Tag Archives: dragon boating

Rio Tinto Alcan 2015

23 Jun

June 20th & 21st were the days of the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat festival. Technically the festival started June 19th with the dotting of the dragon eyes ceremony but I never go to that so for me the festival started June 20th…that is this past Saturday for those of you not near a calendar lol This festival is the largest Dragon Boat Festival in North America, it is actually the largest outside of China, it is massive. This year there were over 100,000 people there and the competition was fierce!

Let me just say this weekend was beyond awesome! 😀

Both days were sunny and gorgeous and busy and I loved ohhhh I’d say every minute of it!…well, maybe not the early rising part cause I hate mornings but once I was up definitely every minute.

I was racing with two teams this year. My team, The Twisted Hips which is a mixed team…that means we have both men and women on the boat. The second team was Concord Flying Dragons, they are a ladies team that a friend of mine is close with, they needed a couple extra ladies so I got asked and of course said yes, who wouldn’t want more chances to race?

Both teams won medals, wOOt! wOOt! which means I came away with a Gold and a Bronze! Oh yeeeah! 😀

My bronze and my gold medals.

My bronze and my gold medals.

Aren’t they such a pretty addition to my collection? Love em! 😀

The Twisted Hips

The Twisted Hips – we won bronze.

The Flying Dragons

The Flying Dragons – we won gold.

My team!

My team!

This is my team, I’m so proud of each and every one of them! We’ve been training since February, in the cold, the rain, the dark. We come to practice when sick, when we don’t feel like it, when we’re exhausted. We race with injuries, when our lives have a million other demands, in any weather. We fight for our division within the festivals, we earn our medals, we race with determination and heart. 🙂

And I’ll stop with the preachy aren’t-we-awesome stuff now lol 😛

I don’t have a team picture of Concord…yet! I like keeping team pics from each festival so I’ll be making sure to get one eventually.

I took some random pictures during the weekend which I will now bombard you with! teehee

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Okay so there weren’t as many pictures to bombard you with as I thought, I took a lot but I highly doubt you want to watch a series of pictures showing the end of a race or multiples of shots that are near identical lol I don’t have any video footage of our races, if I did rest assured I’d be providing you a link so you could watch lol

For me the festival is all about the races, obviously, but there are a lot of other things happening to keep those in the crowd entertained. There are a large variety of food trucks, with pretty much nothing healthy lol Some of us from The Twisted Hips shared some Beaver Tails which sounds barbaric until you learn they are pastry, deep fried, with toppings put on top. They are oh so yummy! We went with the classic toppings of cinnamon and sugar but you can get a whole bunch of stuff on them. There are also vendor tents for shopping, yay shopping! You can find all kinds of things, dragon boat gear, clothes, jewellery, food and drink samples (I got a delish blueberry yogurt from one tent and a yucky tofu mango drink at another *shudder*) and random other things. There are also tents set up from companies giving away stuff, or with contests you can enter, you know all they really want is your business or to recruit you to their cause or to teach you something but hey, free stuff is enticing so I’ll listen to someone talk about why I should drink tap water over bottled (which I already do lol) if it’ll get me a free item that I will, oddly enough, never ever use, and end up having to throw out at some point when I am decluttering. It’s weird lol but it’s a festival! 😛

Oh! I forgot! We sponsored a team from Portland, which really means we bought them some food and were friendly with them lol They also won a medal so we took a team pic with them. 🙂

Rio Tinto June 20-21 2015 J

I don’t know who took this, a camera ninja obviously! But there I am in marshalling (the waiting area where teams get lined up before going to the boats) in all my dragon boat finery lol

Who took this? lol

Who took this? lol

And lastly, this is me with my dinner which came loooong after we won and celebrated, it was the best burger ever! I’ve probably had better but I was so hungry it sure seemed like the best ever lol 😛

I'm such a lady lol

I’m such a lady lol

So there we have it, it was an awesome weekend I wish didn’t have to end but of course it did, sigh. Filled with friends, and fun, and food and medals! 😀

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Knockout Race Bragging Rights

13 May

Last Saturday (yeah, yeah, I know I am late writing this!) my dragon boat team The Twisted Hips competed in a Knockout Race Festival.

What is a Knockout Festival you ask? It is a festival that after your first three normal races that are used to determine your division you compete in up to four back-to-back races.

