14-15 Dec 2013

It was the first time to participate in this walk. It was my farthest distance, which also became my longest time spent on walking for a non-touring/trekking (in other countries) activity my entire life. It was my first time to join an activity with my workplace’s people and it was a different kind of feeling. I would usually just go to an event by myself or with closest buddies, never with colleagues, until this event. Due to this activity’s many “firsts” this would remain memorable and would surely stick to my head for a long time!=)

We all had to meet at Hong Lim Park. The race started at 730pm and continued on until the next day. We passed by many Singapore landmarks and countless parks and park connectors. I couldn’t bring myself to enumerate all because I was like a zombie walking along with the rest, without thinking. I just knew we passed by checkpoints at Big Splash @East Coast Park > Bedok Reservoir and Toa Payoh Town Park.

Aside from these checkpoints, we would stop from time to time to rest, change bandages, go toilet and ehemm, eat! I think we may have gotten more calorie intake than burned. Haha Anyway, we just spent a lot of time eating and resting, and that actually made this walk different from most events I had participated in. We didn’t have to beat time. We were there for the charity and just to finish the event without the pressure of timing.

Rach went back home after a little more than10km, Bran, due to injured ankle, had to go after ECP. The other injured guy continued on with us. We started as a team, therefore, we had to finish as a team. We patiently waited for each other.

Walking long distance at night brought to us a different sense of pain and hardships. We painstakingly endured all the blisters on our forefeet.  We had to rely on each other’s company to keep ourselves up despite walking like a zombie in the dark. For me, the hardest task was keeping myself awake! I guess, if I didn’t have to worry about getting hit by cars, I could sleep walk, but because we were walking in busy streets, I couldn’t bring myself to fully merge into my dream land! I had to beg Yan to help me keep up. I tried different types of walking like normal walking, sprints, tiptoed walking, retro-walking , just to make use of different muscles of my already tortured legs and feet.  I never imagined walking to be as hard and torturous as that.

The good news was, we were able to complete the walk. We may be the last team (at 18hrs?) to complete but who cares about that….we all have to shout to the world and brag…”We completed a 50km walk as a team!” =)