Dragon Boat Day 2
Jun. 25th, 2006 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desoto_hia873It was a good day. The weather was perfect--warm and sunny, but not humid. Our races went really well. We have rotating pairs of alternates and this morning was my turn to sit out. There's usually a boat that carries photographers and journalists alongside each race so the other sitter-outer and I hitched a ride with them. It was neat watching the race from the water and I was surprised at how much the driver had to gun the engine to keep up. I'd never realized just how fast we were going when we were paddling full out (I just did a calculation--our speed in our best race was 13.9 km/hour or 8.6 miles/hour). Our start looked a little slow in the first race, but our team scored another best time: 2:11.10. PanaCEAA was just a hair faster than that. After the race, one of their paddlers came over to talk to us and it turns out that we have a title of sorts now: based on yesterday's rankings, we were officially the fastest National Capital Region federal government crew. PanaCEAA has held that title for the past 14 years!
Our second race was also good and I was de-alternated for this one and back in the boat. It felt to me like our unison was slightly off until mid-race, but we pulled it together and finished with a time of 2:11.99. Our times today put us in 24th place, slightly behind PanaCEAA, but good enough to get to the Espoir Final. (The top eight teams compete in the Championship Final, teams 9-16 in the Petit Final, and teams 17-24 in the Espoir Final.) In six years, we've NEVER made it to a final before. Sadly, our lowest-of-the-24 ranking meant that we were in Lane 8 (the pokey lane--I think it must be shallower than the others) and also put us into the only non-standard boat. That and the fact that we were starting to run out of gas by the end of a long weekend meant that we had a rather slower final race than we would have liked. The organizers were having a computer problem so the results haven't been posted yet, but I think we were back around 2:14.
But still! We had several crew bests and made it to the Espoir Final which has long seemed like the impossible dream. Our coach's crew won the Championship--when we went over to congratulate him, all he could talk about was how well we'd done. Which makes him a pretty nice coach, don't you think?
Honestly, you should see this guy--there is no bad here. He's handsome, fit, athletic, talented, encouraging, never mean, and a really, really nice guy. Every woman on our team swoons over him. He's also a fireman--we're all hoping he shows up in this year's calendar. :-)
Like I said, it was a good day. I'm exhausted, sunburnt, and sore, BUT WE MADE IT TO A FINAL!!! I'm so very, very pleased. And now I'm going to get Thai take-out for dinner because I'm at the point of being non-functional and only Pad Thai can cure that.
Our second race was also good and I was de-alternated for this one and back in the boat. It felt to me like our unison was slightly off until mid-race, but we pulled it together and finished with a time of 2:11.99. Our times today put us in 24th place, slightly behind PanaCEAA, but good enough to get to the Espoir Final. (The top eight teams compete in the Championship Final, teams 9-16 in the Petit Final, and teams 17-24 in the Espoir Final.) In six years, we've NEVER made it to a final before. Sadly, our lowest-of-the-24 ranking meant that we were in Lane 8 (the pokey lane--I think it must be shallower than the others) and also put us into the only non-standard boat. That and the fact that we were starting to run out of gas by the end of a long weekend meant that we had a rather slower final race than we would have liked. The organizers were having a computer problem so the results haven't been posted yet, but I think we were back around 2:14.
But still! We had several crew bests and made it to the Espoir Final which has long seemed like the impossible dream. Our coach's crew won the Championship--when we went over to congratulate him, all he could talk about was how well we'd done. Which makes him a pretty nice coach, don't you think?
Honestly, you should see this guy--there is no bad here. He's handsome, fit, athletic, talented, encouraging, never mean, and a really, really nice guy. Every woman on our team swoons over him. He's also a fireman--we're all hoping he shows up in this year's calendar. :-)
Like I said, it was a good day. I'm exhausted, sunburnt, and sore, BUT WE MADE IT TO A FINAL!!! I'm so very, very pleased. And now I'm going to get Thai take-out for dinner because I'm at the point of being non-functional and only Pad Thai can cure that.