There are 7 boats at the start of the heat, you race, the last boat is knocked out and everyone else promptly returns to the start line to re-race without having a rest period. You race twice more, each time more teams are knocked out, until you have three teams remaining.

The last three teams race one final time and there is a winner and two losers. That’s right my friends, there is no first, second and third place. Nuh-uh, there is First Place and people who didn’t get first place. A little harsh but hey, it’s Knockout racing!

My oh-so-awesome team got in to B Division, so we ranked fairly high up there, and in our Knockout rounds we went all the way to the final three, then we won the final race, meaning, We Won! First Place in B Division! wOOt! wOOt! 😀

It was an amazing day! We had early morning races so we were at the race site by 7:30am, which means I started my day off getting tea and a breakfast sandwich from Tim Horton’s lol We had our first two races fairly close together, then what felt like a ridiculously long wait time for our third race. After that there was another bit of a wait until we went for our Knockout rounds. The day didn’t end until around 4pm or so. A looooooong day!

Not only a long day but also a sunny and hot day which meant I was hiding in the shade whenever possible, covering myself in sunscreen and long sleeves and in between races wearing the most ridiculous looking big floppy hat you have ever seen! Everyone kept saying I looked like I belonged at the Kentucky Derby lol 😛 But hey, all that effort and guess what I achieved? A super long day, spent outside, and no sunburn! It is practically a miracle! I count that as my second win of the day lol 😉

Here are some pictures of our final race in the Knockout rounds, we are the middle boat…

Knockout May 9 2015 Pic 1

Knockout May 9 2015 Pic 2

Knockout May 9 2015 Pic 3

We Won!

We Won!

I know from the angle the pics were taken at it doesn’t look like we won. You have to keep in mind that finish lines on water are not a straight line like they are on land, they get all messed up looking to the people on shore because of the current and wakes. But hey, that is what judges are for! lol

When the race finished we didn’t know who had won, we knew we were either first or second but it is so loud that we couldn’t hear the announcer. The boat to our right (the one closest in the picture) started cheering at one point so we thought maybe they knew something we didn’t and they had won but nope, it was us! We heard the repeat announcement when we were getting out of the boat and then we started cheering like crazy people, exhausted crazy people lol 🙂

Here is a team pic…I’m the only one wearing long sleeves lol

Knockout May 9 2015 Team Pic

We actually aren’t all in the picture, some people had to rush off after we got off the water to make it to work on time, but that is a chunk of us. 🙂

If what I am attempting worked there is a video below of the final race, it is a bit long (the video not the race) because the person who recorded it kept recording after the race was finished, maybe they were waiting until we got off the boat, I’m not sure what their plan was, shrug. I’m just grateful they took the video so we could see the race!

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Some Food

9 Apr

I’ve been working on putting together actual meals and not relying on spoonfuls of peanut butter for my main source of food, lol, I laugh but I’m not really kidding…

Anyways!

I’ve been cooking, and had a decent amount of success, success in the form of I have not gotten food poisoning and I’ve liked everything I’ve been eating, so yay! 🙂

Tuesday's Breakfast/Lunch

Tuesday’s Breakfast/Lunch

The above was my breakfast/lunch from Tuesday. On my days off I almost always combine those two meals cause ya know, I’m lazy, and I’m usually not up till noon-ish and well, why not? shrug.

So I made a two egg omelette and stuffed that sucker till it was hard to fold lol I put diced yellow pepper, mixed greens, a slice of marble cheese, turkey, and some diced avocado. On the side I had some baked beans in tomato sauce. Oh, and I had some toast as well. All in all a large, slightly too large, but yummy meal. 🙂

The mixed greens I used are these…

my mixed greens

my mixed greens: kale, chard and spinach

First off, no I didn’t buy them because they are organic, I bought them because they were on sale and therefore the cheapest option lol I have no idea how to tell kale and chard apart so when I randomly pull pieces from the container to add to dishes I don’t know what I’m picking, this means I tend to attempt to get an equal number of the various looking green leaves so I get the same amount of everything…being that I’m not completely inept in the kitchen I actually know what spinach looks like, so at least I know when I’m picking that one lol 😛

On Tuesdays I have dragon boat practice in the evening, after practice I had to stop to pick up some milk and bread and somehow that simple two item grocery trip turned in to a two bag trip, how does that even happen? *rolls eyes* While I was in the store I decided I wanted to make a burger for dinner, now, I already had the burger patty but no buns cause usually I just cook the patty, put some cheese on it, and eat it with a knife and fork. It’s not at satisfying but it is healthier so I suffer the horrors of a naked burger patty, or rather the burger patty suffers that horrible fate. Well, that evening I decided I’d buy a bun and make it a “real burger”. Once I picked the bun I figured I should go all out so I bought a couple other things to slap on to my creation, nothing crazy, just normal yummy burger toppings that I didn’t have.

