Eighty-two (82) par­tic­i­pants, in­clud­ing for a first time 20 women, were list­ed on the 2024 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) Gold Foun­da­tion Walk No 10 reg­is­ter. Some of them have al­ready in­di­cat­ed their in­ter­est in Walk No 11 in 2025.

What in­spired and mo­ti­vat­ed this in­crease from pre­vi­ous years?

If you have nev­er com­plet­ed or at­tempt­ed to com­plete a marathon or the marathon dis­tance of 26-plus miles it's dif­fi­cult to wrap your head around the men­tal, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al jour­ney that is get­ting from mile one to mile 26. You have to do it to un­der­stand why it's ap­peal­ing to so many.

On Sun­day, the 10th edi­tion from St Mary's Junc­tion Freeport to Port-of-Spain was held. The Walk first start­ed on Jan­u­ary 25, 2015, to raise aware­ness and fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions for the TTOC #10GOLDS24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund now known as the TTOC Gold Foun­da­tion.

Mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Kris­tian­na Richards, an 18-year-old Holy Name Con­vent Up­per six stu­dent who plays foot­ball, vol­ley­ball and wa­ter po­lo for her school was the first fin­ish­er.

The Walk par­tic­i­pa­tion over 10 years var­ied be­tween 25 and 53 walk­ers and de­lib­er­ate­ly so for rea­sons of lo­gis­tics man­age­ment and be­cause of the im­por­tance of re­spect for the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon (TTIM) rules and guide­lines. The Walk or­gan­is­ers couldn't just do what­ev­er they want­ed. It was im­por­tant not to be per­ceived as hi­jack­ing the TTIM event. En­ter­ing the Marathon meant play­ing by the Marathon rules.

This year with the marathon shift­ing to March 24, the TTOC Gold Foun­da­tion found it­self in sole pos­ses­sion of the third Sun­day in Jan­u­ary.

And thus the stage was set for an amaz­ing event. The feed­back has been in the main high­ly com­pli­men­ta­ry and pos­i­tive.

A look at the par­tic­i­pa­tion list sug­gests that the in­ter­est in the Walk has grown. Dif­fer­ent views have been ex­pressed as to why. Is it be­cause it's an Olympic year? Is it the oc­ca­sion of the 10th walk cel­e­bra­tion? Is it due to the fact that the Walk wasn't part of the Marathon? What is the im­pli­ca­tion of all this? Is it that the Walk should con­tin­ue to be an event on its own?

Many of this year's par­tic­i­pants said that the com­pet­i­tive at­mos­phere of the Marathon in­tim­i­dat­ed them and the fact that the Walk is strict­ly cause-re­lat­ed helped them re­lax and en­joy the chal­leng­ing 26-mile walk.

Wher­ev­er the analy­sis may lead, it's clear that the Walk can stand on its own.

There were many mov­ing parts that went in­to the suc­cess­ful 2024 edi­tion. The sup­port of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, the T&T De­fence Force (PTIs) and the T&T Coast Guard (Am­bu­lance and medics). Com­pa­nies that as­sist­ed in­clud­ed Crys­tal Wa­ter (Wen­del Syd­ney), Mano, the well-known and pop­u­lar eat­ing place on Park Street, Port-of-Spain, Econ­Car (Ever­ard Carter), and the Har­vard Club for use of their fa­cil­i­ties.

The gen­eros­i­ty of time, spir­it and en­er­gy of the vol­un­teers who as­sist­ed with walk­er well-be­ing, or­gan­is­ing the Brunch and those who pur­chased tick­ets. The me­dia con­tributed.

The in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive com­mit­ment and de­ter­mi­na­tion to sup­port the youth and young peo­ple who as­pire to win Olympic Gold is an in­spi­ra­tion.

Among the walk­ers, this year in­clud­ed a high-pro­file group from First Cit­i­zens, Ja­son Julien, Deputy CEO - Busi­ness Gen­er­a­tion, Neela Mooni­lal-Kissoon, Deputy CEO - Op­er­a­tions and Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Lar­ry Olton, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er - Op­er­a­tions and Trudy Loui­son, GMC Of­fi­cer - Events, CSR & PR and cur­rent TTOC pres­i­dent Di­ane Hen­der­son.

For the past 10 years, Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor and Pres­i­dent and CEO of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd, Nigel Bap­tiste, Me­dia per­son­al­i­ties Tony Lee and An­dre Bap­tiste, An­ton La­fond, Roger Sant, Kei­th Lash­ley, Richie Rahim and Cap­tain Andy Cheekes have been "Walk" reg­u­lars. That's 10 years of walk­ing for the cause. Walk­ing for a gold­en fu­ture.

On a per­son­al note, I am im­mense­ly grate­ful to have com­plet­ed No 10 in good health.