You probably don’t give too much thought to your race bib, except to make sure you have one, right? If you’re like most people, your biggest problem as regards race bibs, is when the occasion arises that you have one and can’t use it. This is not just a problem for you, the runner, but for the race director as well. What I’m getting at, here, is the topic of transfering your bib to another runner or deferring to another year, getting a refund, or just losing the money paid for the entry.

That’s an extremely important topic, and I’ll discuss all the ramifications of the various options, but there is much more to discuss. I explain a couple of serious results when a runner wears another’s bib when it was not officially transferred, the two options for displaying your bib, what happens if you’re wearing the bib they gave you at packet pickup but end up with the wrong time, what to do with used race numbers, and many more things you probably haven’t thought of and might never think of unless they happen to you. 

Of course, my motive here, as always, is to prevent you from experiencing problems that myself or others have experienced. There is far more to a race bib than just a few numbers, far more.

Your race number is an integral part of your race in more ways than one.