In the end I had this lovely dinner…

My oh so lovely burger

My oh so lovely burger from Tuesday night

Ok, granted it doesn’t look like much but its whats inside that counts! There is the standard ketchup and mustard, I also added a smoked chilli deli sauce for a little kick, a slice of havarti cheese with jalapenos in it (fyi, I looooove that cheese lol), there was also sauteed mushrooms, the mixed greens again and thinly sliced tomato. On the side, as you can see, was sauteed yellow pepper and asparagus. The asparagus is cut up because I was using a small pan and it fit better that way lol

It was a messy, tasty, hit-the-spot, kind of meal. 🙂

And bonus, I cooked beef and didn’t kill myself! booya! 😉

The smoked chilli deli sauce I used is this…

The smoked chilli deli sauce from Weight Watchers, one of my faves!

The smoked chilli deli sauce from Weight Watchers, one of my faves!

It is from Weight Watchers and is da bomb! I put it on so many different things, its delish! 🙂 The only downside is I can’t buy it in Canada, laaaame! But lucky for me I have awesome cousins in England and they send me some when I run out and I beg and pester them. 😉

Then Wednesday for my combo breakfast/lunch I made a tortilla wrap. I found something new at Safeway the night prior, pulled chicken, I think its one of their rotisserie chickens that they shredded, least, it was in that area. So in the wrap I put 1 tablespoon of light ranch dressing, cheese, diced yellow pepper, sliced mushrooms, mixed greens, diced avocado, salsa and the chicken. I toyed with the idea of warming up the chicken but decided against it, mostly out of laziness.

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2015-04-08 14.20.50Some helpful tips from me to you:

(1) When I buy a pepper, the first time I pull it out of the fridge to use I dice 1/4 of it and store it in the fridge, the rest I slice in to large pieces, remove the seeds and store that in a separate container in the fridge. That way when I’m putting something together if I think “oh pepper might be nice in this” it is easy to grab and add to whatever I’m making.

(2) I like putting the dressing, in the above case it was ranch, on the wrap first unlike how restaurants like to put it on last, this way I use less and I’m guaranteed to have the flavour in every bite.

Dinner on Wednesday I heated up a delicious soup from Campbell’s called Tomato Basil Bisque, it is part of their “Everyday Gourmet” product line and I love it. 🙂

Mmm Mmm Good!

Mmm Mmm Good!

With it I had two dinner buns, I know, I know! I’m not supposed to be eating white foods but I am a sucker for these dinner buns and they go great with soup and well, I’ll never cut them out completely so there! 😛

But instead of just slathering the buns with margarine I took one of the dinner buns, put some miracle whip, some mustard (both in super small amounts!), mixed greens (starting to see a trend with those mixed greens? lol), a small amount of cheese and some sliced turkey. Basically, I made a dinner bun sandwich to go with my soup.

Wednesday's Dinner

Wednesday’s Dinner

Ok, yes, there is a second bun on that plate that is not a healthy mini sandwich but is instead meant to be eaten as is but let’s not dwell on that..instead, dwell on the rest of the meal! lol

So there we have it, my food from the past couple of days, all tasty, all made by me, all eaten with no side effects…other than making my tummy full that is lol 😉 None of it is hard to make and I tried my best to get a combination of protein, veg or fruit and whole grains in every meal, it doesn’t always happen (like the white bun incident) but for the most part I think I did ok and hey, I’ll keep working at it and I’ll get better, just gimme some time! 🙂

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Dragon Boat Shoes!

26 Mar

It seems like every dragon boat season I go through shoe drama. Over the years I have tried wearing converse, flip flops, Skechers walking shoes and going barefoot. None have been perfect, all have had their pros and cons, as most things do.

