5K Registration Form Templates

Are you looking for a 5K registration form template for your race? You've come to the right place!

We've got a number of different 5K registration form templates for you to download, including a paper registration form, if you plan to physically collect registrations, and an online registration form, if you prefer doing things electronically.

If you've got any feedback for us or would like us to improve our 5K registration form templates in any way, don't forget to share your comments below.

What makes a good registration form?

After you download the 5K registration form templates below, you may need to customize them or edit them to suit your needs.

In doing so, it does help sticking to some rules:

1. Always include some basic info about your race on your form. Getting people to share your registration form is a good thing. But this means your form ending up with people who may not know some key details about your race. Make sure you always include your race date, location and the cause your race benefits on any registration form you share, whether online or on paper.
2. Keep it simple. It is a well known fact that the longer the form, the more likely people are to not bother filling it in. It's a shame to do all the hard work to get someone to register for your race only to lose them when they have to fill in your registration form. So keep your forms as simple as possible. For anything you might think to add on them, ask yourself this: "Do I really need this information?"
3. Choose the right question format. Knowing what to ask is one thing; knowing how to ask it is another. Why are you asking for people for their date of birth, for examples? Unless you're buying them a birthday present, what you probably need instead is their age on race day. So ask for exactly that and spare yourself the headache of date formats and having to working out someone's age from their birthday.
4. Don't forget the waiver! If you are collecting liability waivers, make sure to add the language of your choice at the end, as well as a checkbox people will have to tick to confirm reading and agreeing to your waiver terms.

Ok - with that under your belt, let's look at your 5K registration options and form templates:

Paper registration form template

Paper registration template - cover page

Paper registration template - main form

The paper registration form is meant to be either printed or emailed for participants to fill in and return signed to the organizer.

The template covers all the information you will likely need to collect from participants, including name, email, address, phone number, gender, date of birth and T-shirt size (for races giving out finisher T-shirts).

This template also includes a cover page. On the cover page you can include important information about your race, such as the entry fee, entry fee payment instructions and any other information you think would be useful for participants to know. Or you can leave the cover page out altogether.

Lastly, there's space at the end of the form for you to add your race waiver. Once you add your waiver text, participants will be required to tick a box acknowledging that they agree to your waiver before signing and dating the form.

Downloading your template

The paper registration form template is available in both Word and Google Docs formats. To download your copy, click here.

Editing the template

To edit the template to your event requirements, do the following:

1. Open the email we sent you and click to open the version of the template you'd like to work with - either Word or Google Docs.
2. Save a copy of the template in your drive to be able to customize your own version.
3. Replace or remove the cover image, add your race information and waiver. Don't worry if the document extends to a second page. Make sure your registration form includes all the information you need to collect from participants.
4. Save, print or export your form in PDF so you can email it to participants.

That's it - you're all done.

Online registration form template

5K online registration form template

The online registration form template is meant to be filled online. The template collects the same basic information as the paper version (name, email, address, phone number, gender, date of birth and T-shirt size), but is a lot easier to work with.

We built the online template in Google Forms, Google's super-popular free online form builder. If you've used Google Forms before, then you know what to do. If not, it's really straightforward and it's going to save you a ton of time over working with paper forms. To learn more about working with Google Forms online, take a look at this 10' YouTube intro video.

Oh, and don't forget to add that all important waiver at the end of the form. The way we've set it up for you on the template is that users will have to click on the checkbox under the waiver to acknowledge agreement before submitting their registration details. So make that waiver count.

Downloading your template

If you haven't done so already above, click here to download the online registration form template.

Editing the template

1. Click on the email we sent you to open your copy of the template. You will be asked to save a copy of the template on your drive, so you can edit it to your liking.
2. Customize the looks of your form, adding or removing fields as needed.
3. When you are happy with the result, click the Send button at the top right of the page. You have three options for sharing your registration form with participants:
   1. Email it to individual recipients
   2. Get a sharable link to the form - whenever a user clicks on that link, a registration form will open in their browser
   3. Embed the form anywhere on your website by adding the Embed HTML snippet in your website's HTML code

Online registration with payment processing (and other bits)

If this is your first race, or you've been used to working with paper forms, the idea of signing up with a proper registration platform - the kind most events use to manage their registrations - may sound intimidating. Or perhaps something your event doesn't need.

That may be the case. But there's a lot you're missing out on by not doing so.

Signing up with a registration platform can have a lot more benefits for your event than simply automating data collection. For example, you could use some of the many marketing tools registration platforms provide to increase registrations for your event through referrals and other incentives. And you can get registration fees and donations paid directly into your bank account, without having to worry about collecting and depositing money yourself.

So, if you'd like to take a look at registration platforms and what they have to offer, take a look at our online registration providers directory.