I was really hoping the snow would have been gone by today (Monday) just so I wouldn’t have to deal with the 2 hour long commute (an hour each way) to attend a team meeting. But by mid day the local cops, closed down the part of the hwy that most of us would be traveling on. Which was fine by me! Just meant that I just had to change what I was planning on making for dinner and when I was gonna eat. The rest of the night I’ve been working on my clubs fanpage (spicy it up) as well some other club stuff.

These pictures were taken on Sunday, when I was out and about in my neighbourhood.

Anyways, Back in June/July I heard that my best friend and her family were planning on heading back down to South Africa to spend Christmas with some family. Since my friends brothers girlfriend and I’ve never been, we were invited to tag along as well. Some days I wish all my flights, I book were direct flights this way I wouldn’t have to deal with long layovers but of course it doesn’t happen that way. We had about a 4 hour layover which wasn’t that bad since there was 6 of us. We always had someone to talk to/look after our bags if we had to head to the washrooms etc. Plus free booze on long flights is a bonus.

Once we landed in Johannesburg, a family friend came by and picked us all up and gave us a quick tour of the city and dropped our gear off at my friend’s aunts place as we were staying there. That afternoon we went to a amusement park and took the mining tour. Trying to stay awake for that was hard but it was nice to walk around and getting all the joints moving again.

Check out my flickr account if you’d like to see more pictures

Once we got back into Johannesburg, the next day we spent time at one of the local museums, like with all museums there are parts you just skip pass and other parts you could just look at all the articles/artwork all day. Even with 2012 just around the corner there you can still find that racism is still around, may not be as noticeable as it once was globally but it’s still around and with that once you get your ticket to enter into the building you are either white or non-white and gave us kids (who didn’t grow up with the whole colour divide a view of what life was like).

The flight to Cape Town is about two hours, which wasn’t that long but it was long enough that we given a real meal, none of this pay $5 by a credit card for a few slices of cheese and crackers crap that all North American airlines do to save a couple of bucks. Once we landed in Cape Town, we were surprised by my friends cousin who met us at the airport. Once we got our two rental cars we drove did a quick tour of Cape Town as we were heading to my friends Grandma’s place.

The next day or so, we (7 of us) packed up again and road tripped it across South Africa to the town where the Grandma grew up in. It was really neat but creepy that we were staying in the house that she grew up in. I only say it’s creepy as it’s now a hunting lodge and since none of us hunt, we were just grossed out by the animal skins all over the place. Traveling with 4 vegetarians can be interesting at times.

While we were there we (the four kids) went tubing and I re-flamed my shoulder/arm up again… Stupid move I know.. On the way back we did a cave tour, did a lot of swimming at all the local beaches, another highlight was the paragliding (I didn’t go), hiked up Cape Point, did some winery tours, saw some wild penguins and went to the local aquarium.

Managed to see some dragonboats while I was in Cape Town which made my day, sure they were just at the dock but I didn’t care as we were at the wharf mid afternoon when we spotted them (to early for teams to be practicing).

If I ever do go down there again, I’d bring two suitcases one for my clothes and another one for all my purchases.

Which lead me to do this video project as it would allow my club to get current footage for the website, as well take a gimps into the paddling world that doesn’t just focus on one team/club at a regatta but a mixer of everyone. I do believe that there is at least 1 clip with me truly in the boat racing. With all the footage I got of my club, I was able to create an awesome 2012 recruitment video (which isn’t on youtube yet)

Here a video recap of the 2011 racing season,

I’ve already have been coming up with ideas of how to do the 2012 recap version. Just watching that video makes me wish I was still paddling but I’ve decide to not paddle through out winter season so I can relax and of course sleep in.

The last time I ventured to the Oval was for a paddling clinic before the 2010 Olympics and on Sunday I was given a chance to take part in a BC bobsleigh/skeleton talent camp.

Right around the mid paddling season point, I came up with this goal/fitness challenge of taking part in a talent camp, if I made it sweet if not I was able to make it that far. The original goal was to enter one next year but after a few bobsledders I know egged me on to do it this year. Do have to say that it was a great learning curve and now I know what I need to work which would also help with my paddling.

It was really nice to be part of a small group of 8 (12 people signed up though) people instead of a huge group of 30+, this way you aren’t waiting around to long. Being the only female who took part did suck as I wasn’t really able to gauge myself against my own gender and all the guys having true track backgrounds which also didn’t help but at least they didn’t laugh at me.