Last season I was wearing Skechers walking shoes, I was super psyched for them because they seemed like the perfect shoe for dragon boating. They had a normal sole, so good grips in the boat and good for our on land warm-up. The fabric of the shoe was this quick drying, mesh but not mesh stuff – quick drying is important because nobody likes putting on a wet shoe, *shudder*. Sadly though, the shoes let me down. No matter how much I cleaned them they eventually had a stench that was impossible to ignore. The smell was because of the water in False Creek, it is naaaasty! Then, one of our away festivals had the paddlers tents on a beach and I got sand in the shoes. You wouldn’t think it’d be such a big deal but no matter how much I cleaned and rinsed those shoes I could never get all the sand out of that mesh-but-not-mesh fabric. By the end of that festival weekend my feet were destroyed! I had blisters and areas of my feet had been rubbed raw from wearing the shoes when they had sand trapped in them, omg it hurt!

It was so close to the end of the season I didn’t bother replacing the shoes last season, instead I waited, and the waiting proved fruitful! For Christmas my parents gave me a gift certificate to buy a specific shoe that I wanted for dragon boating. Some of my teammates have this shoe and swear by them.

My new dragon boat shoes.

My new dragon boat shoes.

The company that makes these lovely shoes is Native, their website is here if you are interested. They come in many styles but I didn’t pick them because of what they look like, though, I do like how they look so that’s a bonus lol They are awesome for dragon boating because they are made of rubber. Can’t get better than that for a water sport! They have a great grip in the boat, are comfy, despite the holes my feet stay warm even in rainy cold weather and as a little bonus there are these little bumps inside that sorta massage your feet while you are wearing the shoes. 🙂

The company amuses me, a couple of days after I got the shoes (I bought them online) I got an email from them that started with “Dear Human” lol, an enjoyable sense of humour don’t you think? The email was about proper care for my shoes so they last as long as possible.

Oh and the tags on the shoes made me laugh…

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The tag says: No sasquatch, unicorns, doves, jabberwoks, cows, werewolfs, whales, dogs, mermaids, pigs, yeti, anteaters, cats, antelope, cobras, possums, dragons, porqupines, owls, sloths, ostrich, crocodiles, bears, mice, pegasus, slugs, or any other beast was used in these natives! (the spelling mistakes are the company’s fault, not mine!)

There was another tag that lists one of the features of the shoes as being “beast free” and the third tag gives instructions for how to ride an escalator lol

I know its dumb but stuff like that makes me smile. 🙂

I’ve worn them for a couple of weeks now and they’ve been good. I haven’t gone running in them, because I haven’t been running during warm-ups, I think they’ll be ok for running except for the little problem that the heel of the shoe fits a tad too big so even when walking the back of my foot slips out of the shoe a bit, it’s not a huge deal, just an annoyance at this point.

I’m trying not to be too excited for these shoes, since every year I end up replacing what I’ve been wearing, but I’m hopeful these ones will last longer than one season! 🙂

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Nanaimo Weekend

9 Jul

This past weekend (July 5-6) was the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival. Last season there was drama! drama! drama! And since you probably don’t memorize my blog posts if you would like to refresh yourself on what happened click here.

We had a goal, win a medal to redeem ourselves from last year.

Well…we didn’t quite make that goal a reality. We did redeem ourselves by having a strong presence at the festival, by racing hard, by having new jerseys the other teams were envious of and by moving up a division to the highest division at the festival, yup, that’s right, highest division! Awesomeness! The only part of our plan that didn’t quite come to fruition was the whole winning a medal thing but hey, we tried and we were close and having close times with the teams we were racing against, teams that consistently rank in the highest division, well, that is nothing to sneeze at.

Overall we ended up ranking 8th place out of 80 teams, not so bad, right?

