Amazing Race!

How shiok is family medicine posting? Now I am slacking at home in front of my comp.. and the GP clinic and the polyclinic is a mere 10, 15 minutes bus ride from my house..

Anyway, it was a much needed rest at home after a gruelling 5 hour plus adventure race in the southern part of Singapore on Sunday. Do you realise that your muscles are the most sore the second day after any sporting activity? Now, almost every other muscle group is suffering from the effects of Sunday's exertion..

But it was extremely fun and enjoyable though tiring. Team comprised of me, Danny (church friend) and William (Danny's friend). It was a team event, meaning three of us would start together and do the race together. Thus each team was only as fast as the slowest guy. We started off from Padang. Waited 30 agonising minutes for the "VVVIP" (which I don't even recognise) to saunter in and finally flag us off at 8.30 am. Ran towards Temasek Tower where our bicycles were deposited earlier. But before we could get on our bikes, our first challenge: inflate this longish balloon and following the instructions given on a piece of paper, make it into a sword. The instructions were simple enough. Problem was: we couldn't even inflate the balloon. We were told to bring a bicycle pump during the race briefing, but no one would have thought that it was for inflating balloons. The nozzle couldn't fit into the opening of the balloon and there was no way we could blow it up. We decided to forfeit the challenge. And take the 15 minute time penalty which will be added on to our final time.

Next, we cycled to Mount Faber, deposited our bikes and ran up to the peak where we were given another challenge. Find the bearing of the place we were given (we got Manila). That was simple enough. Next up. We were supposed to shade "ADVENTURE SINGAPORE 2006" all in capitals, using the tourist information boards or plagues (whatever u call them) on the walls. That was a little tougher than u would imagine. Cos there were only limited capital letters we could find on the walls. And there were so many teams trying to shade the letters. We also ended up improvising and using "A" to shade "V", and inverting "9" to shade "6".

Next stop, Telok Blangah Hill by foot. Challenge: There were 7 different hand signals depicted on a few pieces of paper. They represented 7 alphabets which we were supposed to decipher from the key given to us. A, H, E, T, W, R, E. We were then supposed to unscramble the letters to form a word. Again, it may seem easy while u are sitting down and all the blood is going to your brain. At that moment, with all the adrenaline pumping and the blood shunted from our brains, we could not really think properly. After 10 over minutes, I finally thought of the answer. (By now u should have got it, right?) Should have practised on more Scrabble at home.. it would probably have saved us 10 minutes. Don't think my 10km runs could have saved that much time haha..

Then it was back to our bikes and our next stop was Sentosa. It was Tyrolean Traverse next. Basically, this is like flying fox, just that you are being hung horizontally face up, and you are supposed to pull yourself across from one point to another. That was quite fun!

Team biathlon was next. One bike shared among three of us. We were allowed to take turns to bike and run. This was more tiring than expected and all the cramps started to set in. Furthermore, I volunteered to run the whole route cos of my less-than-fantastic bicycling skills.

We then had our first attempts at Sodoku. Again, if we had known, we would have spend some time practising this rather than clocking mileage on the roads. I don't think the puzzle was very tough and with some collaboration with other teams, we managed to solve the puzzle in about five minutes. I must say Sodoku is quite an interesting game haha..

We were back to the mainland after that and we made our way to Marina South. And got caught in a massive bottleneck under Benjamin Sheares Bridge. The station was ascending ropes. Basically, you are supposed to climb up 2 ropes (about 9 metres or so) using some special equipment provided. Only two members were required to do this. I decided to give it a miss cos Danny and William had done it before (though I did try it during the skills test the week before). Ended up waiting 40 over minutes before completing the station.

Abseiling (or rappeling) was next. One member had to do the free abseiling down Benjamin Sheares. The other two would have to do the diagonal abseil. This was rather fun too.. No muscle power needed, just letting gravity do its job. Furthermore, spirits were high cos we were nearing the end.. We even had the luxury of getting 100 plus along the Esplanade while making our way to the next station. A mixed team that passed us were rather bemused. haha..

The penultimate challenge was nothing much.. Just a short 30-metre swim near the Merlion while taking note of 2 photographs on the wall. We were later quizzed on what were on the 2 photographs.

Then the sprint (more like a leisure jog actually) towards the finish line. Then a 5-metre tall kiddy rock wall. 5 hour plus plus plus, without factoring in the 15-minute time penalty. We still have not figured out whether it was 15 minutes per team or 15 minutes per member. But at the end of the day, the goal is really just to finish the race..

It may seem crazy spending a Sunday morning and afternoon torturing ourselves.. Not to mention the amount of money we spent. 60 dollars registration per person, 50 dollars for renting my mountain bike.. and all the racing equipment, attire and food.. But I thought it was worth it. There will not be many more opportunities for me to try this.. Not when I am being caught in a 36-hour shift as a house officer or when I am 50 plus years old..