Paddling and Hot Ice Cream

The fat lady has sung for my dragon boat season of 2005. Riptide (& friends) won 3 out of 5 "events" at last Saturday's Hamilton festival: 250m final, 2000m, and a 2-boat relay race. Everyone got to paddle and paddle some more - up to 7 different races in fact! How is this possible? When only 6 teams show up and a majority are newbies, there's bound to be empty seats and a schedule to fill up. There was also disorganization in running a 500m bonus race as it was a 250m course and had only 3 lanes for 6 boats to manoeuvre - not to mention ten second interval running starts - argh! The most interesting event was the flag-slalom race where teams had to grab 4 flags while zigzagging across the course. After a few beers in celebration, we all met up at Mandarin for some much needed food. Mandarin has improved their selection and the most unique item must have been the chocolate chili ice cream. It first tastes like normal chocolate ice cream but after swallowing you feel a bit of heat!  

Sunday was spent celebrating Monjo's birthday with the Slushee Gang & friends - first at Congee Queen for lunch; followed by some poker, briscola, and Pizza Hut. I suck at brisk but it's damned fun.

Dragon Boat and PDG Update

Whoa, didn't realize my blog hasn't been updated in a while. This past Saturday I paddled with UW Swordfish and we brought home hardware again! We won our B Division Consolation final in Stratford and finished the 2005 season on a very positive note. We did only 3 races but each was crucial and literally treated as our last race of the season ever. In our first race we were neck-and-neck with the team's "nemesis" - (Air Canada) Jetstart - but they managed to barely win the qualifier heat by under 0.4s. We faced them again in the B Division semi-final but this was no match as we didn't have our usual team cox to steer us away from shallow water and weren't able to overcome the tough conditions of lane one. We weren't happy that we were in lane one again for the consolation but our third cox managed to keep us as close to lane two as possible. At least half the crew and I were grunting or screaming as we powered through our last 'finish' of the season. It was fantastic once we learned we had edged it out for first place by 0.06s! I was expecting Riptide to have finished higher than being C Division Consolation champs but their final time was A/B Division-worthy. I did notice they had 12 women paddling instead of the minimum 8 required.
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Regarding my Personal Development Goals I set a few months back - I've been going to the gym at least twice a week since I got back from California in early August. I still don't have a workout routine/schedule as I had to cut back with dragon boat practices and races. I'm not waking up at 06:00 but I do get up at 06:30 if I'm working out that morning. After this Saturday's Hamilton dragon boat festival with Riptide, I can then focus on daily workouts. I engaged in some moderate reading on weight training and nutrition since then and even borrowed a colleague's copy of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding." If you skip the chapters on past bodybuilders and posing, this book looked like a great reference for general weight training and proper diet techniques. I plan on getting a copy of my own.

The Best There Ever Was...

"...The best there ever will be." - Dedicated November 1, 1994. United Center, Chicago.  

What is the Purpose of Your Visit?

Besides having our rental car and belongings inspected by U.S. Immigration officers, the Labour Day weekend was a blast as the usual suspects (RC, MS, and myself) went for a road trip. We crossed six states and spent all day Sunday in the Chicago area. Yes, we even had White Castle burgers - mmm... Jalapeno Doubles. Dammit, now I'm craving for some. The waterfront in downtown Chicago was a sight to see!