One run leads to another. Our club's participation in the Hong Kong Marathon has doubled from just 3 or 4 of us in 2005 to officially 7 this year - 3 of which being first-timers. This time we prepared well ahead with a full training program. Although not all of our team members joined in each practice run, many of us had practiced discreetly, if not secretly on their own, to get into the best shape for the run. On 12 February, a mildly cold Sunday morning, over 34,000 participants - a record-breaking number - showed up for the 10th Anniversary Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon 2006. Our team braved the unusually high air pollution (with an index of air pollution over 120) and all of us finished the 10K distance with no hassle. We then marched to the nearby Ho Choi Seafood Restaurant where PP Anthony Chan and PE Francis Chan arrived 7:15 am in the morning to secure our reserved tables for our dimsum breakfast celebration. Ronald Kwok and Fergus Fung, our youngest runners who finished their 10K run still in the dark, even had time to go home to wash up before the breakfast. Of course, they arrived beaming and in high spirits. Ronald described his first-time experience running among the crowd as exhilarating and surging with emotion (澎湃). That surely said it all!

Our inspiration to run had come originally from two veteran (past) Rotarians from our sister Rotary Club of Taipei Chungshan - Golden Huang and Omar Lee, who have been running for years and convinced us that every one or every Rotarian can run in their visit to Hong Kong in October 2004. Both clubs ran at the Rotary District 3520 Centennial Road Race in January 2005 and the Standard Chartered Marathon in February 2005. We also had the honor of President Lancelot Khan of the Rotary Club of Taipei Yang-Te, son club of Taipei Chungshan and sister club of Rotary Club of the Peak, joining us in the run this year. Thanks Lancelot for taking the group picture before the start; we missed you in the picture though....). What an international fellowship of Rotarians at the Marathon!

Thanks to all Rotarians who did not run but collectively contributed a total of over $6,000 to our red box as sponsorship of our running. We sure would not have completed our distances without your support. So, till 2007....

President Rich Chen of Rotary Taipei Chungshan, Secretary Perry Yu, President David Ting, Treasure Stephen Lai
at 5:55 am before their 10K start at the 10th Anniversary Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon 2006.

Here are our run and finishing photos retrieved from marathon-photos.com (quite a challenge to find some of us as we were blocked by other runners or had our bib no. obscured by our own hands):

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