So I signed up for this run with my friends. It sounded exciting, and the medal looked so pretty. HAWK was supposed to stand for Health, Awareness, Wealth, and Kindness. Sounds good, right?
It didn’t get off on a great start though. My friends and I had signed up for the 22 November 2015 (yes this blogpost is way overdue) 7am wave, as we preferred the morning run instead of the evening run (there was also a 5pm wave). But then we suddenly received an email saying that they needed to change the date to 27 December 2015 due to unforeseen circumstances of disapproval of preferred location.
There was an immediate uproar, because not everyone was able to make the new date.
And disapproval of preferred location? They were already collecting money for registrations without getting all the proper approvals and permits?
The new date was announced in the guise of a survey. We immediately replied saying that we could not make the new date.
So finally, they announced that the morning wave for the original date would stay, but the evening wave would have to be postponed to a later confirmed date/time. But then there was also announcement that the 22 November 2015 was non-competitive, while the 27 December 2015 was a competitive run.
Not that I was aiming for top prizes (no way I could get a top prize), but this was suddenly announced after all the mess. If there were any runners planning for the top prizes, they would not qualify if they had stuck to the 22 Nov date.
Geez, thanks for alienating the 22 November runners.
COULDN’T FIND THE LOCATION
The venue was not announced during the registration – it only said “somewhere in Putrajaya”. The venue was properly announced only in the few days before the event, possibly after they finally got approval.
The venue was Taman Wawasan Putrajaya, and those of us unfamiliar with Putrajaya followed Waze, only to end up at the wrong side of Taman Wawasan. In fact, many of us couldn’t find the entrance initially, wandering around the drop-off Waze suggested for a while before finally finding the actual entrance which we had to get to through an unmarked lane, and even so it was a good 2km walk before we got to the flag-off point.
THE RUN
I missed my friends at the flag-off. I found them initially, but I had gone to put my bag at the baggage drop, just before the horn sounded. I couldn’t find them, so I went in alone. And yes, it was tough.
So, the 12km run was actually 3 loops of 4km around the park. And it was a difficult run, because the park was quite hilly. Some of the slopes were quite steep.
Entry into the event was via a wristband, and no timing chip. Every time we completed a loop at the checkpoint, a loop was ticked off our wristband. That made it easy for many people to cheat, as not everyone wanted to do 3 complete loops.
I didn’t cheat, I did the whole shebang. But quite frankly, it hadn’t mattered, because it was non-competitive and medals would be awarded to everyone anyway.
So would I join this event again? Well, it wasn’t that badly organised. It’s just that it had a pretty poor start. But it doesn’t matter what I think because they didn’t organize this event again the following year.
The good thing was that the medal was quite pretty.