My team The Twisted Hips

My team The Twisted Hips

The people there are still the friendliest people ever, it is a beautiful location for a dragon boat festival, the water is warm and clean, even with the rain the temperatures are still high. There are so many great things associated with this festival! 🙂

Overall the weekend rocked, we all got there Friday night, I didn’t get motion sickness while on the ferry going over to the island (yay!), the three teammates I was bunking with were hilarious, the food was tasty, there was lots of walking and racing and just in general physical activity. There was free paddle boarding both days, two of my teammates and I gave that a try on the Saturday. It was ok, I was paranoid about falling in to water while wearing my racing clothes so I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I might have if I didn’t have the worry of spending the rest of my day in soaking wet clothes lol Having said that, even if I had been in a swimsuit and not worried about getting wet I don’t think it’s an activity I’d do for an extended period of time, it’s not that interesting lol 😛 There were all kinds of food trucks but our team pools money and we have a little buffet of food at our tent (as do most teams) so I didn’t get anything from the food trucks, I did hit up Tim Horton’s for tea multiple times but tea is a whole different story, I can’t survive without tea lol

There were also lots of booths set up with people selling everything from home made jewellery, to official festival clothing, to dragon boat gear to scarves…the list goes on and on. There are also booths set up to educate people on things like drinking tap water or recycling as well as booths representing banks and other boring  things lol.

I bought two bracelets as thank you gifts for the daughters of my friend, they came and checked on my cat while I was gone and I thought they’d get a kick out of some jewellery, shrug. I also bought myself a festival t-shirt. I buy a shirt not from every festival but from a lot of them, I like having a memento that is also functional lol

One of my teammates and I are taking part in a plank challenge, on the Saturday we decided to plank while in the middle of partying (cause isn’t that how everyone planks? lol) and the teammates that were present decided to get in on the action lol Planking is now a team sport!

The plank challenge!

The plank challenge!

Even though it was slightly overcast most of the time, and raining for chunks of both days I managed to get sunburned, a special talent of mine lol Oh, and I also managed to get injured, another special talent of mine lol

While planking someone leaned on me and somehow I ended up hurting my lower back, I don’t mean a twinge I mean I was in massive pain and had trouble standing up straight. Luckily one of my roomies has a mothering instinct and she helped me out, she got me a microwavable gel pack thing from the hotel office and walked me through some yoga that she thought might help the back get better. A combination of some sort of cream a friend had, plus pain pills, plus yoga, plus the heating pack led to me being ok to race on the Sunday. To be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered what level of pain I was in on the Sunday I would have still raced but it was nice to race and not be thinking I was screwing my back up even more lol 😛

The other injury is just stupid *rolls eyes* when I was paddle boarding sand got in my shoes, didn’t matter how much I rinsed them out some sand stayed in them and while I could feel the sand rubbing against my feet it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, I was wrong. By Sunday I had 5 open and quite nasty wounds on my feet, ugh. Couldn’t do much about them till I got home and really all I could do once home was wash the feet, put some polysporin on the wounds and wrap with bandaids. The feet are healing well, slower than I would like but meh, whatcha gonna do? I wash, reapply the polysporin and bandaids daily and am basically waiting for them to finish getting better. I’m down to three bandaids instead of five now so that’s a nice improvement! 🙂

The trip home went smoothly, once again I managed to not get sea sick on the ferry, this is a big deal for me in case you were wondering lol I had an unpleasant surprise waiting for me though, a spider apparently decided the best place ever to have her eggs mature was in my bathroom, ick! ick! ick! I came home to this…

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

I went on the offensive asap, obviously, and became a mass murderer. Thought the situation was taken care of but the next day when I got home from work I had a smaller web with fewer inhabitants in the exact same spot. wtf?? So they died also. I then sprayed the entire area with Mr. Clean all surfaces cleaner, and I don’t mean a gentle spray, I mean I drenched the area, it was dripping off the ceiling! Chemical warfare at its finest lol Since then I’ve seen an occasional baby spider but no big webs and en masse gatherings so I’m hoping they have moved on or died. 😛

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Filming and Medals and All Around Fun

25 Jun

I soooooo wanted to write about this yesterday but my internet crapped out, bad timing that!

Yesterday I was, get ready for this!…filming an episode of a tv show! *squeal of excitement* Awesome huh?! 😀

I can’t give a lot of specifics due to signing a loooong confidentiality agreement but here is what I can say:

– I was a principle character in the episode (that means a main character)

– the show is docudrama/soap opera genre

– the show is international

– my character was a nurse so I was in scrubs which (1) are super comfy and (2) made me look humongous *rolls eyes*

– each episode has completely different cast so there is no potential for reprising the role

– I was up at 5am so I could be on set for 7am

– the make-up and hair ladies loved my hair and cheekbones lol

– crafty (that is the catered food) provided pretty decent food

– we filmed at an abandoned psych hospital and the crew had some super creepy stories about the place

– I wrapped (that means finished) a bit after 6pm so I was able to get to my dragon boat practice on time, which was a pleasant surprise

Oh, and fair warning, once the episode is aired if I can find a link to an episode online I will be posting it on my blog so you can all have the option of watching it or not lol 😛

Here are some pics of parts of the psych hospital, outside only…

One of the buildings

One of the buildings

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I didn't get to go in this building, it looked more ominous than the others.

