Infinitely me: Event: Passion Run

Passion Run took place in East Coast Park on 22nd May. It was the worst race ever, in many many different ways. First when I got the event singlet, I got a shock. It was not nice to say the least. Take a look below. At least the finisher tee was a tad nicer (but dark grey and bright yellow?? wrong combo). Unfortunately it's a muscle tee, the kind which is stretchable and should only be worn by people who has bulging muscles. When I reached the event area, it looked pretty okay. The baggage deposit area was quite empty and I just casually chose another row to deposit my waist bag. Then I saw Wilson. So we chatted for a while and to my dismay when I walked over to join the second wave, I realised that the starting point was no where to be found. It seems like you have to queue very close to the starting point and they only allow a number of people to pass through. So I had to wait at the "seemingly start point" for the last wave, which was retarded. They should have let more people pass. The run itself wasn't extremely bad. The distance markers were very small, the drink stations were short handed. The worst thing was that there wasn't many volunteers who were equipped with the pain relief spray. Throughout the whole run, I only saw 2 medics. Hello the race length is 25km not 2km. How can you only have 2 medics? There was many U turns in the route and other than the fact that the roads were not closed and we had to share with the cyclist and other runners, the route wasn't so bad.

The worst came after I finished the race. I decided to walk around before heading to get my bag. It took me a while to find the deposit station cause the place was really dark and they didn't bother with putting many lights. There were long queues everywhere at the station and I didn't understand how it work. It was supposed to be A to F but I saw 2 long queues at the right hand side of the booth only. When I approached one of the student volunteers, she told me to "join the queue". Later another student came to ask if our baggage number was E. After checking it seems that mine was but the first girl didn't check any of that. Then the second girl was saying how there's a shorter queue but did not explain to every individual about it but I overheard it was only for a range of numbers. Then she just shouted for people to follow her. If I hadn't overheard it, I would have followed and join the wrong queue. The queues were badly organised. Many people were cutting queue and believe me I felt like slapping that girl behind me who cut my queue later on. It was obvious that only E had a lot of people. I waited for an hour before it was my turn. I wanted to sms my friends, I wanted to wipe myself dry, wanted to change into slippers, but my phone, my towel and my slippers were all in my bag. When it was my turn, the students just kept shouting NEXT NUMBER!? and whoever shouted will get their attention. The bags were all placed randomly on the racks obviously because they had to ask the runners what's the colour and brand of their bag. Allow me to openly declare that TK students are nuts when it comes to common sense. Where's the organisation? Where's the procedure? Every queue should have a few students allocated to them, not the students running around like that. Let's say it was a class CIP, don't tell me the class chairman or the student councillors (if any) were all stupid? And the organisers didn't even bother to check. If a bunch of kids can't handle the job then you guys have to step in right?

And when I was searching for the shuttle bus, I realised that there was no signs for it. So I just followed a big bunch of runners. It turned out that they were all lost and the area was so dark that I stubbed my toe. And last I checked, even if we made it to the correct place for the shuttle bus, we would have to walked a few km. The organisers are really really retarded. You try running 25km and then climb over barricades and overhead bridges.

No more Passion Run next year. Below was my complaint in their Facebook group and it won't be surprising to know that none of their admins mann the group. Got to send a complain letter to them.

The baggage deposit was really bad. The students were just running around with zero organisation and order. It was not distributed evenly, resulting in E having a way longer queue. The volunteers did not do a proper crowd control and after trying to spilt E into 2 rows, the rows ended up messy and some people managed to cut queue easily. If the students cannot do a good job, it is necessary for some of the organisers to teach them how it should be done. They just kept shouting "next number!" and they just helped to search for the person who shouted their number even if they are not next in line. I waited one full hour before I got my bag.

There was also no signs to the returning shuttle bus. Some runners ended up lost or giving up on looking for it. The area was not well lit and it wasn't easy to make our way around the booths etc and since our phones are in our bags (which takes forever to collect), it was hard for some runners to contact their friends who did not finish together.

Lastly it seems that the organisers do not care about this Facebook group. They do not answer the questions asked (not even delayed answers). When I emailed them about an error they made with my registration, it took them 2 full weeks AND a reminder email before they replied me.