ENR - Energizer Nightmare Rendition?

I felt compelled to write another piece about the Energizer Night Race 2011, which has instigated an unprecedented infamy against the organizer of a race event. Starting out with the zealous aspiration and ambition to be crowned as one of the biggest and most successful running event in Malaysia, the ENR has ironically earned the reputation as being the farce of running events. The post ENR pandemonium culminated in the forming of two facebook pages/groups known as Boycott Energizer Night Race and Energizer Night Race KL 2011: We Want Justice, which have attracted thousands of supporters within one day after the event. Two days after the event, the event organizing company, Expose Media Sdn Bhd issued a public apology to all and soon ensued by another official apology from Energizer with promises to refund all registration fees in addition to the promises of giving out of finishers' medals and all other goodies. 

So, what went wrong? I seriously have no idea what are the real issues behind the whole fiasco - bad management by event company? Or lack of communications? Misjudgments? Be it as it may, as far as my personal experience is concerned, the event went wrong the moment we swerved our cars into Sepang. 

First of all, a queue of vehicles was forming even before we entered the car park. To our astonishment, we were literally 'extorted' RM10 per vehicle as parking fee. It was this collection of parking fee which caused the congestion. I would think that RM10 is way too exorbitant and the organizer should at least have the courtesy and decency to inform the runners, no? 

Secondly, there were insufficient signboards to guide the runners to the starting point. We were awestruck   when we saw that all runners were supposed to enter the stadium (I assumed it is called so) through one door (3 feet in width). Imagine thousands and thousands of runners squeezing into the door. We then have to pass through a long passage way with little ventilation (if at all). Could you imagine swarming through the crowds amidst body odour, sweaty armpits, and possibly some toxic gas which might be released by some very flatulent runners? Gosh, our lungs were partially suffocated with such intoxicating air and not to mention about the possible outburst by claustrophobic runners? Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but my friend, Jo did fall down in the narrow passage way. Perhaps she fell because she was tiptoeing in her Newton shoes or perhaps she was not watching her steps. But my point is, poor coordination and management of crowd flow give rise to high likelihood of accidents. 

Thirdly, there were no clear signs of where to go such as Baggage Area, toilets, starting line etc. We were like headless chicken running around and asking everyone around....in the getting-darker evening mist. It's like a maze. We have to queue for almost everything and we spent most time in looking for directions on where to head to and queuing up for the toilets. 

Fourthly, we were already treated like a bunch of beggars before we were close to the starting line. After the long passage way and some up and down staircase, we finally reached a dark room (yes, literally dark) and tiny and we were told that this was where we were suppsoed to collect our head lamps. Seriously, until now I am unable to comprehend the logic to collect the headlamps on the race day itself instead of simultaneously with our collection of race kits. Apparently it was stated that the runners for 5km and 11km were not entitled to head lamps but at the end of the day what happened was boxes of headlamps were thrown out and left on the floors for runners to grab. It's a free for all chaos!

Coming to the fifth point, we finally made it to the starting line and just in time to hear the 42km gun fired off. The starting line was ridiculously confined to half of the line and as I mentioned poor coordination leads to accidents. A runner fell down and was stumped by other runners.

Oh, I forgot to mention about the brilliant idea of running in the dark in a black running vest. Whoever designed the vest - what a smart ass (pun and sarcasm intended). 

Geez, I lost count on the points...the seventh? There were two water stations in the outer loop (of 10km) and one water station in the inner loop, which means on average we got to hydrate ourselves every 5-5.5km. The best part was, at the water station for the inner loop, there were only 2 persons standing that to distribute the isotonic drinks/H2O and canned isotonic drinks and 1.5 litre mineral water bottles were stored in a big box for the runners to grab. I don't remember a running event being a buffet. And are you kidding me? Canned drinks? Have you considered the disposal of the same? It was disastrous, the track was like a mine field and I finally stepped on one and sprained my already strained ankle. 1.5 litres water bottle? What are we going to do with the 1 litre water even if we could gulp down 500 ml? Carried it around when we run as if we were not exhausted enough? Smart ass, very very smart ass (or asses).

The 8th - there were lack of marshals giving out rubber bands to mark the number of inner loops one has completed. In fact, I have to stop and queue up and insist on my bands. Did I mention that the rubber bands are black too? Well, Black in a night race is really the new Black in town. There was also lack of marshals to tell runners where to go. Well, 'lacking' is an understatement. The truth is, as a far as I am concerned, there was no one I could ask for directions. I just have to run and follow other runners. The best part was, there was no one at the finish line to utter a sincere 'well done' or at least tell me where to go so I could collect my medal and finisher T. Oh ya, I nearly forgotten to mention about the 'cheaters'. There were just so much to rant on. You see, as there were lack of/no marshal/indifferent marshals hence many, if not most, runners cut through the lawns instead of doing the full inner loop. I don't even know who to blame more - the dishonorable runners or the ‘couldn’t care less’ marshals? If you participate in a run, get through it! Honour and pride are much more important than the timing.

The worse part had yet to unveil - *thadammmmm* there was NO medal. Apparently, instead of giving out the finishers' medals at the finish line, which is usually the norm, they chose to distribute it in some chambers and the signs indicating the categories of runners were in...err....A4 size? Kindly permit me to mention that there are 10,000 participants for the race, families, friends and supporters excluded. Hence, would you really be surprised when it all culminated into an uproar? Come on, tired runners, long queue, late night, rude personnel - seriously the runners are runners, not saints. The best part was - a voice (not a very polite female voice) came through the loudspeakers and implying that we were bandits  "because you all are so noisy we have no choice but to....blah blah blah". Simply uplifting, wasn't it?  I was not really there when the climax of the commotion took place but later on I watched a video captured by another runner depicting how the personnel threw out the goodies bag for the runners to grab. Did they think they are some hot shot celebrities throwing out their sweaty towels for the fans to grab? I loved this. I effing ran 21km (or so I believed) and there was no medal and no water station and nothing, absolutely nothing awaits me save for my dearest friends.

Look, I am already exhausted up to this point. The worst climax of the night- we went back to our respective vehicles and James’ car was broken into and Yam’s bag as well as Derek’s camera were stolen. When we left, there were still runners out there completing their full marathons and imagine what would they felt when they returned to a quiet and empty finish line.

Of course, the big surprise came 3 days later – the timing recorded by the timing chips all gone haywire and everyone seemed to have their PBs due to the malfunction of ‘humans’? 

In a nutshell, ENR 2011 was a disastrous joke. The song ‘I started a joke…which started the whole world crying…” suddenly played in my mind. Whoever that caused this blunder, must be a Bee Gees fan….

*A postscript: Anyway, I am contented that Energizer had finally stepped out and apologised and is doing ( I presume) what they could to pacify the dissatisfaction. I sincerely hope that all future running event organisers would pay heeds to the human errors which occured at ENR 2011 and ensure that such blunders would not recur again. The best you could learn from history is - Experience.