I didn’t get to go in this building, up close it looked more ominous than the others.

Spooky stairs all over the place leading to who knows where...

Spooky stairs all over the place leading to who knows where…

Than, as if filming wasn’t enough to make the day amazing when I got to dragon boat practice I got given my medal from the weekend! I thought I would get a medal since I raced Saturday but was worried that since I missed the Sunday due to being sick I miiiiight not get a medal, ya know, cause of not being there for the final race. But I was worried for nuthin, phew! lol It is so purdy!

My medal!

My medal!

I was coughing all day, doing my best to cough between takes of course lol I was doing really well until the last scene where I started losing control of the cough, the hot tea I’d be sipping all day to soothe my throat was no longer helping and I thought I’d have to ask for some cough drops (which I had brought, along with cough syrup and throat lozenges lol) but I managed to tough it out. On the way to practice I was sucking on cherry halls, the type with the cough syrup in the middle, to try to get the cough to stop. I was sorta ok during practice, I coughed all the way through it but was still able to paddle. I did notice that I had less stamina than normal, not sure if that was cause of the long day or the trouble breathing cause of the cough and congestion…I’m leaning to it being more because of the cough since the filming left me all energetic and psyched lol. However, by the time I got home from practice my voice was shot, totally 100% shot! I was a croaking frog, not pretty! *wrinkled nose* I spent today not talking lol I just stayed in and chilled in the hopes that would help my voice recover faster, I don’t think it will help much though cause I am coughing even more than before and the cough is what is causing the most damage to my throat – in my non medical opinion lol 😛 Hopefully it goes away soon, if not for me than for the cat, every time he tries to cuddle with me I cough and it disturbs him, he’s been glaring at me a lot lol

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My Rio Tinto Alcan Weekend

23 Jun

This past weekend was the biiiiiig dragon boat festival! We spend all season gearing up for this festival, training! training! training! Rio Tinto is the largest dragon boat festival in North America, teams comes from all over the world to compete, it is a big thing in the dragon boat world.

I absolutely love this festival! Not only are there 160 dragon boat teams competing against each other for coveted medals there are food vendors, booths set up with free samples, coupons, random information about all sorts of topics, live performances, this festival has it all! It is one of things I look forward to all year.

All us dragon boaters will be the first to admit that unless you know someone in a race watching dragon boat racing can be a bit, um, boring…I know! It sounds horrible to say but it’s true. Each race heat can take what seems like forever to get set up because you can’t tell from the shore how much the tide has moved the boats as they try to line up or any of the other random things that can happen that make the start of the race be delayed. That’s why having all the on shore entertainment helps, it keeps people entertained when they stop being quite so entertained by the races lol

The weather on Saturday was perfect! Sunny, warm but not boiling hot, abso beautiful! 🙂 I’ve competed at this festival when the weather is cold and pouring rain so the warmth and sun was much appreciated lol. I of course was coating my exposed skin in 110spf sunscreen and wearing long sleeves and pants, oh and a hat! lol I look like I hate the sun, and I kinda do because of how easily I burn, but I also don’t, I just hate the UV rays that try to not-so-slowly turn me in to a lobster, shrug.

Our race times on Saturday were strong, 2:06 then 2:05. They put us in a nice solid position for day two of racing which (obviously) is important.

Sadly I can’t tell you much about Sunday, sigh. By the time I went to bed Saturday I had a fever, no voice and an upset stomach. I kept telling myself “you are not sick, you’re just tired” but no matter how many times I said that to myself I really was sick, not just tired, sigh. I woke up in the morning after a night of crappy sleep to the realization I was too sick to paddle, heck, I was too sick to get out of bed. 😦 I debated still going, pushing myself, I was hoping maybe I would feel better once I was up and moving and there but I know better than that, if I can’t manage to get to the sink to get a glass of water no way I can keep up in a race piece and no way in hell am I going to risk my team winning a race because I insist on being on the boat. Damn self-sacrificing instincts, sigh.

