← Vitality London 10,000
I enjoyed the race part of the day, it was pre and post race that this vastly oversubscribed event displayed the problems that have tainted my experience.
- Bag drop was chaos as no one was managing the queues.
- There was no management of the starting pens and I started 15 minutes late because of all the stop start holding people up just to play some music and do a countdown.
- Crossing volunteers on course were great, especially the BA Athletics Club!
- Upon finishing I was told there were no more medals, finisher shirts or goodie bags. My details were taken and you get usherd back to bag drop, barely even given water.
- Any email follow up was generic and had the bare minimum of information, no real attempt at an apology or even the use of a mail merge to address the email to your name and not Dear Runner or Participant.
- Medal arrives 2 weeks after the event, I had to ask someone to borrow theirs for a picture on the day so I had a memory of the day with a medal.
- The finisher shirt arrived a month later. If you got one on the day it was a genuine New Balance product, if not you received a non-branded shirt that was printed out to look like a NB shirt.
- When I questioned the shirt with London Marathon Events I was told the shirt was genuine, when I pointed out that I sold New Balance items in the store I worked and that this was not like any other items of theirs communication ended.
- No mention of a goodie bag.
- No offer to return next year to give them an opportunity to rectify the issues faced on that day, but I guess that’s because it didn’t get negative attention in the media like what happened to the 7:30 pace group at the London Marathon a month before.
In the attached pictures the shirts given out on the day are on the right and the replacement ones on the left.
