Reviewed by Crudestar
Photos by Tekko
This is the 16th year that the race is being held and organised by PESS (Physical Education and Sports Science) club, which is formed by NIE trainee teachers. The race was previously held in the campus where the swim leg is done in the swim pool so this year was a bold step by conducting it in open water.
Publicity and Website
Like every other smaller events, NIE biathlon was mainly publicised through the smaller channels like sgrunners, PESS club website and funkygrads.com. The publicity was done only 1 month before the event, which explains the small number of participants and lack of awareness. The website did not provide much information, except with a poster with the main details. The race details were in hard copy and given upon registration at Running Lab.
Registration/Pre-race
Registration was done through Running Labs (Only by cash though). This is a good alternative but if they are to increase the number of participants in future, will it be better to switch to online registration? Confirmation of the race registration was sent through email a few days before the race. Email addresses should have been kept in Bcc , something which I’m quite particular about.
Collection of Race pack
It was done together with the registration during race day and a deposit of $20 was requested for the championchip. This isn’t a common practise but they probably want to save guard themselves. It didn’t create so much of hassle for me, at least.
The race bib was in a form of laminated paper with no safety pins attached so the participants are expected to either use their own bib belt or find it from somewhere else.
Route and Race
Swim leg: There was a passing shower 45 minutes prior to my time slot and thank goodness it only lasted for 15 minutes! The race was slightly delayed for a while. The water felt warmer after the rain and wasn’t as choppy. We had to make 2 loops of 750m and it was a comfortable swim in general.
Transitional point was fine and there came the running route, which I’m certain is measured as less than 10km because I took 10 minutes earlier to finish. Throughout the entire race route (Swim and run), there is a lack of directional signs, cones and are probably not prominent enough. Half of the time I had to figure out the way.
Goodie Bag
I paid $35 for the full distance race, an amount common for biathlon events. They mentioned about sponsors which as Zoot, Yeo’s, H2o and I saw claddings such as Deep Heating Rub and a few other common sponsors. But hey, I was quite stunned because there was only a race shirt, a Singapore Finance lanyard, Maxim Magazine, World of sports voucher and a sgrunners slip in the goodie bag. O well, like I always remind myself, “Manage my expectations well!”.
Overall Organisation of race
In general, I enjoyed the race, given the cool weather and informal race format. Was I too critical on the above points? Haha, as a student run event, they have done well in managing the event and the essentials for the participants were being met (championchip, medic, water supply, volunteers, etc). And it may be due to the lack of funds that resulted to the high race fee as well as the lack of logistics. I must say, well done PESS.
Conclusion
On the whole, the race was informal and fun. I will give the race 6/10 as there are many areas of improvements. If you just want to try biathlons and unconfident of the big races like Singapore Biathlons, NIE biathlon is a good stepping stone. If you are so used to taking part in major events, I suggest you stick to them.
