Well, generally you'd talk to someone who has already run it, like a moderator, or watch a run of it already completed. I think I've seen about 3 places to start a timer. "SDA timing" starts when you gain control of your character. "ZSR timing" starts when you press the last button on the main menu. The other way is starting it when you reset the game (seen it used for Persona 4 and I've used it for McPixel). There's possibly more I don't know of. Different games have different ways of doing it (i.e. Deus Ex HR starts after the story-driven cutscene at the start that wastes several minutes).
DeNN1Sk0: Read the first line of the Following Games section. :P
PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp
I am surprised that tHmCS would do something like that, tbh.
I hope I will be available for this if it's held in 2017 (probably as a spectator). :P
I'm guessing you know this already, but softman organised AVcon and would be a good person to contact.
Honestly, it looks like he's had a lot of practice. I doubt tHmCS would cheat.
What do you mean by "take into account"?
Everything you need should be here: http://www.speedrunslive.com/faq/
In the "request a game" form, you need to link to a video of a run of the game.
Skooky: For that, you should contact the moderators of that game (through Twitch, Twitter, etc.). They're fairly active, so they should be able to get back to you quickly.
Bringing this one back because I've noticed there's been a few marathons being added recently: http://www.speedrun.com/post/lo4af
Champloo was actually pretty dedicated to the game when he did run it. If you PM him I'm sure he'd be happy to add people.
JimmyNintendo: You can come across as a bit egotistic when you do that, though. :P
No kirkq, if you go to the 4th page of the link pld posted, it says that they have removed the speedrun portion of the website. They took on-board the perspective of some speedrunners in the thread over splitting communities, which is something they didn't intend to do.