I was helping out as the emcee today at the Charity Triathlon 2002, doing things like making announcements, semi-sport-broadcasting (e.g. "no 113 has just left his cycle behind and carrying on on foot!") and part time paging services. The weather was quite fine, sun was shiny and windy throughout. There was a slight drizzle in the late afternoon but it was only for a short while. On the whole, it has been quite amazing to see all these atheletes competing in such a race. I mean 2km swim in heavy waves (strong winds), 92km cycle and 21km run?? Like what some of my collegues said: "bu2 shi4 ren3". And that is only "half" of what the Ironman race would complete.

I have never paid any attention to such sporting events so this was quite an eye opener for me. They started at 12noon and the winner came in around 4.40pm. That is 4 hours and 40 mins of non-stop exercise! They are certainly not kidding when they say "maximum endurance". The focus and determination was shown on each face of the 173 participants. Even though there were those who had to drop out of the triathlon midway perhaps due to fatigue and injuries, were nonetheless worthy of respect because of the hard work and training that must have been gone in in prepartion for such a race. I for one would never be bring myself to do it.

The charity triathlon was jointly organized by Rainbow Center and the Triathlon Association of Singapore to help raise funds for our school buiding fund and the Preschool integration enhancement program in our school. On top of competing in the race, the atheletes had pledge cards as well to help solicit for donations. So far, it has been very encouraging. Hope that we will be able to achieve our target of $100,000.

Tomorrow will be the award ceremony and i have to be there as an emcee again. The triathlon people said that the award ceremony will always be a day later as all the participants would not be able to enjoy any food or listen to anyone after the race. Very true. In fact when the first winner come in and someone tried to give him the medal, all he could say was "leave me alone". The degree of fatigue is quite unimaginable. Perhaps tomorrow, they would have recovered sufficiently to receive their prizes.