I prefer not to use emulators when speedrunning.

I own an SNES, and I used to have a couple hundred dollars worth of games for it, however I lost most of them a few years ago in some unfortunate circumstances involving my mother and a spring cleaning...

I now only have Super Mario World, and I really want to speedrun other games for the SNES, but my only option would be to buy a bunch of games AGAIN (very expensive, least desirable option).

However, I found some cartridges online that can simply have an SD-card with a bunch of ROMs loaded on it plugged into it.

Before I use this for speedrunning, however, I want to confirm a couple things:

1. That the run would not be considered invalid because "the ROM is technically hacked."
2. That the run would not be considered invalid because "the device is modified."
3. That the device would not qualify as an emulator (I'm pretty sure it wouldn't, but it's always good to confirm).

EDIT: Some examples of what I'm talking about can be found here: http://www.stoneagegamer.com/super-everdrive-basic.html (Super EverDrive) https://shop.retrogate.com/everdrive/super-everdrive-buy (Super EverDrive v2) http://www.stoneagegamer.com/sd2snes-basic.html (SD2SNES)

Also, if an SD-card cartridge IS aloud, but there's only certain ones that are, it'd be nice to know which ones. Or, if any of you have any recommendations on which one to buy, I'll consider your opinions.

Flash carts like that are almost always allowed (I have yet to find a community that doesn't allow them). Since it's being played on actual hardware it is not considered emulation either. If you want to be doubly sure of yourself, ask the game mods and have them confirm it's allowed, but given my experience you are fine to use that. Hell I even use one myself sometimes.

As a note, a personal preference, the SD2SNES is much better than the Super Everdrive. More expensive, but much better. If budget is a concern, get the Super Everdrive 2 at least.

EDIT: apparently there are some more modern flashcarts for DS games that are banned for speeding up loads. But for Retro stuff (NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, etc.) they should be fine