Course cues (beta)

Small marks on the course line that tell runners where to cross, what to watch for, and where to turn — shown when they hover or tap.

Course cues are small marks on the course line that tell runners something at a particular spot: where to cross the road, which side to keep to, where traffic is heavy, where the turnaround is. A cue sits on the line in the course's own color, so it doesn't crowd the map the way a point of interest does. Runners see its message when they hover over it, or tap it on a phone.

Course cues are in beta. They show on your race's map on HelloDrifter and on any embedded map of the course.

Course cues or points of interest?

Use a point of interest for a place runners look for: an aid station, toilets, parking, the medical tent. Use a course cue for an instruction or a warning at a spot on the course: “Police crossing: cross to the left”, “Watch for traffic”, “Turnaround: return on the same side”.

Opening the course cues editor

On your race, open the “Edit race” menu in the race toolbar and choose “Course cues”. For a Route, it's in the toolbar's options menu. You need the same access as for editing the race's points of interest.

The editor shows your course with its cues on it, as runners will see them, its points of interest as faded markers for reference, and a list of the cues in order along the course with their distance from the start.

Adding a course cue

  1. Click “Add course cue”.
  2. Move the mouse over the course. A faint mark follows the line and shows the distance from the start. A cue always sits on the course line; away from it, nothing is placed.
  3. Click where the cue goes.
  4. Give it a short title, such as “Police crossing”. Add a note if runners need more, such as “Cross to the left and stay left until Orange Street”. Pick an icon if you like; without one the cue is a plain mark in the course's color.
  5. Click “Save changes”.

Press Esc to stop placing a cue without adding one.

Changing, moving and removing course cues

Click a cue on the map, or in the list, to change its title, note or icon, or to remove it. To move a cue, drag it along the course to its new spot. Nothing changes for runners until you click “Save changes”; “Discard changes” puts everything back as it was.

To check the result, click “Preview as runner”. The editing tools step aside and you can hover over the cues just as runners will.

When you change the course

Course cues stay exactly where you put them when you edit the course, upload a new GPX file, or the course is replaced. Any cue the new course still passes keeps showing. A cue the new course no longer passes is kept but hidden from runners, and you'll see a note saying how many cues are off the course. In the editor they're set apart under “Off course”, and shown on the map as grey circles where they were, so you can see which is which: remove them, and add new ones where they belong. If you change the course back instead, they show again.

A cue that is off the course is also left out of the course's GPX download.