The Sundown Marathon race entry pack collection is currently taking place at the Suntec City North Wing and the expo will last until 9pm today.

I picked up my race pack on Friday for the race and I had a look around the expo at the same time.

Compared to previous years, I had thought this year’s race pack collection was a little unusual, because there are so many different steps that runners had to do, in order to pick up their race packs.

Rather than everything being at one place, runners are first required to head to Tower 1 outside PasarBella to pick up their race bibs.

When I went on Friday evening, there was, thankfully, no queue and I was able to whiz in and out of this station easily and within less than five minutes.

This had been a stark contrast to last year’s collection fiasco, whereby runners had to queue under the hot sun at the F1 Pit Building for several hours to pick up their race packs.

However I had found the layout of the expo to be slightly scattered though. I located the first station easily enough, but after that, we were required to head inside Suntec City Mall’s North Wing to pick up our Race Singlet and Goodie bags.

There had been a short queue at this station when I visited it yesterday afternoon, but I was able to pick up my Race Singlet and Google bag quite quickly too, in around five to ten minutes.

The lack of queue was probably due to an increase in overall counters though – last year there were 20 service counters but this year the numbers had increased to 30. 

As well, the operating hours per day for the expo had been extended by two hours compared to the 2016 edition of the Sundown Marathon.

Once I had picked up my Race Singlet and Goodie Bag, I took a look around the expo. There are running related booths from the event’s many sponsors, including CompressSport, Jaybird, SalonPas, TripleFit, Pocari Sweat, OSIM, Chiropractic Singapore and Sony, just to name a few.

Most of the booth had been selling merchandise tailored at runners and these had ranged from compression wear to running socks, hydration and sports earphones.

Some of the booths though, were offering discounted merchandise that were only available at the race expo.

At the Pocari Sweat booth, for instance, runners could purchase four Pocari Sweat 500ml bottles and an LED-lit running waist pouch for a total of $10. Having a waist pouch with lights is quite useful for illumination, especially if you run in the wee hours of the mornings or late at nights, when it is dark. 

Pocari Sweat too, was also offering runners the chance to write messages to wish all Sundown Marathon runners good luck and by penning your words of motivation, you would go into a draw too, where you stand to win $80 worth of running related merchandise.

Jaybird were also selling their latest headphones such as the Jaybird RUN, which I have been using for the past few months and due to the complete lack of wires, I really enjoy using them. My only gripe about the RUN in fact, is the four hour battery life, which is a bit insufficient to complete a full marathon for me.

Those runners who had required energy gels to get them through their race could pick up these supplies from the Shotz booth at the West Atrium.

And for runners who wish to personalise their race singlets, Print At Ease is selling this service for $25 per customisation at the race expo. Runners can choose from several pre-selected designs to decide what to print on their tees. 

However during peak times, I must point out that you may have to be prepared to wait for your customisation to be complete though. I did not do this customisation service, but I overheard the conversation between a runner and the guy behind the counter and the runner had been told that she would have to wait for half an hour for her singlet to be printed.

However I must say that I found the layout of the sponsor booths, unfortunately, to be rather scattered and not being concentrated in a single space. 

In this way, it had felt as though runners who had wanted to browse through all of the booths to buy things, would literally have to walk from one end of Suntec City to the other. Though I understand that runners are supposed to be quite fit people, this may not actually be convenient for everyone to do so. 

So as such, some runners may simply collect their bib and race packs and completely skip out the sponsor booths altogether.

For me, as a result of the layout arrangements too, I had completely missed out on the booths at the East Atrium and did not really realise this, till I had already reached home. 

Instead, I would have preferred the entire expo to be all concentrated in a single area, for example, at the Suntec Convention Centre.

And when I took a look at my race pack, I felt that the contents of the Sundown Marathon goodie bag this year, are basic but adequate. You get a drawstring backpack, race bib, event singlet, Sundown Marathon magazine, a SalonPas patch and several flyers from the various event sponsors such as OSIM and CompressSport.