Venue: Padang Esplanade Taiping
Date: 16th September 2012
Time: 6.00am
As an event organizer, I do view the success of an event from a slightly different perspective. I try to be more forgiving of the race organizers if I have any criticism of the event at all. After all, I personally know the challenges each race organizer goes through and I try to take the short comings with a pinch of salt. You know you can never please everybody so as long as the majority of your participants are happy, you have done well.
However, the Taiping International Marathon was in my most humbled opinion, a mess from the start. For one, there was the incorrect printing of bib numbers. A women open marathoner got a men's open bib number. There was no proper information in the "race pack" on the race details. No route map was included and there was no instructions on what that tiny round plastic thing was or what to do with it. Of course, having run races for the past 7 years, I am already very familiar with what is a disposable timing chip and know how it should be attached but as race organizers we need to account for all types of participants. A newbie would be clueless on what to do with that!
I signed up for the women's open half marathon and the race started pretty much on time. I was told that the marathon start was delayed. My target was to try and run a 5:40 min/km pace (pace at MPSP Larian Hijau was 5:43 min/km). The starting pace of the front pack was pretty fast (5:00 min/km) and I had to hold myself back quite a bit and not get overtly excited and pace with them. I held back despite having tons of people pass me as I had a plan and I was going to stick to it. 21km is a long way to go to "pancit" after 5km. I hit the first water station at around 4.5km and it was a disaster! Two volunteers were scrambling to handle the horde of runners crowding the water station. I felt it was too much to bear so I made a decision to skip it. I picked up an almost full bottle of water a bit later and drank from that instead.
The route of the run was quite pleasant to run, even though some parts appear to be quite boring, think the industrial estate part before Giant, but overall I did enjoy it. It wasn't flat but quite rolling thanks to quite a number of flyovers that you have to go over, not to mention the one hill that comes just 1km+ into the race. I felt I ran well and was strong all the way until the finish. I didn't pace with anyone, just ran by myself most of the time. I started to pass people about 10km into the race and continue to overtake every woman I saw ahead of me. At the 12-13km mark, I met my wonderful support crew of Lie Wei and her mum who cheered on me! Slightly further down I would meet Lie Wei's sister, Lie Yee who jumped in on the run as part of her training. The last woman I was to overtake was only about 300-400m to the finish line. I finished third but sadly was considered disqualified as I lost one of the ribbons on route to the finish.
Pia-ing to finish line
Photo credit: Lie Wei
Photo credits: Kho Kwang Leng
Photo credits: Jamie Loke
Happy to come in 3rd place
Photo credits: Lie Wei
I do recall collecting two ribbons, the first being yellow and the second, purple. However, it was windy and all and the ribbons were flimsy. I did not even see it go missing. It was frustrating as I was told to wait while they verified my placing with the referees out on the course who were manually taking down numbers. I wonder what was the need for manual referees when there is a timing chip checkpoint. I spent a lot of time trying to find someone to talk to for this. Every race official I approached either gave me the blank, clueless stare or pointed to someone else. No one seem to be able to want to help me until I got so mad I went into a yelling fit. That was when people started to pay attention and a guy who was a secretariat got one of his referees to take down my number to check.
It took 4 hours for then to work out the final results and all the winners/potential winners were just kept waiting aimlessly. Kudos to the emcee though for being such a good entertainer. The result tabulation itself was a mess. I was at the official tent to witness this first hand. There was no proper verification of the results.
For example, the manual marathon results were not even cross referenced to the timing chip results. If that is the case, why bother having such an expensive timing system? It's a bloody waste of sponsorship money. The marathon results were only cross referenced when a few Kenyan ladies came to the official tent to complain that there was some discrepancies in the results. This was another unfortunate situation and I feel very sad for those marathoners who got disqualified because they unintentional took the wrong turn. The signs were not clear and there were no volunteers to direct the way. I know they did not intend to cut short the route and they were just another casualty of bad event organization.
There was also a case where the prizes were given out and some guy was called on to stage to receive his prize only to have another guy come out to defend that he was the rightful prize winner as he was given a placing tag. In the end, the race officials gave the prize to the owner of the placing tag. I feel so embarrassed for the guy who lost out but he was so gracious in accepting the news. Hats off to you, sir! I am also seriously doubting who was the rightful winner because the race officials were just not doing their job right.
At the end of a 4-hour wait, I was told I was officially disqualified as I was missing one ribbon and only one referee on the course noted down my bib number. I was not to get my prize or placing even though the timing chip printout clearly stated I finished and passed through the checkpoint.
The list of issues did not end here. The location of water stations were not made known to participants so I was left second guessing when my next hydration point was to be. Water stations were badly managed, only 2 volunteers per station, and they were not ready to cope with the amount of runners. Instead of giving out water in cups, they handed out the water in 600ml bottles. What a waste of water! Runners just took a few sips and discarded the entire bottle and later on, a lot of these water stations actually ran out of water. If they had managed the water distribution a lot better, there would plenty of water to spare. There was no isotonic drink but the water stations gave out Spritzer Pop which was so sweet and gassy I doubt it would be fun to drink while on the run. I gave it a miss and stuck to water. The location of the water stations were also too close by in some situations, for e.g. one water station at 4.5km and another just 3km down the road.
The route markers were tiny! If you didn't pay attention, you can almost miss them. I am not surprised that people actually got lost! At certain critical junctions, there weren't even any volunteers or policeman to guide the runners. It was actually quite dangerous as runners had to run across road with no traffic control.
The finish line was so badly managed. It wasn't properly cordoned off and people were walking all over the place. You can hardly see the categories and after awhile all the race officials just abandoned the finish line altogether even though there were still marathoners coming in until 12noon. When they finished there was no one to give them water or medals anymore. I can't even begin to imagine what they felt. It must be horrid.
One of the weirdest thing to happen at the finish line is, that there was NO water! I came in thristy like crazy and there was no water but Spritzer Pop in the goodie bag. The distribution of the goodie bag was also very messy. They just handed them out without even checking if you are a runner or not so, I am not surprised if people were getting goodie bags that they weren't even entitled for.
However, despite the badly organized run, I am grateful to my support crew of Lie Wei, her sis and her mum who so graciously hosted my stay in Taiping. Thanks so much for all the homecooked meals! They were wonderful!
At this point in time, I am still in discussion with the race director on my placing. Stay tuned for updates on that.
Happier times with ultrafast runner, Debbie Chinn. Even she had some challenges with her marathon results.
Photo credits: Miow Chin
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