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Our Asia COO, Andy Evans, recently completed his board charity pledge and has shared his experience below...

After hours of training, blood, sweat and tears, I have completed my pledge of running 4 x 10km races in 4 months! Whilst, I can hear you say ‘that doesn’t sound too tough to me’, when you add 100% humidity and 34 degree heat, it adds a whole new dimension to the challenge! Probably still easy for some, but for me… not so easy!

Through the past 4 months I have been fundraising for Singapore Food Bank, which is a fantastic organisation and our chosen charity for our MMK Million challenge. 

Whilst the weather was hot and humid for all the races, the third race coincided with an abnormally ‘cooler’ period in the Singapore calender. As a result, I was on fire and ran my personal best of 58 minutes from start to finish! Unfortunately, the last race was exceptionally hot and sunny and I could only manage a more sedate 64 minutes. Disappointed. But at the time I was simply delighted to make the 4th finish line!

I would like to thank the whole Singapore office for their overwhelming support over the past 4 months. I really couldn’t have done it without them. I was particularly delighted when 18 office members ran my final race (The Marina 10km) with me. A phenomenal effort by all with some exceptional times – Dylan Ong running it in 56 mins! I think Dylan had been training at high altitude recently to acclimatise to the challenging conditions...

One exciting part of each race has been finding out what is contained in the pre-race packs! One of the races provided a very nice, high quality sports bag, others have been shampoo, creams, memberships and even free massages! And for those that like a medal, well, 3 of the races gave out medals that you’ll be proud to show the grandkids one day!

I can honestly say, it has been a great experience to have hit this personal target. I know that 4 x 10km runs isn’t huge (although together it is almost a marathon) but the point was to fundraise for a worthy cause and support our CSR offering... Some of us could argue we are a little fitter now than we were before. As such, we are committing to doing several more 10km runs over 2018. 

Watch this space!

Andy Evans| APAC COO

Read more about other completed challenges pledged by our board:

Group CEO fundraises €53,000 with 410km cycle ride

APAC COO, Richie Holliday, runs the Translantau trail race

UK COO, David Leithead, completes the Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon

Irish Board team volunteer at Ronald McDonald House

Non-exec Director climbs Ben Nevis

CFO climbs 3 mountains in 3 days