On 2 April 2022, Alice Tan took up the challenge to brisk walk from Labrador Park MRT station to Changi Village with a group of hikers much younger than her. Her group completed 50KM in 10 hours 33 minutes!
David Phuah, who is the organizer of the challenge, interviewed
Alice on her accomplishment.
Why do you start to do brisk walking?
With the global Covid pandemic and lockdown for the past 2+ years, we were all literally forced to stay put in Singapore - no more oversea travels and holidays. I also had to find ways to sustain my physical fitness level to enable me to continue my favourite hobby which is snow-skiing when life normalise after the pandemic crisis.
Then, in October 2020, I was very fortunate to be connected to the Senior Adult Life Transformation (SALT) group spearheaded by Pastor Eric Kwan. Its primary physical activity is to lead and guide walks and hikes through the various PCNs and nature reserves in Singapore.
Besides keeping fit, I truly enjoyed this as I could interact and mingle with people from all walks of life but more so, it let me explore and discover the various beautiful parts of Singapore which I do not had the chance to do so previously, being always holidaying abroad whenever time permit.
When did you learn DBBW techniques and how does it help you?
I attended Deep Breathing Brisk Walking (DBBW) coaching session conducted by David in early 2021. During the coaching session, I had the opportunity to learn the correct techniques of deep breathing with brisk walking. With age, all of us including me need to leverage on the appropriate skills to enable us to walk more with less effort and with energy efficiency.
Yes! the DBBW techniques indeed helped me immensely as evidenced by the fact that I was able to walk much faster with less effort now than a year ago.
How do you feel about completing 50KM challenge in 10 hours and 33 minutes?
It was indeed exhilarating to be able to complete this challenge. Though I am aged 70, I was able to keep up with younger hikers and walked side by side with them. I managed to clock better time than my previous 50KM walk on 24 April 2021. I did Coast to Coast from check point 1 to 10 in 11hours and 7 minutes then.
May I take this opportunity to encourage seniors to expound and expand their limits - it’s never too late to learn new things or to start new hobby or activity.