3 November 2012, Singapore – As you all know, we woke up real excited this morning for the Lion Dash Race. All hyped up over the weeks of anticipation and worrying about the pythons we are going to meet, we toughened ourselves up for the big race. After the race, I’ve decided to run through what was so terribly wrong with the event itself.
Dear Organisers,
(1) Lack of volunteers/helpers/marshals.
There was practically no marshals at the entire race route, leaving many of us lost and wondering what we should do with each obstacles.
(2) Registration process a nightmare. Last minute bib number changes, the shortage of safety pins and insufficient sizes for the race tees, totally ruined the whole experience even before we started the race. There are people with no waiver form but given the race pack, and oh yes. The race pack was a disappointment.
(3) The race pack is a sponsored NTUC Fair Price tote/recycle bag. Basically, there was only one event tee shirt and a ntuc recycle bag, nothing else. For the price of over S$60 for registration, really? You must be kidding me.
(4) Route marking, now where are they? We got lost and finally gave up. We were joined by more lost participants and finally wandered to the end of the race. It wasn’t that hard to put some print out along the route right?
(5) Water station was marked clearly in the map on your website. They were definitely not present on site. Are we supposed to drink from the ‘swamp’? Thank god the weather was really nice and cool, or else you will have a few dehydrated casualties on your hand I’m sure.
(6) Why is your polar plunge (ice pool) located outside the race? We had no idea what that was until we saw people coming out wet and yelling, “come here for the polar plunge!” No one was supervising it and fortunately the rest of the participants were really helpful to yank the ‘stuck’ people out of the ice pool.
Ok, I can go on and on, but I reckon it is probably due to the lack of profits/budget that turned this event into a major disappointment. What’s the point of having so many sponsors and yet participants are just left to fend for themselves in the jungle trail avoiding bikers and getting lost.
Shame on you Lion Dash.