Tag Archives: dragon boating

Shortest Day Ever

21 Jul

Yesterday I was up and out of the house earlier then normal for me, I was out most of the day, then came home in time to chill for a bit before going to boxerfit class (where my ass was kicked!), then I was home again and up stupid late for no reason. By the time I got to bed I fell asleep crazy fast (a nice change from usual).

Well, today my alarm went off at 11am but I turned it off and rolled back over (yawn), the next time I woke up it was…3:30pm! Can you believe it? Even I think that is late! ack, I slept the whole day away…oops.

I got up right away, showered etc and decided I might just have enough time to eat and get to this evenings boxerfit class…I was feeling (and am still feeling) lots of muscle pain and the idea of going to exercise was making me grimace but what could I do? I gotta lose weight so I gotta exercise.

By the time I had eaten it was crunch time but I just couldn’t make myself move fast enough and I realized something, it was already after 5pm and I had only just eaten my first meal (which was 7 points), that meant there wasn’t much day left but lots of points left…hmm…and! if I went to boxerfit class I’d earn 7 exercise points (which I know I don’t have to eat but I usually eat a couple of them if my exercise was particularly intense cause I feel my body needs the extra energy) so how the heck was I gonna eat all those points when there was barely any day left??

This all culminated into the perfect reason to not go to boxerfit class lol. 😛 I actually really wanted to go, well sorta, but the points stuff combined with my muscle pain and feeling of total exhaustion made it easy for me to convince myself to not go. *rolls eyes* I swear, someone should pay me to come up with excuses for things, I do a great job! 😉

So here I am, it’s amost 9pm and I’ve eaten 14 points, only 6 points left to eat to reach my daily points and I am sure I will manage it lol.

Now the question is, tomorrow, do I go to a make up Dragon Boating training session or do I go to BoxerFit class? I get a better workout with the boxerfit class but I want to have the best rowing form I possibly can since there is a race coming up for my dragon boating team. Tomorrow isn’t the only chance I will have to attend a make up session for the boating which is making me lean towards the boxerfit class instead, it may be painful but I leave there covered in sweat and knowing I really earned my exercise points, and, it’s an all over body workout whereas dragon boating is more the upper back and core muscles…not so much the legs or arms and I gotta work the whole body not just sections of it…well look at that, I seem to have talked myself in to the higher intensity boxerfit class instead of the easier and more fun dragon boating, who’d of thought that would happen? 😛

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What Happened There?

27 Jun

So I don’t know what happened but the entry I wrote on Saturday didn’t get posted, it stayed as Draft even though I clicked the Publish button. hmmm. Don’t know why that happened but nothing I can really do about it now – except for Publish it now, which I have done. shrug. 😛

Today was the first week back to Dragon Boating, well, technically the first week of the new training sessions was last week but I was in AB and KL was working so we both resumed our training this week. It was so much fun but way harder then our first chunk of training. This team is a lot more serious, it’s still fun but it’s not a “fun league” it’s a team that wants to win at the next festival which means lots of hard work has to get done. We focused mostly on technique tonight and a bit on timing. What I noticed was the most different was in our old team’s training we’d paddle for a short distance while the coach watched us then she’d stop and talk for a bit about technique, timing, tips, stuff like that – there was more resting and we paddled for shorter distances. Which kinda set us up for harshness at the festival since we weren’t used to paddling the full 500km but oh well.

So tonight, we’d paddle and the coach would yell tips to us instead of stopping and talking to us and as a result we’d paddle for way longer distances – which I know is good cause we need to get used to the distance and build our muscles but man oh man was it harder then what I was used to. lol. I am pretty certain I will be feeling the exertion of today tomorrow! 😀  <— how sick is it that I smile big at the thought that tomorrow I will feel muscle pain?? lol.

KL and I went out for sushi after boating to play catch up since first I was out of town and then she was out of town and it’s weird for us to go 2 weeks without seeing each other. I didn’t really bother with trying to pick uber healthy stuff, I just wanted to enjoy myself but I don’t think I did too too badly. 🙂 Before I went out I had my regular Special K and two pieces of toast, I didn’t get to have my fruit cause I ran out, oops. lol.

