The District Race concept is nothing like an ordinary running race as you know it.

The world’s greatest urban exploratory race

Billed as the world’s greatest urban exploratory race, District uses a combination of Augmented Reality and location-based technology to give runners a brand-new running experience like none other.

Think of Augmented Reality games such as Pokemon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Ingress. District Race operates on a similar platform, in order to bring the world to life via your smartphone.

Navigating Singapore via the District App

By combining such technology together with fitness, the result is that participants, who are termed as ‘explorers’, use the District App to navigate their way around Singapore city, collecting as many points as possible while clearing virtual challenges and checkpoints. 

There is no fixed race route and no fixed distance. So this means you are on your own in terms of navigating your way around Singapore.

There are three different types of challenges in all; these are the Scan Challenge, Discovery Challenge and the Time-Trial Challenge and each one brings out their own merits, pros and cons. 

According to the organisers, explorers are encouraged to play to their strengths and pick the routes leading to the types of challenges that they will excel at.

District Race returning to Singapore 

The District Race Singapore edition, now returning for its second iteration this year, took place this morning at The Meadow @ Gardens By The Bay, with explorers being flagged off in several waves according to our preferences.

There were two categories, a Discovery challenge lasting one hour and tailored for beginners as well as an Open challenge lasting two hours. Runners could enter the race as individuals or in teams of four.

Took part in the Open Challenge 

I participated in the Open challenge, so this meant I had two hours to find as many checkpoints and challenges as possible.

I was part of the first wave, which began at 7am. So I reached Gardens By The Bay at about 6:40am. I was just in time for the mass warm-up session. 

At 6:50am, the first wave runners were instructed to head over to the Launch Pad, where we had to simply scan the District code on our app to begin our mission.

I dutifully did so, and upon doing so, headed to the start pen to wait out the remaining few minutes for my flag-off time.

My District Mission Begins

At 7am sharp, the countdown clock started on my District App.

My two hours of gameplay had now begun.

Clearing the checkpoints and quizzes

Tagging along with the crowd, I initially cleared a few of the checkpoints at Gardens By The Bay and answered a couple of the quick quiz questions that I had unlocked.

Already, I loved how everyone was working together to locate the checkpoints and helping each other with the quiz answers. It had been camaraderie at its best and was very heartwarming.

The quizzes were also informative and quite educational, for example, in one of the questions, I found out that fungi, a type of decomposer, is more closely related to animals – rather than plants or bacteria. This was something that I had never known about before.

My maiden Time-Trial

 Upon leaving Gardens By The Bay, I headed towards Marina Barrage, where I encountered my first Time-Trial challenge.

This was a 200m dash straight across the Marina Barrage bridge, running as fast as we could possibly muster. 

It was exhausting and I was left panting and catching my breath, but unfortunately I was still not fast enough, and only managed to collect 400 points out of the 500 that were up for grabs.

Joining two other explorers 

From Marina Barrage, I made my way through the Tanjong Rhu park connector and towards the Singapore Sports Hub. Along the way, I met two other explorers who were working together, and I decided to join up and run together with them.

Hidden Checkpoints

At Tanjong Rhu promenade, just before the suspension bridge, I unlocked my first hidden checkpoint.

And as the name suggests, these checkpoints cannot be seen at first by just scanning and analysing the District grid. Instead, you have to unlock them by clearing other checkpoints on the grid; only then they will appear on the grid.

But this particular hidden checkpoint was, unfortunately, located on the other side of the Kallang River and  there were just 13 minutes to get there. I had not been expecting this feature, so it was an intriguing surprise.

Alas, after locating and correctly answering the two quizzes at the Singapore Sports Hub, I didn’t manage to reach this hidden checkpoint in time, before it had vanished. 

While the extra points may have been good, I was just participating in District to have fun, not to win anything, so I didn’t feel as though I had lost out on these points.

Kallang River and Crawford Street

But for the first time, I managed to get the full 500 points from the Time-Trial challenge that was located at the Kallang River, so I was rather happy with that. 

I had participated in four time-trial challenges in all, and had collected 400 points from each of the other three. Each of these time-trial challenge had been either a 100m or a 200m dash. 

Well, after all, I guess I am a marathon runner, not a sprinter so seems like my fast-twitch muscles aren’t working as well as they could be.

From the Kallang River, we headed to Crawford Street in the Bugis area, where we cleared the four scanning challenges there. Unfortunately these took somewhat longer than expected.

Scan Challenges

For the Scan Challenges, we are tasked with locating the exact picture, photo or sign that needs to be scanned and take a shot of this in order to clear the task. 

For example, photographing an “Otters Crossing” sign had been one such Scan challenge.

