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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Thanks for supporting the TTOC cause

by

Brian Lewis
1471 days ago
20210202
All masked TTOC walkers Anton Lafond, from left, TTOC president Brian Lewis, outgoing THA Secretary of Sport  Jomo Pitt, former Strike Squad captain and current NFA president Clayton Morris and Biana Edwards at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port-of-Spain during  Sunday's 26.2 mile TTOC Marathon Walk.

All masked TTOC walkers Anton Lafond, from left, TTOC president Brian Lewis, outgoing THA Secretary of Sport Jomo Pitt, former Strike Squad captain and current NFA president Clayton Morris and Biana Edwards at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port-of-Spain during Sunday's 26.2 mile TTOC Marathon Walk.

Melanie Gulston/Team TTO Media

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee's (TTOC) 75th year since it was es­tab­lished, got off to a great start on Jan­u­ary 24 with the Marathon Walk from St Mary's Junc­tion, Freeport to White­hall, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

A small­er than usu­al group than in pre­vi­ous years. Not un­sur­pris­ing, a nat­ur­al con­se­quence of the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic. Cred­it to those de­ter­mined in­di­vid­u­als who com­mit­ted to sup­port the TTOC #10golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund fundrais­er.

To­day's col­umn wouldn't re­hash all the de­tails of the walk which was well cov­ered by the lo­cal me­dia both print and elec­tron­ic. Spe­cial ac­knowl­edge­ment goes out to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Wayne Mys­tar of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch and their of­fi­cers who en­sured that the walk which got un­der­way at 2 am was safe and ad­hered to the Min­istry of Health COVID-19 pro­to­cols and reg­u­la­tions.

The marathon walk 2021 rep­re­sent­ed the sev­enth time the walk took place dur­ing the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon (TTIM). This year's edi­tion of the marathon, be­ing the 39th edi­tion.

At one point dur­ing the marathon, my thoughts drift­ed away from the now and my mind wan­dered a bit. Af­ter a while, the mo­not­o­ny of mile af­ter mile on the way to com­plet­ing 26.2 miles morphs in­to a hyp­not­ic chime and ca­dence - left foot, right foot; left foot, right foot.

One thing you can't be along the jour­ney is an ob­sta­cle man - some­one re­gard­less of what­ev­er on­ly thinks about all pos­si­ble ob­sta­cles. On the con­trary, you have to be an ob­sta­cle re­mover. The at­ti­tude is sim­ply to see all ob­sta­cles as re­mov­able. There is no ob­sta­cle that could not be re­moved pro­vid­ed you had enough faith and guts and were will­ing to work.

Don't be afraid of any ob­sta­cle. Stand up to your ob­sta­cles and do some­thing about it. Once you stand up to ob­sta­cles, you will find that they aren't as in­sur­mount­able as they may be. The mind­set is let's turn ob­sta­cles in­to as­sets.

No one starts a marathon with the goal of quit­ting. It takes an ob­sta­cle re­mover at­ti­tude to get to the fin­ish line. But why is get­ting to the fin­ish line of such im­por­tance? What is it that dri­ves each marathon­er? Is it run­ning for a cause or is it the cause alone? What about those who are do­ing it to bet­ter their pre­vi­ous best? At their low­est point of mo­ti­va­tion where do, they go to find the will to keep go­ing?

For what­ev­er rea­son, this year more than in pre­vi­ous years, the fin­ish line wasn't the end of the sto­ry but more the be­gin­ning of a new chap­ter.

Aside from the fact that every­one seemed ready and will­ing to con­quer the next marathon walk, I be­lieve the idea that COVID-19 didn't cause the marathon and marathon walk 2021 to be shut down pro­vid­ed an ex­tra lift and morale boost. None of the marathon­ers was an ob­sta­cle, men and women. The chal­lenge is to car­ry that same feel-good out­side the 2021 TTIM bub­ble.

Since the suc­cess­ful 2021 marathon walk, a num­ber of things have hap­pened to en­sure there is no respite or time to re­lax and savour the tri­umph of an­oth­er marathon in the bag.

Michael Alexan­der's mo­tor­bike ac­ci­dent, the re­al­i­ty of the height­ened un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the predica­ment of ad­dress­ing the en­tire­ty of the dilem­ma of COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion and the Olympics. What's in no doubt, is there is no es­cap­ing. You can ei­ther be an ob­sta­cle man or woman, or an ob­sta­cle re­mover.


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