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.