Just for one day of the year, can we take life at a leisurely pace? I assure you, this is not philosophical musing, but a serious question, for as you tuck into your breakfasts and brunches this morning, 60,000 people will have either finished or still be running in the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon.
The organisers of this popular event, the Hong Kong Amateur Athletic Association, tell me that they could have had a bigger turnout this year if not for the Transport Department and the Police breathing down their necks and saying they needed the roads back by 2pm.
That is, by 2pm the 2010 Hong Kong Marathon must be finished lock, stock and barrel. Those runners who haven't completed the punishing 42 kilometre course will be stopped from running and asked to board buses. The public thoroughfares have to be opened so we can go about driving our carbon-emitting gas guzzlers on the road. As far as I'm concerned, I have never owned a car in Hong Kong and never driven one - apart from a single occasion when I was forced to take the wheel after a colleague of mine was so inebriated after the Hong Kong Golf Open in Fanling that he couldn't drive back to town (he had also forgotten where he had parked his car, but that is another story).
I can proudly say I don't contribute to global warming - as far as driving goes - but the issue that concerns us is this: is it so important that we cannot do without our cars for one day in the year? Why can't Hongkongers make this sacrifice? OK, no need for it to be one whole day, maybe the roads can be opened at 6pm, giving an extra four hours to the marathon. And what's more, these are only the roads on the marathon route, not the entire road network in Hong Kong.
Kwan Kee, the chairman of the Hong Kong Amateur Athletic Association, is a mild-mannered gentleman. So mild that he does not want to tread on the corns of those bureaucrats in the two key departments that can make or break the marathon - Police and Transport. So it was no surprise when Kwan said he wanted to demonstrate how good the HKAAA have been this year - by sticking meticulously to the rules.
Yet Kwan and the Hong Kong triple A are going about it in the wrong way. If people want to run today - and the majority of the 60,000 runners are taking part in the four 10 kilometre races and not the marathon - then they should be given the freedom to do that.
