District Race – the first-of-its-kind urban exploration race that uses Augmented Reality and location-based technology to bring about a brand new running experience – took place this morning at The Meadow, Gardens By The Bay, attracting more than 3,000 urban explorers in Singapore who had gathered together for this innovative and interesting experience.

Click here to view the District Race Singapore 2018 photos at the photo gallery.

Given two hours to explore five districts in Singapore 

With no set route, participants were given two hours to explore five districts – Gardens, Chinatown, Downtown, Uptown and Kallang – looking at Singapore’s many nooks and crannies, and visiting places that they otherwise may not have chanced upon, in their daily lives.

With over 80 virtual checkpoints and challenges, the goal was also to collect as many points as possible within the two hours.

I took part in District Race

I had been one of the participants of the inaugural District Race. I reached the District Base at The Meadow at about 7.15am and I was flagged off in the second wave, which began at 7.45am.

In order to begin our run, we had been required to have the QR code on our District app scanned by the volunteers stationed there, before proceeding into the LaunchPad to get ready for our run.

Prior to the run, we were also required to have logged onto the District App with a special code that was sent to our email upon registration. I had done this a few days before race day.

The LaunchPad

I already had a good initial impression of the District Race when I entered the LaunchPad, which was basically the starting pen. This was very immersive and I really enjoyed it. Runners were placed inside a darkened tent and we watched a short video that showcased District Race and urban exploration in Singapore. The video ended with a countdown timer… 5…4…3…2…1, and then the LaunchPad opened up and it was time for us to run.

Said Cole Casper, 31, a web designer, “The LaunchPad was really exciting with the video and then running out and opening the doors, with the Augmented Reality element to it, and all. It added a high tech and modern feel to the race and had made me feel as though I was in a video game.”

Beginning My Run

From the landing page on my app, it took District App on my iPhone 7+ a few agonising seconds before my map appeared and the timer started counting down from two hours.

But when it finally did, I headed off – following the crowd heading out of the Gardens By The Bay area. I had aimed to run this in my lower heart rate zones (Easy and Steady) so that I could have fun and without pushing my body too hard too.

The route that I took

I scanned a few of the checkpoints at the Gardens by the Bay before leaving the vicinity. I then headed to the Sports Hub along the park connectors, passing the Tanjong Rhu Promenade along the way.

I did realise that this area may not have been the part with the most points, but I had still chosen this route because it is the one that I am the most familiar with.

So I felt that it would reduce my chances of getting lost – and thus incurring a 1,000 points deduction penalty for failing to reach the District Base within the two hours.

I then chose to head back a slightly different way and this was along Nicoll Highway and the Kallang River, passing by the F1 Pit Building and Marina Bay on the way. This was probably the most scenic District Race route.

A surreal experience 

As I was running in the District Race, it was definitely a surreal experience. This was because even though I had been physically running, I was also constantly looking down at my mobile phone at the checkpoints and the challenges in order to rack up the points as fast as I could.

So in this regard, I felt as though I was an avatar in a real life video game. It was quite different to anything that I had run before.

Friendly competitors 

Part of the time, I was running alone, but there were also segments of the race when I was running alongside others who had also been heading the same way.

And I found my District competitors to be approachable and friendly and they generally didn’t mind me tagging along with them or chatting to them along the way. So this was quite heartening, as they also provided some good company too.

But for other runners though, they were more competitive, so they had chosen to run at the areas that had more points for grabs. One of these was Cole, who was taking part in the District Race with three other team members from his Armada Dragon Boat Team.

Said Cole, “We noticed that there was a route going to Tanjong Pagar and we assumed that the points there may be more, so we headed straight there. That turned out to be true. And that helped to kickstart our rise up the leaderboard. Our strategy had been to clock as many points as we could and so that’s how we did it.”

Looking at the timer

As I continued running, I also found that I was looking down at the timer constantly, so that I was always aware of how much time I had left.

On the way, this helped me to make decisions on for example, which direction to head and how much further I could afford to go.

To a small degree, I admit that it was stressful, but because I was not competing to win though, I tried not to allow myself to be too bothered by this.

How the points are clocked

There are a few different ways to pick up the points to climb up the leaderboard at the District Race.

Checkpoints 

One was through the checkpoints where you simply run through them and the points will automatically register on your District app.

