Monday, June 08, 2009 ; anthem of love
this post is dedicated to team 3 (: we went through so much together. all the obstacles and swimming in muddy waters and kayaking and cycling and rock climbing and abseiling and of course the running. on paper, we were the team that finished the last in the schools category, but the final result is, we got 5th overall, thanks to xuan yu. after 1h 9min 56 sec of solving this puzzle that we could not solve, he suggested the possibility that the puzzle pieces may be wrong. and then it turned out to be wrong, and we got a new one, and solved it in 7 min. so that 1+hours of time, became waiting time! so we got extra rest too. haha. but i think that 1h really tested our team, and i'm glad to say that we worked as a team really well. even though all of us were frustrated, we did not give up. we wanted to after 1/2 an hour, but we didnt. after 1h, we still didnt. and seriously thank god we didnt give up. and at the kayaking place, tao yee was really good. tao yee and i were in the same kayak, and i didnt know where to go, and couldnt think properly. but even though he sat behind, he could still give me instructions. and our boat moved real fast, so while waiting for deb and xuanyu's boat to come, i could remove stones from my shoes caused by the previous station. thank god the cycling place wasnt like that of the past years. muddy and all. it was just sandy, and a bit of sandy hills, so gotta drag the bikes up and down. my team mates know that this is my weak station, cos my cycling skills are really bad, but they helped me a lot a lot. they always encouraged me, and cheered me on, and were careful not to cycle near me cos i'm afraid of ppl doing that (: tao yee gave many tips, and even offered to carry my bike up the slope. and i saw my sister's sch's cca ppl there doing st john's duty. and at the rock climbing place, our team came, and saw team 1. then team 2&4 came. it was like a cjc odac reunion. haha. we caught up with most of the tertiary category people. deb and i managed to go toilet. hahaha. tao yee did the rock climbing, and he got the harder lane, and he fell off twice, and we got a 15 min penalty.but a lot a lot of other teams had that penalty too. after that was the puzzle solving station. we were the first school category to come, and the last to leave. and then the abseiling. we abseiled from a carpark. i wouldnt have known it was there, cos i didnt see any signs, if not for tao yee who told us to go up the stairs. the j1 team missed that station completely cos the signs were up the stairs and partially blocked by bushes, and they got disqualified. so wasted cos they definitely could have been in top 5. so could jinshi's group, only they had 20min penalty after they spent 10 min trying to solve the puzzle. anyways, the abseiling was really fun. actually it was difficult to use the proper abseiling technique, as in to put your feet against the wall and lean 90 degrees, because since it was a carpark, it had no windows, and basically the concrete part was very little. so i just stood vertically and just slid down. and after that, it was just a short run back.i think our running pace was really good. not too fast or too slow. deb set a really good pace.
lastly, congrats to team 2 for getting first position! you all really deserve it. michelle was really sick before the race, and didnt come for morning runs the entire week, yet she pushed on. and you all were very lucky to guess the symbol correctly at the cycling area, if not you all would have gotten a 15 min penalty.
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