KOTR Racekit Claiming: They never learn

I didn't run in KR Urbanite. Reason being was that Saturday night is usually my date night with the missus after anticipated Mass. Call it a cramming-session for carbo-loading since most of the races I joined were on a Sunday morning.

I didn't run in Globe's Run4Home either since I'm an employee of their competitor. Yeah I know there should be no such thing as company-loyalty but the idea of an ex-colleague from Globe seeing me at the starting gate could be too embarassing once word gets around.

In those two races, race packet claiming day was a mess. It was chaos as most of the runners in the takbo.ph forums and blogs wrote if I recall. First time to introduce chip-timing so rookie errors were expected.

And I thought Adidas learned from these past two mishaps.

Saturday 12noon. After playing 3 badminton games in the morning session of the company sportsfest at Smash Ville, I drove to SM Megamall to save the trip and claim my race packet.

Coming from Home Depot along Julio (or is it Julia?) Vargas, it was a slow drive to Megamall, probably around 20-30mins. Parking was difficult so I ended up at Bldg A and valet-parked it (an P80.00 convenience for a known 'masa' mall such as Megamall). I guess they're starting to level-up with Ayala and Rockwell malls.

As I approached the 5th level where the Adidas Expo was, lo and behold:

Lines. Spiraling around the right side of the expo. It didn't move.

I asked one of the guys with the "Organizer" ID what's causing the long queue and he said that it started with this one guy claiming his 21k race-packet. It just snow-balled from there he said.

Well, I can't tell you more since the takbo.ph comments on the Adidas KOTR registration extension and forums will tell all the frustration and tests of patience that every runner had to overcome. All that just to claim a racekit.

I think so far, the Adidas KOTR race-claiming day yesterday would prove to be worse than Urbanite and Run4Home since KOTR doesn't even have a timing chip to begin with. I would've understood holding a separate day for the racekit-claiming from the registration sked since they would have to do some other work to sync the chips with the race numbers.

But then MILO and QCIM, both sporting the timing-chip in the racekits, didn't have this problem. So I guess it had to be something else that caused the chaos at the KOTR Expo.

I hope (I hope!) future races would learn (please please please learn!) from the disappointing mishaps at the Urbanite, Run4Home, and now KOTR race-kit claiming. It should be improved somehow.

Well, as I said the racekit would've been nice if a timing-chip was included. But I do like the vanity bib that they introduced (apart from the obvious yellow MARVELOUS singlet). Ano kaya magandang isulat dun? Here's what I thought of so far:

1. daytripper1021

2. If you can read this, you're too close

3. There IS a WALL! Ayan na, bumabagal ka na! Hwahahaha!

4. I queued for 90mins at the Adidas Expo and all I got was this crummy vanity bib

5. Naiihi ka na

6. Naeebs ka na

7. Belat! I'm in front of you!

8. Nauuhaw ka na

9. Nagugutom ka na

10. Think happy thoughts

11. You can doh et!

12. Simplify: 1021x + 73x + 1,345,234y + 223,234,123,123y

13. If A is running at 10kph and B at 15kph at opposite directions, at what time will they meet assuming A starts 12:31am and B starts 1am?

14. Assuming he passed you already, what was Bald Runner's shoe brand and color? Bonus question: what was the color of his neckerchief?

15. Parang ang layo pa ng finish line ano? Ba't ba naten ginagawa ito uli?

How about you? What would you write on your vanity bib?

See you on Oct25!