From ‘spooktacular’ 5Ks to hard-charging pumpkin hauls and half marathons, October abounds with Halloween-themed races – and sales potential for promo distributors.

By Christopher Ruvo – A two-mile racecourse doesn’t seem like too much to tackle, until the caveat kicks in: You have to traverse it while carrying a basketball-sized pumpkin over hay bales and through the woods, across creeks and under obstacles. Such is the challenge of “The Great Pumpkin Haul” race in Littleton, CO, which is scheduled for Oct. 27. For their trouble, racers receive a T-shirt, a finisher’s medal and more, including a healthy dose of muscle-aching pride.

The Great Pumpkin Haul is just one of the many Halloween-themed races that occur across the U.S. in October. Just like the Haul, many of those runs will provide participants with race-branded promotional products – anything from T-shirts to water bottles to headbands and more.While it’s getting on to crunch time, it’s not too late for many promo distributors to provide branded merchandise for races in their locales. Runner’s World recently put together a piece titled “15 Great Halloween Runs” that gives a sense of the breadth of races happening around the nation. But if none of those races are near you, no worries. Sites like Active and Race-Find can help you discover races in your neck of the woods.

Participants in St. Paul, MN’s Monster Dash

As you pursue business with Halloween race organizers, here are seven product categories to potentially pitch.

LONG-SLEEVE PERFORMANCE T-SHIRTS

Most runners enjoy collecting T-shirts that commemorate their participation in a race (sidenote: I do). Since you know you’re dealing with an athletic bunch, why not provide tees that offer performance qualities like moisture-wicking? With the weather cooling or soon to cool in much of the country, long-sleeve performance shirts could be a great fit for Halloween-themed races.

HEADBANDS

As more professional athletes don headbands (looking at you Baker Mayfield), the item is becoming more popular as a fashionable activewear accessory. As such, more races are offering headbands to participants. The product shown here is the polyester Austin Cooling Headband (HB101OP) from Innovation Line (asi/62660).

REFLECTORS

Attachable reflectors are a safety boon to runners, helping them to be seen while out training in the early morning, evening and night. Race organizers would be providing participants with an immediately useful item if they distributed light-up safety reflectors like the one shown here from Brighter Promotions (asi/42016).

SPORTS BOTTLES

Sport bottles like the 26-oz. Pacific Aluminum Sports Bottle (SM-6789) from Bullet (asi/42424) are welcomed by runners, for whom proper hydration is paramount.

OUTERWEAR

Higher-end gear can work, too. Check out the nifty outerwear Monster Dash was offering.

RALLY TOWELS

Runners will appreciate being able to use towels – like this one (RT1811) from Custom Printing II LTD (asi/47971) – to mop the brow after a vigorous run. The towels also serve as mementos for many racers.

EVENT NECESSITIES

Lanyards, event tents and banners are all workaday items that run organizers and vendors can utilize at races. Be the promo pro that meets the need. This printed polyester lanyard (Lanyards LPY34) is from imprintID (asi/73651).

Published on asicentral.com on October 2, 2018