Prior to encountering this set of Scan Challenges, I had never known that there was so much graffiti strewn along the old-school shophouses at Crawford Street, so this was definitely new to me. 

Nonetheless, I have to say that the graffiti had been really lovely and artistic, though.

Mad rush to get back

I was soon running out of time, so I had to rush back to The Meadow @ Gardens By The Bay after clearing these points. I tried my best to make it within two hours and ran ahead of the two guys whom I had been tagging alongside – but alas, I was still five minutes late in returning.

Apparently I had misjudged the distance and the amount of time that was required to make it back to base. 

Finishing my District mission

Fortunately there had been no latecomers penalty, to my relief. But if I had managed to get back five minutes earlier, then I could have gained an additional 500 points as a reward. It was a missed opportunity.

Nonetheless, at least I had lots of fun and discovered some new aspects of Singapore. And I suppose that a total score of 9,000 points and 15km for my morning’s effort, is good enough for me.

My only gripe was that due to the 7am start, it got rather hot, about an hour into my District mission and this made me feel as though I was, quite literally, melting.

At least 100PLUS points had been provided along the way, for explorers to hydrate themselves. I didn’t utilise any of these, though, because I had brought my own hydration along – in my trusty Simple Hydration bottle.

Functionality and responsiveness of the District app

Throughout the two hours, I had found the District App to be intuitive and responsive with the GPS functionality working well on my iPhone XS Max. 

For me, there had been no lag time, too, which was crucial especially in terms of the speedy clearing of checkpoints.

After all, the last thing I wanted, would have been to waste my time trying to get my GPS to pick up the checkpoint, a task that is so simple to clear. So I was thankful for this.

District concept makes running more fun

The engagement provided from the challenges and checkpoints also made the running so much more fun for me, as there was constantly things going on to capture my attention throughout the whole race. 

So I did not need to use any music at all, for this run. I sometimes listen to music for long runs in order to keep myself going.

Throughout the two hours, my competitive streak had kicked in and I had quickly found myself constantly trying to find ways pick up more points, right up till the very end. 

And because I usually run with my phone in hand, too, so it was not an issue for me to cart my phone along on my District adventure.

But unfortunately, for one of the guys whom I was running with, his District App randomly crashed in the last 10 minutes of his race, and despite him force-closing the app, as well as powering his phone off and re-starting it, he was still not able to return back to the game.

Finisher Entitlements

Upon finishing, I collected my medal and a coupon to redeem a food or drink item at the race village. There was also 100PLUS and water freely available to the finishers.

I had really needed this, as I was feeling rather thirsty upon my completion of my District experience.

The District medal is unlike any other medal that I have seen.

That is because it comprises of Augmented Reality features where, upon scanning with the District App, a 3D image pops up containing my result.

It is interactive and impressive and I really loved it.

Replenishing my energy

I had been feeling a bit peckish, so I redeemed my food coupon at the race village, getting a Bratwurst hot dog and a Taiwanese-style pulled beef Bao served with potato chips for my breakfast.

Both had been really delicious and I ate with relish, but that’s probably because I was feeling hungry after burning off some calories during my run.

Game Time

There was quite a lot to do at the race village. Besides the food trucks, there were also two games, a slingshot game that reminded me of Angry Birds, and a bowling game. 

I tried out the bowling game, where I was given two attempts to knock down all of the bowling pins. I succeeded and for my efforts, I was given a coupon to redeem a packet of Milo, which tasted heavenly.

There could have been one thing that would surely have beaten the provision of the free packets of Milo though – the presence of a green Milo Van for the explorers. So hopefully the organisers can look into this, for future events.

Before leaving The Meadow, I also managed to pick up a free t-shirt, by answering a few questions about my District Race experience by one of the event emcees. These were, fortunately, not too difficult.

As I was heading off, I saw some District explorers apparently making their way towards The Meadow. It was already about 10:30am in the morning by that point. 

Personally, I couldn’t have imagined beginning my District mission in such searing heat so I was rather glad that I had chosen the earliest possible time slot for myself.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the District gameplay, I guess it may not have been possible to have had waves beginning earlier than 7am, as it would be still dark, and therefore dangerous, in terms of navigating and playing the District game.

A Great Race Concept 

As a whole, I would say that I’d had a great time at District Race. It’s definitely a fun and engaging race concept that is really different to your traditional running race. 

So for those who may find the standard act of running boring, I would say that that the District concept may appeal to them.

I had rather liked the way in which the organisers combine technology with running, in order to create something unique and innovative. 

So I’d say that I would love to be back to support District, providing that this engaging running concept returns again to Singapore once again, in 2020.