I got text updates from teammates during the day and I was glad to hear how much fun they were having even though I was curled up miserable on my living room chair. Then the best news of all came, they won Silver in B Division! I’m so proud of them! I don’t know what the actual finish time was but I know it had to have been awesome lol 🙂

One of my teammates posted this to our facebook wall:

“Of the SIXTEEN teams that raced above us in both A Rec Consolation, and A Rec Championship, there were only THREE times faster than ours — 1 in Consolation, and 2 in Championship. Our time bested 13 of the 16 teams in A Division”

How amazing is it that our time was only beat by three other teams! *shock face*

I didn’t take any pictures of the festival on the Saturday because I was planning on taking them all on the Sunday, a decision I now greatly regret, sigh. So here are some pictures I stole from facebook and the media images that were used in papers and websites…that’s right! We made it in to media footage!

one of my teammates medals resting on his jersey

one of my teammates medal resting on his jersey

that's our caller and the first two rows of the boat (left side) in the final race

that’s our caller and the first two rows of the boat (left side) in the final race

Normally I sit second bench left side but since I wasn’t there on the Sunday I am not in this picture, my good friend KR is though and she looks awesome! 🙂

we are the team with the white sleeves

we are the team with the white sleeves

So there we have it, it was an awesome weekend, the parts of it I got to experience and the parts of it I missed. I’m really bummed I wasn’t there with my team to win the medal but I’m so so so happy for them and proud of how great they did! 🙂

Only 362 days until the start of next years Rio Tinto dragon boat festival…not that I’m counting or anything… 😉

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30 Day Squat Circuit Challenge Revisited

27 May

I can’t believe I am giving this another try, ugh, but heeeeere we go, I am once again doing the 30 Day Squat Circuit Challenge. It is the one that looks like this…

Here we go again!

Here we go again!

The reason I am doing it again is because our dragon boat coach wants us all in better shape, I am ok with that because being in better shape is always a good thing and being extra motivated by an outside source can be helpful to keeping you on track, in my opinion anyways, but still…sometimes going through something with someone else makes it easier. 🙂

I posted to my team’s facebook page the Squat Circuit Challenge and asked if anyone else wanted to do it at the same time as me, I got a handful of people who said yes they would which was great! It also meant I couldn’t back out, or put it off since I said in the facebook post what day I was going to start, I was being held accountable right from the beginning! Ack!

So far I am on day 8 which is a rest day, yippee! lol I missed day 6 so on day 7 I did the squats for both days 6 and 7, just an fyi, I don’t recommend that, it wasn’t fun… 😛

To be honest, I’m not finding the squats hard, right now my lack of motivation is fueled by boredom, doing squats is boring. Standing there, doing squats while watching tv or listening to music or whatever, it’s just…well, boring, shrug. I have no better word for it…

I didn’t make it through the 30 day Squat Circuit Challenge last time, I got sick part way through, missed too many days because of being sick and quit it. I had fully intended to start it up again after I was better but I didn’t. I wish I had an awesome reason for you for why I didn’t but I don’t, it was pure not-wanting-to-do-it-ness and nothing else. Well, maybe a bit of knee pain but that is inconsequential.

This time I am determined! I have teammates doing the same thing as I, we can encourage each other, hold each other accountable and maybe even help it be less boring! *crosses fingers*

When I didn’t finish it last time I was super annoyed with myself, I have completed every 30 day challenge I have tried and I knew if I hadn’t gotten sick I would have kept going and finished. First I was annoyed because I got sick, then I was annoyed that when I was better I didn’t get right back to it, can anyone say lazy? *rolls eyes*

I guess I’m hoping to redeem myself a bit by re-challenging myself. Cause hey, just because I say I know I can do it, until I actually do it, the words mean nothing. So bring it on 30 Day Squat Circuit Challenge! Bring.It.On.

If I was a cat, this would be my determined face.

If I was a cat, this would be my determined face.

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I Literally Missed The Boat

20 May

My day was going so well, slept in, had a yummy breakfast wrap, finished a book I am reading, chilled with the cat, got ready in plenty of time to leave for dragon boat practice aaaaaaand that is where the good day ended, sigh.

I couldn’t find my keys. How is it possible I couldn’t find my keys?? I put them in the same spot every time I come home but apparently yesterday I didn’t put them in their spot and I got screwed over today. double sigh.

