Post RTADBF

What a great weekend, the clouds were rolling in with a few sprinkling of rain here and there but all and all it was one of the best Alcan I’ve been to in years. I say that not just because of the venue or that the woman’s crew I was on got 1st place in our heat and placed 13th out of 22th in the woman’s category. My 1st ever medal for woman’s to boot to, sad that we just missed taking part in the woman’s guts and glory a 2000 meter race (when you get a bunch of teams paddling against the clock and doing wild turns. The one year that my team at the time made it into it…I was 8 months along.. my goal is to take part in it one day)

The reason why I think its the best one to boot is because of the team I paddled with who has a lot of heart :heart: . Instead of sparing for the whole weekend with the team I currently paddle with. I opted to paddle with LARD (Los Angeles Racing Dragons) who were short female paddlers for the woman’s races. In my 10 years of paddling in the adult category mostly on 2 boat teams/crews this is the 1st time I’ve seen a 2 boat team do everything together. I mean if the ladies had to be at the tent at 7am so were the guys for the support and everyone teams warm up together as a whole not this your on either the A or B boat for the whole season. You could be on the A boat for a festival and the B the next. More Vancouver teams need to learn from them I think.

On Sunday as we were waiting on the docks for our boats to come in for our 1st race of the day and someone just started to sing Oh Canada, and then the two American teams broke out with the Star Spangled Banner afterward’s. It was a great way to start off the morning! The small things like that make anyone at any level smile. I love paddling at the level I’m at which is against the big fish on the creek, FCRCC. At 16 I had a goal of what level I wanted to be paddling at by the age of 29 but having a kid and the surgery in April. I kind of got side tracked but hopefully not for long.

Though sooner or later a local team that wants it that bad will beat our local national team FCRCC. They have been beaten before years back by other national/high ranking teams but never by a local. In the final there were teams closing in but not quite up to par just yet. I’m not against our national team (I’ve been a fan of their head coach for 13 years), but it would be nice for a local team or Portland’s Kai Ikaka to knock them on their butts every once and a while and take home gold. As you can’t be #1 all the time. FCRCC came 1st and 3rd and Kai Ikaka placed 2nd.

Now that this festival is now over, time get focused for the next 3 festivals of the season (with my team) and maybe another 1 or 2 with LARD.

Photo Credit: Fred

Post on: Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Category: Dragon Boat, everything, fitness, life
Tags: ,
6 Comments » Tyler | j | Lisa | VancityAllie | Jonna |

  • June 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Tyler said,

    Sounds like it was fun and you enjoyed it. Glad you had a good time with the US team you paddled with. Hopefully those other guys figure out the meaning behind TEAMWORK ;)

    Actually if i wasn’t on vacation, I was offered media passes to be on the boats to take photos. I’m sure it would have been a lot of fun :)

  • June 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 pm

    Shout out to Kimm « Ready and Reach – Paddling According to the Mind of Scott said,

    [...] 23, 2009 by paddlesports Kimm was one of the paddlers that agreed to help us out.  Here’s her blog post about this past [...]

  • June 23rd, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    j said,

    Hi Kimm! Glad you joined us :paddle2: you’re welcome to again anytime!
    I have to agree, the anthem singing was a great way to start the race day. Made everyone on the docks (and I’m sure the spectators) all warm and fuzzy inside. See you at another race soon!

  • June 24th, 2009 at 11:18 am

    Lisa said,

    With your determination you will be anywhere you wanna be. I’m sure of that. You have a true passion and I’m glad it makes you happy. BTW, thanks for the comment. I will ttys sweetie. Until then take care. luvs!

  • June 24th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    VancityAllie said,

    That’s a great photo to set the piece… sounds like a great time. Glad to hear you had fun and congrats on getting out there!

  • July 2nd, 2009 at 3:24 am

    Jonna said,

    It’s good to hear you had fun. :) That is an amazing pic, and I can imagine singing national anthems before going off must’ve set a lovely mood to do your thang in. :)