Custom Running Shirts for Races, Charity Runs and Run Clubs

A race has two kinds of shirt-wearer. The runner wants a shirt that still feels light at kilometre eight; the finisher at brunch, the volunteer who has been at the water table since 6 a.m. and the parent at the finish line want a comfortable tee. Most race-shirt regrets come from buying one shirt for both.

Performance polyester is the runner’s shirt. Polyester barely absorbs water, so sweat spreads through the knit and evaporates instead of soaking in, and a soaked tech tee dries fast and doesn’t hang heavy. Ours is the Team 365 TT11, the “100% Polyester” option on the t-shirt in the studio.

Cotton is everyone else’s shirt. The Gildan 64000 is a ring-spun cotton tee, semi-fitted and true to size. It soaks up sweat and holds it, which is why runners avoid it mid-race and why a volunteer or a finisher won’t mind. It takes every print method we run, DTG included.

A walk or a family 2K can happily be all cotton. For a timed 10K or a half marathon, a cotton participant shirt becomes a souvenir, because runners who care about their time race in their own kit. Put a tech tee in the race kit and many will wear it on race day, which is when the sponsors on the back get seen.

The TT11 and the 64000 are different blanks from different makers, so a medium in one is not a medium in the other. These are the published charts the studio shows for each, in inches, laid flat: chest across the front just below the armholes, length from shoulder to hem.

From S to XL the polyester tee is the roomier shirt, so a runner who likes a close fit can often go one size down from their cotton size: someone who needs about 21 inches across fits a cotton L (22) or a polyester M (21½). At the big end it flips. The polyester 3XL is half an inch narrower and shorter than the cotton 3XL, so someone at the edge of a cotton 3XL may want the polyester 4XL.

So put the right chart on the registration form, not a generic “unisex S–XL” one, and if runners get the tech tee and volunteers get cotton, show both. Both studio tees are unisex cuts, and people who usually wear a fitted women’s tee often find one unisex size down fits. Charts allow an inch or two of tolerance, so anyone between sizes should lay a shirt they like flat and measure it. Our t-shirt size guide walks through it.

The two methods most race orders run on both work on polyester. DTF (direct-to-film) printing puts the design on a film, backs it with a powdered adhesive and heat-presses it on, so it holds on polyester as well as cotton, in full colour, with no setup: right for a back of colour sponsor logos or a club order of 20. Screen printing pushes ink through a stencil, one screen per colour, and becomes the best value past roughly 24–50 pieces, so a race in the hundreds is usually screen printed.

Polyester’s one trap comes from its dye. Coloured polyester is dyed with disperse dyes, which can turn to vapour when heated, and the heat that cures a screen print or presses a transfer can release some of that dye into the ink on top. The trade calls it dye migration: a white print turning faintly pink on a red shirt or grey on a royal one, and it doesn’t always show the moment the shirt leaves the press. Most of the cotton tee’s heathers are 65% polyester, so the same caution applies to them.

The defences are well known: inks that cure at lower temperatures, a grey blocking layer under the white on a screen print, a cooler and shorter press for a transfer. They cut the risk without removing it on every colour, so we test on the actual shirt colour before the run. The usual suspects are deep, saturated shades such as reds, maroons, royals and some blacks. Dark ink on a white or light shirt is the low-risk version, because there is little dye to move; white ink on a red tech tee is the combination to test first.

Big prints need a different approach, too. Ink and film don’t breathe, so a solid full-back rectangle becomes a patch that sticks to a wet back; outlines, knockouts or a distressed texture let the shirt show through, and the design wears like part of it. Wash printed tech tees cold and inside out, skip fabric softener (it coats performance fibres and slows the wicking) and hang them to dry.

Most race shirts share a layout because it works: the event on the front, the sponsors on the back, one more mark on the sleeve. These are our standard print sizes on an adult tee; heights follow the artwork’s proportions, up to the limit shown.

The front is what shows in race photos. An 11-inch event logo with the distance and year is the classic participant shirt; a 3.5-inch mark on the left chest, over the wearer’s left side (the viewer’s right), is the quieter choice when the back carries the design, and it gets the shirt worn again.

The date deserves a decision. “10K · 2027” makes the participant shirt a keepsake, which is the point. Leave the year off volunteer and crew shirts, and the leftovers become next year’s volunteer stock.

The back is where the sponsors go. A grid that works on an 11-inch back: the title sponsor across the top at full width, about 2½ inches tall, then three columns of logos about 3 inches wide with half-inch gaps (3 + ½ + 3 + ½ + 3 is 10 inches). Four rows of 1½-inch cells under the title band come to roughly 11 inches of height, inside the tee back’s 16, so 13 sponsors fit with room to spare. Size logos by how big they look: a square mark 3 inches wide looks far larger than a long wordmark at the same width. Our sponsor shirts page goes further.

Two things decide whether that grid prints cleanly. Files: at 300 dpi a 3-inch logo needs about 900 pixels of width, and the 200-pixel logo from a sponsor’s website footer is under a quarter of that, so ask every sponsor for a vector file (SVG, PDF, EPS or AI) the day they sign. Colours: on a screen print every ink colour is its own screen, so the classic answer is a one-colour sponsor wall, every logo in white on a dark shirt or black on a light one, printed from a single screen. If sponsors need their brand colours, DTF prints the back in full colour with no setup per colour.

Volunteers have to be found at a glance, by a runner who missed a turn or a parent looking for first aid. Colour does it: runners in one colour, volunteers in a loud contrasting one, with VOLUNTEER or CREW across the back. A word 11 inches wide reads across a finish area; a chest logo doesn’t.

