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.