Hi, Clement here.
Here's what we had gone through for the AQ.
On Friday evening, we went to the very comfortable hotel room. Though the 10 of us had to squeeze in just one room, the cool ambiance in the room plus the nice view quite satisfy us judging our volume of laughter at some jokes till we need to remind ourselves not to disturb the neighbouring guests. We then continued to slurp our 'cup cup noodles' (杯杯面) while taking turns to enjoy the shower. Sleeping came easy for some of us while the rest had to lie, roll, talk a while before our slumber. Lights off at 8.30 pm.
It was Joshua's phone that woke us all up except for Joshua (...). Lights on at 2.10 am on Saturday morning. After which we quickly ate our breakfast and packed our bags.
BBHQ was still blocked off from entry of teams as registration have not began. At arrival, we saw quite a number of teams there waiting already. Got our AQ kit and started plotting our map while discussing some strategies.
The flag off was near Zouk, along the Singapore river. Checkpoints of leg 1 were Fort Canning park, G-Max, Singapore Flyer and Kallang Basin. To my team, we arrived at Fort Canning behind other teams. Fort Canning was really messy and complicated, having to navigate an additional map of the park to clear 4 mini checkpoints there. The park has many stairs which really drained our team of energy.
I had also diverted other teams in the wrong direction: Our team was in front, with them catching up. There was a split road ahead of which only the one on the right can lead us out of Fort Canning to G-max. I went ahead to the left instead and suddenly, someone from another team who had trailed me shouted,"I know, I know, it's this way", pointing to my direction. He then ran full speed ahead of me with his teammates also running. A handful of other teams also followed but of course we continued on the right path. They soon realised they were wrong and quickly U-turned, by then, we were quite far from them.
Passing by G-max, we trailed back to the Singapore River on our way to Amphitheatre and the Flyer. Samuel was right when he said we wasn't near the Flyer though we thought we was as the Flyer as so big. Other teams that were also making their way there were very inconsistent, we managed a brisk walk while they sprint and slow down repeatedly. They also ran the uphills but walked down the downhills for reasons we don't know.
At Kallang, we need to split up into two's to take on kayaking and soccer.
Kayaking was a long wait as Joshua and Samuel had to wait for other teams to finish their kayak lap. We also had to complete a sudoku with only 10 blanks.
Next was archery, where we saw the familiar teams that overtook us earlier near the Flyer. There was a whole big bunch there as many teams cannot pass the required three hits within 6 shots. We were lucky as we cleared it on our first try and managed to beat many teams.
East Coast Park was next where we picked up our bikes and cycled all the to Bedok with stops in between to cross roads, overhead bridges ( :( ) and underpasses. Joshua led us in this leg and had often slowed down so that the rest of us can keep up.
At Bedok, Samuel had a slight cramp in his right leg while I was complaining about my abrasion.
The finishing point was near and we pushed ourselves forward.
We made it close to the top half and I personally am very proud of our team especially Samuel who did not gave up and lasted all the way. Thanks to Joshua and Ivan as well for the team effort. AQ this year will definitely be remembered for a long time.
Also thanks to the Company for being behind us all this while, and to help us train and prepare for the AQ.
Clement
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