Colour helps the price, too. In the online design studio the per-piece price drops at 12, 24, 50 and 100 pieces, and every colour of the same garment in one order counts toward the same price break: 80 runner tees in navy and 30 volunteer tees in orange are one 110-piece order, and all 110 get the 100-piece price. The studio counts polyester and cotton tees together as well, with the polyester ones carrying their fabric charge. On a screen-printed run, pick a volunteer colour that takes the same ink as the runner shirt; a shirt colour that needs a different ink is a second setup.

Most volunteers don’t need the tech tee: they pour water, hand out medals and stack barricades, and the cotton 64000 suits that work. Put the people who move, like a marshal jogging between corners, in polyester. For a 6 a.m. start in May or October a long sleeve is kinder; the Gildan 2400 is a 6.0 oz cotton long sleeve in S–3XL, and the long sleeve also comes in 100% polyester. A Safety Yellow tee is a bright colour, not certified hi-vis, so vests that a road-closure plan calls for are a separate garment.

A marathon weekend can need several hundred volunteer shirts on its own. Treat them like a staff shirt order: one colour, the event mark on the chest, the role on the back, no year. For the rest of a charity event, from start banners to sponsor boards, see our nonprofit and fundraising printing page.

A race-shirt order has a natural sequence: the shirt-size cut-off passes, you count, then you order. Order before the count and you are guessing with money; count too late and the boxes arrive after kit pickup.

Standard turnaround on clothing is 1–2 weeks. Most apparel orders can rush — 4–5 business days or 1–3 business days, priced at checkout — and every order shows the dates it will be ready before you pay. Rush is the safety net for a late top-up, not the plan: a race in the hundreds is planned, not rushed, and the date to protect is kit-stuffing night, not race day. For a Saturday race with kit pickup on the Thursday and Friday:

That calendar assumes the full two weeks of production and a few days in transit. It is our planning suggestion, not a rule; a long shipping distance or a design that is still changing adds a week.

Late registrants get “size not guaranteed”, and you order a spread for them on top of the counted sizes, weighted to M, L and XL; our bulk size breakdown has a starting curve with counts at 100, 250, 500 and 1,000. Add a few per cent of spares in those sizes in the same run, because a second run is a second setup. Keep the counts separate by shirt: runner, volunteer and youth tees, each by size.

No minimum on DTF and DTG — we will print a single shirt — so a dozen late shirts is a normal order, though a DTF top-up feels different from a screen print up close. Our event shirts page covers the same planning for festivals and fundraisers.

A run club orders differently: 20, 40 or 60 members, shirts worn every week for years, people joining all season. That is the size of order the studio handles best. Open the t-shirt in the design studio, switch the fabric to 100% polyester, put the club mark on the chest and the name across the back, and type in the sizes. At 24 shirts the per-piece price has already dropped twice.

For names on the back, use the Team names & numbers chart: paste a list, one shirt per line with a name, number and size, and switch numbers off for a names-only shirt. The chart fills in the size boxes and prints the name across the upper back with the number below. Each personalized shirt costs a bit more, and you approve the full chart before paying, so a misspelled surname is caught by you, not by the runner wearing it. Our guide on ordering team names and numbers covers collecting the list.

Ottawa clubs run all year, and the kit follows: the tech tee for summer, a long sleeve for the shoulder months (also in 100% polyester) and a hoodie for the coffee afterwards, in 50/50 fleece or 100% polyester. Singlets are quote-only: size the logo on the tee in the studio, then ask for a quote on the singlet. Keep the blank, colour and file on record so a reorder of three matches the original 40. Our gym and fitness apparel page covers the training-floor side.

A family race usually has a kids’ 1K, and the kids want their parents’ shirt. The studio’s youth tee is the Gildan 64000B, the youth cut of the cotton tee, in youth XS–XL: tap “+ Youth sizes” under a colour row. The ages are our estimate, not Gildan’s: XS 4–5, S 6–8, M 9–11, L 12–13 and XL 14–16. Youth tees count with the adult tees toward the price break, so 12 adult and 12 youth tees are priced as 24.

The youth tee is cotton only; there is no polyester youth body in the studio, which is no hardship for a 1K. A teenager running the 5K in the tech tee can try the adult polyester XS: 18½ inches across and 27 long, against the youth XL’s 19 and 25.

Youth shirts print at our youth standard, 8 inches wide instead of 11, so a sponsor grid scaled down for them loses about a quarter of its width. Check that the smallest sponsor still reads, or give the kids the event logo, big and simple. On a screen-printed run the smaller youth print is its own screen. You can open the tee with the youth sizes already showing.

A screen-printed t-shirt runs roughly $12–$18 CAD each at 50 pieces and drops under $10 each in the hundreds. Full-colour DTF sits slightly higher per piece with no setup fee. Every quote is free and includes a mockup. Performance polyester costs a little more per shirt than cotton; the studio shows it as a flat fabric charge the moment you switch. Ink colours and print locations on a screen print, sizes from 2XL up and personalized names also move the price.

A club or a small race orders in the studio. Customers can design their own product free at yayaprints.ca/mockup-creator — upload a logo, place it on a real garment, add print-quality text, choose colours and sizes, and order online without emailing or phoning anyone.

A race in the hundreds is quoted. Use the free quote form to send the event logo and sponsor files, the shirt colours, the race and kit-pickup dates, and one table: a row per size, a column per shirt. Or call 613-666-9292; we serve customers in English and French.

Either way, every order gets a free digital mockup on the actual product before any payment, and nothing prints until you approve it. We ship Canada-wide, including the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Montreal; shipping is quoted for your postal code and shown before you pay, and Ottawa organizers can ask us about pickup. Every shirt is printed and decorated in-house in Ottawa and never drop-shipped from overseas, so there are no cross-border customs holds or surprise duties. Our t-shirt printing page compares the three print methods and shows per-shirt pricing.