These were quite simple to do, but I quickly realised that I had to keep looking down at my phone to see where the checkpoints were, because the locations of many of them had required me to make slight detours to scan.

The checkpoints had ranged from 100 to 400 points depending on the distance from the District Race Base.

Challenges 

The second was the Challenges – where you have to perform a simple task in order to collect the points. These had ranged from 500 to 1,000 points.

And along my route, the challenges that I had faced were quite simple. These had included an Otter Scan, where I had to simply scan the ‘otter crossing’ sign at the Gardens by the Bay area, and a quick quiz question where I had to figure out the year that the time capsule at the Singapore Sports Hub would be opened.

I admit that I had been quite fortunate when it came to the quiz question; I had been looking around the vicinity for the answer when another fellow District explorer saw me searching and he gave the year to me. He then wished me luck for the rest of my District adventure. It was really nice to meet other friendly competitors like him.

Luciana Vichino, 42, a HR manager in the Finance industry, had to ask for the answer to the question. She said, “I did not know the answer to the time capsule question so I had to ask for help. But I eventually managed to get the right answer though.”

Another challenge that was popular with runners had been a time trial one at Fort Canning, where they had to run up the Fort Canning staircase as fast as possible, with a maximum of 1,000 points up for grabs.

Said Jeremy Chia, 25, a Risk Analyst, “The staircase sprint challenge at Fort Canning was exciting but there were people constantly going up and down the staircase; it would be good if the traffic flow was managed better.”

And added Cole, “I really liked the staircase fitness challenge because it timed you as you go up and the faster you ran, the more points you got, so that was good.”

Cole continued, “But other than that, most of the other challenges were easier than expected. For example, walking over and scanning a picture was fun, but as it was not really challenging, that wasn’t so exciting for me.”

App crashes 

Along the way though, my District Race app crashed. So I had to stop and reopen the app. Fortunately my progress had been saved though, so I did not need to worry about losing out on any points when this happened.

But I also noticed that at times, when I had exited the District app, and opened other apps such as WhatsApp and the camera app, the District app got hanged for a few seconds and I had to close and re-open the app before I managed to get it working again. This was a bit of an inconvenience.

However I suppose that these issues can’t really be helped, because with advancements in technology also comes with such drawbacks though.

Added Cole, “The app was really nice but it had a few moments where it crashed and there were connectivity issues. But it came back again very quickly; the organisers did a good job at bringing the app back up whenever it was down.”

Sun was really hot

Also, at the beginning, my start time of 7.45am had felt quite okay and not too hot, but from about 8.15am onwards, it started to get really hot, no thanks to the searing sun which had been coming out quite strongly.

So as a result, I found myself feeling quite dehydrated – thus, it would have been good if the organisers had hydration at some of the checkpoints or the challenge points for the runners.

In fact Jeremy also pointed out that he was feeling so parched at one stage that he had to make a detour to buy a drink. He said “I realised that there was no water points so I could not refuel my water. I had to make an extra stop to the 7-eleven at Marina Bay Sands to buy a Pocari Sweat. The hydration was an issue.”

Finishing my race

It had been rather close to my wave cut-off time of 9.45am when I had arrived back at the District Base. When I was nearing the District Base, I had to make a decision on whether I should head to Marina Bay Sands to clock some more points and another more challenge there, or if I should just head back.

By that time, I had about ten minutes left on my clock. So I had decided to head out towards Marina Bay for another hundred metres or so to clock one more checkpoint before then taking my time to slowly return back to the District Base.

Based on my District App, I reached my last checkpoint and headed back, reaching the finishing line with about seven minutes to spare. I felt relieved that at least I had not been in a rush to get back.

After all, I did not really want to be involved in a race against the clock, as this would have put my poor heart under extra stress… as if coping with the searing heat wasn’t stressful enough for me already!

Given finisher medals and water at the finish line 

At the finish line, we were given our race finisher medals and an ice cold bottle of water. The water was really welcoming because I had been quite thirsty by this point.

But Jeremy felt that isotonic drinks should be given out in addition to the water. He said, “There was water at the finish but having some isotonic would also have been good.”

Food and drinks at the race village 

The fun still continued back at the District Base, with the race village offering plenty of food and beverages for sale. These had included fruit smoothies, cereal bars and chocolate brownies, ice cream, and coffee as well as other hot drinks.

I tried the banana cake and these were really good – that I ended up buying some to bring back home for my family, too.