It took so long to find them I missed practice, I literally missed the boat, by about an hour and a half. Oops? I felt like such an idiot. I tore apart pretty much everything in my apartment trying to find them, it was ridiculous. Having to text a team mate to say I wasn’t going to be able to make practice because I couldn’t find my keys…who does that?? *rolls eyes*

When the latest time I could leave and still get to practice came and went I was slightly less frantic in my searching, not like finding them would get me to the boat on time anymore, but obviously I had to keep looking otherwise I’d be in the same predicament tomorrow. I figured if I was tearing the place apart I might as well clean it while I was tearing so by the end of the night I had a clean apartment and keys. Yay! lol

I am going to pretend that the cleaning counted as some sort of exercise, even if I didn’t work up a sweat lol Right after I was done I did a bunch of squats so I feel that should count for something, at least a little something…maybe?

My brekkie wrap, Mmm!

My brekkie wrap, Mmm!

Some info about the breakfast wrap I ate today, it was super delish! There is one triangle of laughing cow cheese spread on a whole wheat tortilla, then a slice of white cheese (don’t judge! I like cheese! lol), two slices of turkey bacon, lettuce, salsa, half an avocado and an over easy egg. It doesn’t stay closed unless I am holding it which is why the pic is of the wrap when open lol The avocado was a massive treat! I have a bunch of foods I don’t buy anymore cause I am strapped for cash and avocados are one of them, this one was given to me by a friend yesterday and boy did I enjoy it! 🙂

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Insomnia Much?

20 Apr

I have not been sleeping well at all, ugh. Which is ridiculous cause sleeping is one of the things I do best! Well, after 3am it is lol I have always been a night owl so going to bed prior to 2am is a chancy thing, I will most likely toss and turn wondering why I am wasting time lying in bed when I could be doing countless other things. If I go to bed around 3am odds are decent I’ll fall asleep in a more acceptable length of time. However, going to bed at 3am is not a smart thing to do when you have to be up at 5:30am for work. sigh.

It’s not just last night though, it’s the past week, I just haven’t been sleeping well. Not only do I have a ridiculous time falling asleep, once I am asleep I’m not staying there, I wake up throughout the night and my dreams are weird, and not entertaining weird but disturbing weird…normally I like dreaming, I have vivid dreams that tell a story in a chronological order, it’s like watching tv that my mind makes up, it’s awesome! But not this past week, nope, just weird annoying dreams.

When the alarm goes off and I finally get up I don’t feel rested but I don’t particularly want to go back to sleep cause sleep just ain’t doin nuthin for me lol 😛

insomnia

I’m not really sure how to deal with this, so my approach to the problem has been to try to wear myself out so I will sleep better. Let me just say that so far, it isn’t working. 😦

Yesterday my dragon boat team had a fundraiser, friends and family could pay $10 and come dragon boating with members of the team, get a feel for it, have some fun on the water, see what it is all about. It went great! The team raised money, the people who came out had lots of fun, I invited a friend and her two daughters and they loved it! I am now considered even cooler than I already was in their ranking system, and hey, I didn’t even have to bribe them with chocolate! lol 😉

I thought for sure being up early for that, then putting in a full shift at work would wear me out and I’d have a great sleep last night. Ha-bloody-ha!

That so didn’t happen! *pout*

I was super tired when I got home but could I sleep? Nope. Just lay there, couldn’t get comfy, tossed and turned much to the cats annoyance until I eventually drifted off only to be woken repeatedly through the night by absolutely nothing at all *groan* then the alarm goes off at 5:30am and I didn’t even bother with hitting snooze cause what is the point? I didn’t hit snooze! You probably don’t realize how big of a deal this is but let me explain, snooze and I, we have a complex relationship where snooze promises me ten more minutes of precious sleep so I can finish a dream but not be late for work and in exchange I don’t break the alarm. It may be a mildly threatening relationship where snooze cowers in fear of failing and then being beat, but hey, it works for us. 😉

So now it is a little after 10pm, I am tired but not, I want to go to bed cause I have to be up early tomorrow for work and I want to make sure I am rested enough to go hiking after work buuuuut a big part of me is wondering why even bother going to bed when I know I’ll just lay there, jealous of the cat who instantly falls asleep as soon as his head touches a surface. The brat. 😛

 

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