The sushi, let’s see, I got this eggplant appetizer that I thought didn’t sound too unhealthy, well, when it came out it turned out it was battered and fried so any health benefits from the eggplant or mushrooms that were in it were gone, lol. It was tasty but not so tasty I will order it again so that’s good. Oh, an even better part of it is that it was a small portion and KL had a piece so I didn’t really eat all that much of it – I think there were 6 little bite sized pieces total and I only ate 5. I had one cube of fried tofu (that was KL’s appie) so tofu = good, fried = bad…lol. I had a salmon maki roll, there were 6 pieces, man I love salmon!

My big bad was my specialty roll, I can’t even remember what was in it, lol, I know it had a mayo sauce drizzled around it and I am guilty of dipping my rolls in it. 😛 There was shrimp tempura and some other kind of seafood in the roll and it was topped with shredded seaweed, oh, there was cucumber in there, and I think avocado too…the shrimp tempura part is the worst part of it I think, I mean, hello? Deep fried? Bad! But sooooo tasty lol. Then, just to make it worse, we split an ice cream sundae which when we ordered it I envisioned a classic sunday in those long dishes, well, Japanese restaurants don’t do that lol. This was in a martini glass, the bottom had corn flakes in it, then three small scoops of ice cream, one on top of the other in the middle, surrounded by fresh strawberries and blueberries, a small amount of whipping cream and 3 cream puffs, oh, and the whole thing was topped off with a chocolate cookie. 🙂

The amount of ice cream used total for the sundae was maybe half a cup and one scoop I didn’t like the flavour at all so really, I ate about 1 small scoop total of the ice cream, I had 1 whole strawberry and I managed to snag about 4 blueberries, I will confess to eating the corn flakes, well those I could nab before KL ate them. lol. Oh, and I got half the cookie and 1 cream puff. *eyebrow wiggle* Only crazy people don’t eat cream puffs! 😉 So really, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been…bless restaurants that have small portions, they are a rarity but I love em. 😀

So sure, what I ate was more points then what I should have eaten, even with exercising today but it was tasty and it was nice getting to catch up with KL.

I was lazy all but one day over the past week, I am hoping starting this week with dragon boating will be the boot in the ass I need to get back to my daily exercising. I can’t believe I got so lazy about it! Ack! Weather permitting I will hike everyday this week, honest! Also, I will do my bestest to get to 2 boxerfit classes or more this week, I seem to have bad luck when it comes to getting to that class so I am aiming for only 2 classes this week in the hopes I will be able to manage that. lol.

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My Dragon Boating Weekend

13 Jun

Oooooh man, what a weekend! 😀 The 11th and 12th were the Dragon Boating Festival and for the first time I was a part of it. I can’t wait for next year!

Lemme tell ya, dragon boaters are their own special breed, lol. They work hard and they party harder – which is sweeeeet!

Both sat and sun KL and I (well, our whole team as well as other teams) had to be at the Paddler’s Village way early in the morning, on sat we were there at 7:30am and sun we got to sleep in and didn’t have to be there until 8:15am, oooooh, soooo late! 😉 hehe. We were there until 4:30pm or so on the sat, we could have stayed later cause the races weren’t all done for the day but we were finished with our races and we wanted to come chill at my place (she stayed the night), sunday we didn’t leave till after the paddler’s party in the evening so I got home about 12:45am…a looooong day! 😛

Keeping in mind this was our teams first time racing and we had only practiced together as a team 4 times so don’t expect this post to be a story of how we won a medal, lol, cause we so didn’t! We came in 88th out of 100 teams – my competitive side wants to say that totally blows and how embarassing but the realistic side of me says we could have done worse and hey, we were the least trained team there so at least we beat some teams! 😀

I’ve never been involved in a competitive sport like this before, where you go and compete against other teams from around the world and when you’re not on the water competing every team is friendly with each other because it’s this small community, shrug, it was weird but nice. Heck, even when on the water the teams are friendly towards each other, well, before and after the actual race, during the race you’re so focused on your boat you don’t even have time to look at the other boats let alone think of them. lol.

