National Running and Fitness Week falls in early June — check the exact dates each year, they shift. Buyers are race directors, run clubs, gyms, physical therapy practices and corporate wellness programs. Everything divides into two piles: what people run in, and what they get at the end.

Never cotton

The most common mistake in race merchandise is a heavy cotton shirt. Runners won’t run in it. Performance polyester or a poly blend is the standard for anything intended to be worn during activity, and it takes sublimation and full-color print well. Save cotton for the spectator shirt, if you’re doing one.

Cooling towels rank high on this list for good reason — they’re cheap, they get used within minutes of being handed over, and they photograph well at a finish line.

Bottles, bibs, lanyards

Aluminum and sport bottles dominate because hydration is the message and the product at once. Race bibs and lanyards are functional necessities that also happen to be branded surfaces — if you’re printing bibs anyway, that’s sponsor real estate you’ve already paid for. Hot and cold packs show up in the data because of the physical therapy and recovery side of this audience.

Size the order to registrations, not hopes

Race apparel is the classic over-order. Registration numbers firm up late, and shirt sizing for a running field skews smaller than general population. Order against actual registrations with a small buffer, weight the run toward S–L, and if you must guess, guess low — leftover race shirts have no second life.