Tripler Army Medical Center

       Public Affairs Office Media Release

www.tamc.amedd.army.mil; TAMCPublicAffairsOffice@amedd.army.mil

       Release Number 05-039                                                                            May 8, 2005

 

Tripler team places first in Swamp Romp

at Kaneohe Bay

 

       HONOLULU–The “Living Aloha” team, with members mostly from Tripler Army Medical Center, took first place in the mixed division in the 11^th annual Swamp Romp at Kaneohe Bay April 23. 

 

       “The team wanted to have some fun, and most of us completed the run in a previous year.  We are all runners and thought it would be a strong team,” said Capt. Trang Nguyen of Tripler Army Medical Center’s Troop Command.

 

       Fun for these six Soldiers and some 1,200 other participants, was competing in what has been called Oahu’s dirtiest footrace. The Swamp Romp includes running, crawling, slogging, swimming, and for some, diving headlong into muck along a nearly five-mile course that included a mud pit, a log wall, another hundred-foot strip of mud, and a quarter-mile of waist-deep muck that is part of Nuupia Ponds along Kaneohe Bay. 

 

       The six-member teams also had to finish together. For each teammate not crossing the finish line with the rest of the team, the team was penalized one minute.  Needless to say, the Tripler team was all for one and one for all on that mud-dragging day.

 

       “It was fun to work together as a team and finish the race,” said Nguyen. “We never expected to win.  We finished just under one hour and are very happy with that accomplishment.”