Racevine helps Washington runners choose events

Gregory Lou, co-founder of Racevine, likes to describe the Web site as "a Yelp or Zagat guide for races."

The San Francisco-based startup aims to give runners a place to find a race based on other runners' reviews, or to write a review of a race they've already run.

"Our goal is to support the endurance race community and promote the sport by helping people find, review and share their race experiences, but also to provide organizers a great source of feedback and to help raise awareness for their events," Lou says.

Racevine was profiled recently in a New York Times story about tech tools for marathon runners, and the story gives Racevine kudos for including "the dirty details – from whether or not (a race) has sufficient aid stations and porta-potties to the kinds of nourishment along the route and the amount of swag that’s provided to runners."

Below, Lou answers a few questions for the DC Running Examiner.

Q: What are your goals for the site?

A: If you want to find a movie, there's Fandango or Rotten Tomatoes. If you want to find a place to travel, there's Kayak, Expedia or Travelocity. If you want to find a restaurant, Yelp, City Search or Zagat has you covered. But if someone wants to find a race and everything about it, the answer is not that obvious.

At Racevine, we wanted to make it dead simple to search and find a race, but also really easy to write about and share all the great (and even the not-so-great) race experiences we've had. Our goal is to support the endurance race community and help raise awareness for these crazy races we all love to do.

Q: Any tips for how runners can make the most of the site when searching for races?

We give users two main ways to search for races.  The first is our simple search, where a user can search for a race by name or by inputting a city.  The second is our advanced search, where you can look for races based on city, state, date range and type.  We're always looking for easier ways for people to find races, so if you have any suggestions, we LOVE to hear from our users.

Q: What should beginners be looking for in a race? Seasoned experts?

A: From our experience, it seems like beginners are usually looking to simply enjoy their race.  And a beginner could be anything from someone doing their first race ever, to a seasoned veteran who might be trying a new race for the first time.

Anyone who has ever done a race can tell you that there are tons of questions to figure out before a race, not to mention doing the actual race!  We hope that Racevine can help beginners connect with other people's experiences and find those nuggets of information that can really make it an enjoyable race.

For a seasoned expert, their goals might be a little different than a beginner. For example, they might be more concerned about trying to set a PR or using the race to qualify for some other race.  Our users do a great job of sharing their tips and tricks about the course, logistics and other things that could help you run the best race you can.

Q: Any tips for writing a helpful review for others?

A: We usually suggest writing about the race as if you were describing the experience to your friends and family.  We also like to ask the question:  If you were to do the race over again, what information do you wish you had?  That's usually a great place to start.  Being creative and descriptive about the race is also very helpful and we tell people they're free to write it as a review, race report, recap, however they'd like.

We definitely welcome criticism about races, but we stress constructive criticism. We're here to support the sport, and race organizers use a lot of this feedback to improve their races, which benefits all of us in the long run!

This Examiner reviewed one of her favorite races, the SunTrust National Half Marathon, on Racevine. Read the review here:

http://www.racevine.com/events/washington-dc/suntrust-national-marathon