Participants often look to view a course map for events in which they have an interest, in fact a course map is in the top 3 factors a participant takes into consideration when choosing an event.
Creating a course map for your event also increases engagement and help to reduce questions they may have prior to securing a place.
Eventrac makes it simple to create and upload routes in order to generate maps for one or more components of your event (run, swim, cycle etc.).
Locating this feature
Dashboard > Event > Setup > Maps
Adding a Course Map
You can add a route in one of two ways:
Uploading a GPX or TCX file (preferred)
Manually plotting the route
Once a course map has been added, it will automatically be visible on your event landing page. You will also be able to embed the route on your own website
Note: You may want to consider if people can download the map i.e. to add to their garmin device. You can Disable Downloads to prevent people from being able to download the route
From the Course Maps section, click “Add Map”
Give your map a name (this is visible to the public i.e. Half Marathon route)
You will now be presented with the course builder. From here you can either plot the course manually or upload a GPX/TCX file. See below for instructions on each
Uploading a route GPX or TCX file (preferred)
If you have already completed the activity yourself (using Strava or similar), or have plotted the route using a different service (Google, MapMyRun etc.), you can export the file in GPX format for uploading to eventrac.
Click Upload Route, select the GPX or TCX file from your computer using Choose File and then click to Process Upload Route.
Note: If you don’t upload a TCX file then you won’t get the elevation information.
Once the route is uploaded, wait for the Distance and Elevation Profile information at the foot of the map to complete building (check for accuracy - this data is approximate) and click Save!.
Switch between Street/Satellite view using the selector in the top-right corner.
Creating a Route Manually
Whilst utilising the +/- zoom feature in the top-left corner, click and drag the map to locate your starting area.
Click on the map at your starting point and a Start waypoint will be created. Subsequent clicks will automatically join the previous point to the new one, either with a straight line, or via the shortest route by recognised road (depending on whether Follow Roads is selected). An End waypoint will always be shown at the last point selected.
Route Tracing Tools
Undo the last waypoint created (or more waypoints if clicked repeatedly).
Clear Route - Erase your route and start again (this cannot be undone).
Out & Back - Complete your route by retracing the current path back to the start.
Follow Roads - Uncheck to facilitate a straight line between waypoints (for manual route tracing), or leave checked to trace the shortest route served by roads. Since only recognised roads are considered - together with the direction of travel (e.g. on dual carriageways) - this may give unexpected results, especially if your route starts off-road. However, you can enable/disable this option between waypoints to create a hybrid route which follows roads in places, and is traced manually in others.
Trim Start/End - Use the << >> controls to make small adjustments to the start/end of your route.
Once you have completed your route, check the Distance and Elevation Profile information at the foot of the map for accuracy (this data is approximate) and click Save!
Additional Routes
You may wish to add more routes, either because an event has multiple distances (e.g. Half Marathon, 10K & 5K), or the category for which you are creating a map has multiple components (e.g. Triathlon, with separate Swim, Bike and Run routes), or a combination of both.
You can repeat the process as many times as necessary, just ensure your distances/disciplines are labelled correctly for easy identification by the user.
Managing Routes
Once saved, your route(s) will appear on the Course Maps dashboard and can be edited/deleted as necessary. Check that Plotted Route displays a ✔️ for the map(s) to be visible on your event landing page.
Note that deleted routes cannot be recovered. We recommend you retain a backup of the GPX/TCX file(s) where necessary.
Event Landing Page
Any course maps created will now be visible on the ROUTE MAPS tab of your event landing page. If you have created/uploaded multiple routes, users will be able to select their preferred map using the drop-down menu.
Users can also download the route in multiple formats (including GPX/TCX) for use with suitable navigational devices using the DOWNLOAD button and selecting their preferred format.
If using a desktop browser, the user can move their cursor over the Elevation profile graph from left to right to trace the route.
Embed a Course Map on an External Website
Copying the Share Code allows you to embed a map on the page of another website for reference. You will need to copy the code for each, individually, if you wish to embed multiple maps.
Functionality is retained with the exception of an option to download the route.
