THANK YOU!
Having operated for 27 hours from setup to cleanup, the T13 - Discovery Bay check point of Translantau serviced 1200 runners of 50K/140K category in the past Sat & Sun.
This is a truly team effort thanks to 15 runners from IEST led by Pili/ Ken/ Qing/ Eugene/ Wenjun forming 4 shifts to continuously cover the operation time frame, 15 students/ teachers/ facilities team from Discovery Bay International School led by Helen to help with food & traffic, together with 10 DB residents who chimed in spontaneously to take up CP tasks during Saturday peak hours.
Apart from operating DBIS check point, photographers from IEST have also released 1200 live photos for free covering most of the runners passing DB from 4pm-8pm on Sat. Our runners also participated in marking / forerunning task forces in different capacities.
Among all the volunteers, I'd like to specifically call out the DB residents who were not part of the initial plan but went beyond to make the event a success. Marcello/ Jules/ Jacqueline/ Susan/ Corina/ Suen/ Bei/ Jenny/ Siegfried/ Catherine offered immediate help in the food station when we observed a potential shortage of hands during peak hours Sat 6pm-9pm. Marcello stayed overnight till 5am, when he had to leave for the marshal team's shift. Observing unexpected number injuries down from wet & dark Tiger's Head, Siegfried went to Wastons to help refill medical materials, right before the CUT OFF TIME of the shop at 8pm! Outside of DBIS CP, Csaba turned himself into the traffic director and mobilised his son to help all the way till 10pm, pointing runners to the right directions. Seeing the plastics mixed with trashes in our recycle bag (tired runners were not to blame), Leah worked with Corina and Qing to separate the stack, leaving a clean bag of coca cola bottles for recycling. I'd also like to thank Wukong for helping setup the venue, and Forhad for reminding about not only rules but also a human touch during cut-off process.
Our very own IEST team is also exceptional! Shift leaders Ken/ Qing/ Eugene/ Wenjun committed to more than 8 hours each to make sure full coverage of the operation time frame. Most of shift 1 volunteers stayed 2 hours longer than plan to help ease the transition into shift 2 during peak hours. Leona and Alvin devised the optimal layout of food & drinks during unpack time and enthusiastically serviced elite runners to set high standard for food station. Celia was the first operator for BIB scanner and worked out best practices with Monica to scan and redirect traffics. Suyuan was originally assigned to shift 2, but stayed till long into shift 3 and also came to shift 4 the next morning to help wrap-up & cleanup. Eva smoothly operated the timing point and medical supply during peak hours by one person only, due to our overload in food station. We survived the shortage of medical materials and handed over one case to 999, all thanks to Eva holding a firm position. Going into the night, Johnny, who had just finished a shift in Mui Wo, hiked to DBIS and joined our shift 3 immediately. Wenjun, who just finished TL 50K, rested in a sleeping bag in DBIS to wait for his 5am shift. In the next morning, we had Tammy, Xinyi, Lemon, Henry, Tony, who were all TL50K finishers on Sat, to join our last shift.
There were so many moving parts in the last week and a lot of details were lacking. When there were new contingencies, we don't have an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). Because of the team's reslience, I dare say "I don't know" directly and trusted others on filling in the blanks. I am greatful that we conquered the obstacles as a team. The transparency in communication, the can-do-it spirit, and love of trails inside out were the corner stones of our team.
It was great demonstration of the spirit: rely on your buddy, not a checklist.
Our passion for Lantau will continue, so this is definitely not to say goodbye but to see you again in the future!
Pili On behalf of everyone who involved in T13 - DBIS CP
Selected Photos
