Energizer Night Race 2011: Worst in History

Things happened quite fast. The registration were closed sooner than expected due to the overwhelming response. But I did manage to get a slot in the 11km category in a manual registration, albeit at quite an expensive rate... 65 bucks. Fine. This has got to be the most expensive run I'd ever paid for.

Anyways. Reached Sepang early enough to not know what to do when I arrived. It was shocking to be charged 10 bucks for parking. No one ever mentioned we had to pay? Couldn't the organizer handle the parking fees? We paid so much for the run. But, fine, I paid, and parked in zone 3.

Walked in trying to look for the registration counter. There was no signs. I was walking around aimlessly. I was told my head-lights would be given at the race. But it was practically a chaos when runners started grabbing them headlights without proper order. For one, why placed that at the top of the staircase? Wouldn't an open area be safer? And to have the organizer shouting we would be given later, I thought, fine, at least she was trying to get the order. But who'd known, I walked for 15 minutes in the carnival area, wondering where the starting line is. No signs at all. And all the other runners had got their headlights. So I headed back to the chaotic headlights redemption place, the organizers were sort of throwing it at the runners. Fine.

So I had my headlights. Headed out to the carnival area. They had some drummers leading the 21km runners to the starting line, and we were told that we would be led to the starting line later. I joined 11km, flag off time was about an hour later, I think. So I waited. Then I saw the drummers, but they didn't do anything like earlier. There was no cue as to where we should be, the 11km runners I mean.

It was just 10 minutes before the flag off time, so I followed the crowd. They were all heading to a small tunnel, where it opened to the starting line. The crowd was crazy. 5000 participants in the 11km category apparently.

But as we were just waiting for the flag off, we had some 21km runners pushing through. I mean, couldn't they space out the starting time a bit? But, okay, fine. And we started to run.

I finished one lap in about 35 minutes, and reached the starting line. It was a bit messy. The 5.5km runners were all there as well. Some were walking. I thought the 11km had finished, but it's impossible I could do 11km in half an hour. So I headed forward. The 21km runners were there too. There was no proper line as to who were to go into which lane, and what we should be getting. A ribbon should be properly distributed. At least have more people distributing it. Some guys were just there, holding some cardboards recording God knows what, and I had to turn back to get my ribbon. I thought, fine. Just a small glitch.

The second lap on the circuit was easier. But there was no cue as to how much we had run. But logic would've explained one lap was 5.5km. But at least, have some signs as to how much left. It was only towards the last turning that I saw a small sign "2km left". Erm, did it just appeared magically? Okay, fine. Not a big deal. Finally, I reached the finishing line in 1 hour 20 minutes.

The queue for the goodie bag was as long as 500m, or more, I thought. The redemption counter was so small I couldn't even make out which line was for which category. So I had to make out by logic based on the bib number on the lines. And finally walked to the far end of the queue. It was static, and it wasn't moving. We heard some boo-s from afar, but we had no idea what was going on. And finally when it moved, we made out what happened. Apparently, the guy in front of me headed to the counter to check out what happend, and came back saying the grill was pulled down. The counter was closed! WHAT?!

And then, the emcee came reporting. "RUNNERS, PLEASE QUEUE UP PROPERLY AND DON'T CUT QUEUE!" Like, hello, it was such a havoc at the redemption counter, there was no proper signs and lines to line the runners up, how would we know where is the queue?

But we waited. And the emcee came again, some runners were getting more than one goodie bags, finishing them goodie bags and none left for the ones still in queue. Like, uh, WHAT???!?!?!!!! SERIOUSLY? And she added, runners, please disperse, goodie bags would be mailed. Like, erm, SERIOUSLY? What crap is this?!

But after the second time she came out and announce it would be mailed, I finally gave up. My vest was all wet, and it was cold, I had a stomach ache. The queue was so long, and there was no water station nearby, I nearly begged for some runners for the water they carry. They better mail it.

Went to the exit and wanted to head home. But gosh, because we had to go through a door, down the staircase, and through the underground tunnel, and come out from the other side of the tunnel, there was basically a human traffic jam inside the tunnel. It was suffocating, any claustophobics would have had panic attack inside. I was so scared that stampede could happen. The crowd moved slowly, and surely, there are some who turned back. But at last, after some 10 minutes or so, I finally came out from the other side. Open air was a relief. I breathed as much as I could. Gosh I could have died inside the tunnel!

And so, I came home, and this blog explain it all. Energizer Night Race 2011 has got to be the worst running event in history. Not my own, but I'm sure for many others as well. On my way to the car, I heard some veteran runners complaining as well, that they're not gonna join anymore next year.

As I left the parking lot, runners of the 42km were still running, not knowing what happened inside the pit.

Came back thinking of complaining in the race's facebook page. But walah. I was 2 hours late. There were dozens of hate comments already. Perhaps I should print screen for tomorrow's post, someone said they will be blocking it soon enough. Funny how such a big event could turn out to be the worst ever in the history of a running event.

Sigh. Sad... I felt cheated...