Now the waiting game begins as I wait for my results.

How was your long weekend?

Since it’s the long weekend and there wasn’t really one on the lake, our coach decided to mix it up by having 16 of us in the dragon boat and 6 in the 6 man outrigger (oc6) and switch us though a few times to work on a few different drills. Since in a outrigger you paddle both sides every couple strokes (10 or so) and with my shoulder/arm that is still not 100% yet I just stayed in the dragon boat. I really do miss training on both sides of a dragon boat and even to outrigger. Right now I keep telling myself, it’s one day at a time.

After practice I meet up with a @BCBerrie from twitter over lunch. It’s always nice to be able to hang out with someone in person then always talk via twitter/facebook/chat. The commute home was insane it was grid lock heading out of town and seemed like it was normal rush hour traffic flow heading into town. But thankfully I don’t have to go anywhere but the gym on Monday.

How is your long weekend/Saturday going?

Yesterday my club took part in a local dragon boat festival and because I wasn’t sure about my shoulder so I opted to sit the last two races of the day, even though I was hoping to paddle in 3 races. But sometimes it’s better to cheer from the sidelines then do more damage to an injury. Both crews did really well, our true comp team took home gold, and we did pretty good.

Anyways some footage from yesterday..

So the waiting game is finally over. Just shy of 6 years but it was well worth the wait. Before anyone asks….. I dye my bangs (and or tips) as part of a silly superstition before Vancouver’s main festival. I’ve been doing this since 1996 (when we held worlds) and for the years I wasn’t able to colour my hair (thanks to work) we didn’t medal.. so I colour my hair.

Hmm, the watermark didn’t look so bad in the editor but now it does grr!… oh well..

Comment for a Cause (C4AC) is back for it’s 4th year. C4AC is my way to raises funds & awareness. This year I’ve picked BC Children’s Hospital as my charity of choice. Each comment this site gets equals $1 that I will be donating at the end of the month.. Don’t forget to keep up to date by subscribing to my rss feed

Hmm where to start…

This morning putting together my go pro camera after charging the battery over night, the black plastic clip on the outer cover broke, which really annoyed me as I could have gotten some amazing shots of our clubs races from inside of the boat today. Still was able to get some video/still pictures but not as many as I’d like due to the race venue and it was really cold and gross out until the last race of the day.

This regatta is a great season opener for all teams new and old as it’s just 200m sprints instead of the normally 500m races. I always forget how short a 200m race is, it’s mostly a start, a strong power 10 with a few strokes then a finish and you should have a time either just under a minute or just over depending if the current and the wind.. With my shoulder I wasn’t sure how I’d feel and it wasn’t bad at all, but because I didn’t know I asked to sit off a race just in case. Plus I don’t mind sitting off and allowing another team member a chance to race.

Our last race of the day was just awesome as we were battling the wind and the current and everyone just got it together and paddled as one. We were against our youth team, another valley team and a team from my old neck of the woods. It was a very tight race (which I love being in/watching) and the other valley team placed 1st, we placed 2nd and our youth team came in 3rd.

When I got home this evening I noticed I got a bit of a sun tan. I’m really looking forward tomorrow as I can just relax and sleep in. 5:30 was a tad to early this morning for me.

G’Night

Comment for a Cause (C4AC) is back for it’s 4th year. C4AC is my way to raises funds & awareness. This year I’ve picked BC Children’s Hospital as my charity of choice. Each comment this site gets equals $1 that I will be donating at the end of the month.. Don’t forget to keep up to date by subscribing to my rss feed

Happy Friday!

A few posts back I mentioned about my injured shoulder and how our 1st race of the season is coming up, well tomorrow is the big day.

Normally the night before a race I’m always trying to be as calm that I can be so I can sleep really well and be on my A game tomorrow. Though I wonder how much sleep I’ll really get tonight as I came home after some running around, sat on the couch and woke up 3 hours later, so now I’m trying to finish getting everything prepped before I had back to bed in a few minutes.

I still recall what my mom mentioned to me before my 1st race, 17 years ago “Harness your nervous butterflies and let them take you to victory”. Ever since then I’ve always reminded myself of that saying and we’ve normally kicked butt.

What do you do with your nervous butterflies?

Have a great saturday