All of this was great for runners who wanted to refuel and replenish their energy levels after their District adventure had been over.

Said Cole, “The race village was really nice. Everything was close by, but the space still felt very big and clean. There was also a good variety of vendors.”

And over at the VIP tent, the breakfast food selection was also really good, with sausages, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, buns, pastries chocolate brownies and fruit tarts available for VIP guests to dig into. I admit that I was quite impressed with this food selection and the quality of the food available. My favourite was, by far, the big, juicy sausages.

In addition, VIP guests could also get coffee from a mobile coffee truck parked in the vicinity, and I was so thirsty that I got myself an iced chocolate – which had tasted really good.

Other activities had included basketball, bike experiences and yoga classes

Besides the food and drinks, runners could also take part in basketball or slingshot games, recovery yoga classes and immersive bike experiences by Pure Fitness and Pure Yoga after their District Race was over.

I took part in Pure Fitness’s bike experience and it was quite interesting. Basically you sit on a stationary spinning bike and you are given a pair of Augmented Reality glasses, to transport yourself into a virtual reality game world of your choice, for example, riding a Pegasus or sitting in an army tank. Then you must cycle as hard as possible and move your body around in order to fulfil the objectives of the game.

I had really liked concept of the Pegasus game, whereby I had to fly the horse in order to collect moving stars. This would have been a great idea because I fulfilled my childhood dreams of being able to fly on a horse. But unfortunately the game had proved to be significantly harder to control and manoeuvre – than I had expected! It also didn’t really help that I was quite exhausted after pushing my body during the District Race earlier.

Though I did not take part in the yoga class, I watched it taking place, and I feel that the stretching exercise that were being taught, are good and useful for runners to loosen their muscles after a two-hour run.

District Race was a great Saturday morning out 

Nevertheless, as a whole, I would say that the District Race was a great Saturday morning spent out – and the race concept had been a really interesting one, right from the very beginning.

Other runners also had a great time. Said Jeremy, “I had a great experience – and thank god for the weather, which was sunny and didn’t rain. The race was more fun and interactive than I had imagined and I felt less stress because of the race concept. It is a very flexible one, as you can choose to either go off on your own or with a group of friends.”

Agreed Cole, “The race was quite different to a normal running race. It is a very modern and fresh race concept. We did it as a team so that allowed us to push each other and at the same time, spend the morning in each other’s company exploring the city and seeing different parts of Singapore that we have not seen before.”

He added, “For example there are some areas of Marina Bay that I usually do not explore, and for Chinatown, I usually go by in a bus or walk there on the way to work but have not looked at the nooks and crannies of the area. So I think that the District Race is a great idea, and a great way to promote the Singapore culture and the history and heritage of this city. I also love the app – it is a lot of fun; of course a lot of work went into it graphically, but the user experience is fabulous and the app is quite intuitive and easy to use.”

But Cole however, had felt that the District Race experience for him would have been even better, if there had been some volunteers around to cheer on the runners. He said, “It would have nice to have spectators or volunteers to encourage people – and in order to build up some hype about the event that’s taking place.”

Organisers are very pleased with the event debut 

The organisers are also quite pleased with the debut of the District Race Singapore.

Said Sam Hussey, 31, the Co-Founder of District Technologies, “It was wonderful to hear the positive feedback from the runners, that the District Race was an amazing way to see Singapore. I think that the biggest thing was to watch the people who started from LaunchPad, and the experience they got from it was so immersive that when they were sent out to run around Singapore, it inspired them and reminded them of why they are exploring this city in the first place.”

He added, “A lot of people run in Singapore but they do not explore the nooks and crannies of the city from day to day, so it really opened up a lot to the people who live here I am really glad that people could experience this. So I think that for the first District Race, it could not have gone better. It was an amazing event, to see everyone run and explore Singapore and you know, we are going to keep on improving the technology.”

Next year’s event will blow runners away 

As well, Sam also promises that next year’s edition of the District Race Singapore can only get better, and that it will completely blow people away. Said Sam, “We definitely have ideas to make it bigger and better. We have plans up our sleeves to turn this into something phenomenal. This is the sort of experience that can only grow as far as our imagination and creativity will go, so we are going to be thinking as far as we can, to make this into a really great event.”

He added, “I am not going to give anything away at this stage, but the things that we are going to do for next year’s District Race Singapore are going to blow people away. It is going to be many times better than this year’s one.”