does. If the plan is rebuilt and the race is no longer on it, the checklist simply shows as no longer linked — you lose nothing, and you can link it again.

When your goal race is within three weeks and has no checklist, your coach may offer to start one. Say yes and it builds it; say no and nothing changes.

When the race is over

A checklist moves to Past once its date has gone by. There is nothing to archive, and past checklists are the ones worth copying next time. Deleting a checklist is permanent — there is no restore — and never touches your race or your plan.