So nothing can actually be blank, space, zero and empty. I have learned that.

Item 1:
I am using this formula to populate a field that I will eventually test for
a non-blank status in order to include it into a recap sheet. The result of
this formule will populate a cell that is formatted as Text:

=IF('Event Data'!$B$4<4,(""),(INDEX(X4:AA4,1,('Event Data'!$B$4-2))))

It works great and it poulates the cell with either "" (blank right?) or a
value that is a finishing postion (1st,2nd....10th)

Item 2:
I have a module that I will run that I want to only pull those cells in
which the previous example had populated with a non-blank finishing position.
This cell is also formatted as text however the original cell has a blue
color text font. It only made sense to try and do an IF statement that would
include those that were non-blank. Here is the code, it will act as if every
cell has non blank value and write every row:

INT srcrow is the incremental row number

'If (Sheets("Runners K-8").Range("AH" & srcrow).Value <> "") Then
Range("A" & srcrow & ":AA" & srcrow).Copy
Sheets("Recap_Test").Select
Range("A" & dstrow).Select
ActiveSheet.Paste
Sheets("Runners K-8").Select
dstrow = dstrow + 1
End If

I guess I have 2 questions:
How can I modify my approach to end up with a blank to begin with?

How can I adjust my IF statement to handle this, it can;t be that hard as I
am only looking for 10 possible values.

Coach