The weather on sat was cloudy but warm, the sun didn’t really come out until a bit before our second race, so around 2pm or so? I put sun screen on but sadly, I missed a couple spots near my hairline and just above my eyebrows so I got burned, sigh. That wouldn’t be sooooo bad but sunday was bright and sunny but coolish (figures! lol) and even though I had sunscreen slathered on all frickin day I burned! Totally ended up with racoon eyes, ow! What’s worse of all though is my freckles are darker, grr! I tried to be careful with my arms cause our team shirts had regular t-shirt length sleeves so I didn’t want part of my arms to be darker then the rest (by darker I of course mean the freckles are darker, not the actual skin, once the red fades from a burn it goes back to it’s normal uber pale colour). I almost managed it…almost…today I noticed in the mirror that the freckles below the sleeve line are darker, sigh, but hopefully if I keep them covered the rest of the summer they will go pale again quickly. Man I hate the sun. *rolls eyes*

Sunday night was the Paddler’s Party in the beer gardens, the ticket covered the price of 2 beers so everyone was drinking! Even though the beers were $5 each that didn’t stop people from goin crazeeee, oh, there was wine as well but nobody was drinking that, lol. So the beer was flowing, people are yapping away, then the bongs came out, yup, bongs. Two seperate teams brought them, one was a standard looking bong, the other had 3 spouts so 3 people at one time could chug – I’ve never seen that before, quite the contraption. 😛 I did not do the bong, it’s not my thing and besides, I was only drinking a tiny bit since I was gonna hafta drive later, lame but oh well, KL however was not driving later and she was already quite drunk by the time the bongs were pulled out so she decided she wanted to do one. lol. I of course, being the good friend that I am, took pictures that I am going to post on facebook. teehee.

Everyone had a killer time at the party, and sure, part of that was the beer, but a big part was just the comraderie of a group of people who may be completely different from each other in all kinds of ways but they have one awesome thing in common and that has brought them together for a weekend of fun. 😀

I woke up this morning feeling like death and all I wanted to do was sleep some more, lol, 4 races in 2 days is a lot for muscles that aren’t that used to it yet – plus the dancing at the party used all kinds of muscles cause lemme say, the dancing was not the tame kind at all! Oh yea, the party had a dj, sorry, forgot to mention that. Plus, my throat was way sore from all the yelling etc but it was all worth it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat! I’ll actually be doing it all again, but on a smaller scale, in about 10 weeks, yah! 😀

My food was not all that great this weekend – it started off ok and then tanked. KL is a great friend but a horrible food influence, sigh. Sat I had oatmeal for breakfast, but after that KL and I ended up at a pancake breakfast fundraiser (a team is trying to get the funds to go to a race in San Francisco) so I ate 3 pancakes, I didn’t really have lunch but I did snack on some grapes and had a small soft serve ice cream cone in a waffle cone with a half sized flake chocolate stuck in it – yum! I drank water all day so that’s all good at least. Now that may not seem so bad but after we left the racing area we decided to get dinner and neither of us had the energy to cook so we ordered food from White Spot, man I love that restaurant. I got a bbq burger with cheese, it came with yam fries, coleslaw and a root beer. Oh my. Then Sunday, started off with a Hearty Medley’s, I resisted the pancakes but we ate lunch on Sunday at the village and sadly, there were no healthy options, shrug. I did my best, got a wrap with taco style ground beef in it, lettuce, grilled veggies, salsa, little bit of shredded cheese and sour cream – way delish! Then later an even smaller ice cream then the day before, um, a bunch of beer, and then when trying to minimize the effects of the beer 2 apricots, a peach, a granola bar, a heck of a lot of water…and then KL and I (again) bought dinner, we went to this place she swears has the best burgers in the world, and it’s true, they are awesome but oh man, two burgers in two days? My tummy may never forgive me for this, *shakes head*. It was huuuuuge! And had crispy onion strings on it and cheese, oy, oh and of course it came with fries! lol. I couldn’t finish the burger but I ate almost all of it and had some of the fries, sigh. Way tasty but I told her it was so bad for me (the whole menu is horrible, it’s the only menu I’ve seen that doesn’t even attempt to have something healthy on it!) I would only eat there at most 2 times a year – cause, dude, that just so doesn’t fit in to my points! lol.

Today I was back to basics. I didn’t exercise due to scheduling issues but I am at 19.5 points for the day and not even tempted to snack on something to eat that extra half point – I think I may still be digesting from last nights dinner! hehe.

I’ll be hiking for sure tomorrow and then going to acting class in the evening – wednesday I will be driving to Alberta so no exercise that day and who knows what will happen food wise – I am hoping I’ll manage to eat fairly healthy cause I hafta be super good this week to make up for the weekend, *scared face* I finally managed to lose that weight I managed to put on when I was in Alberta over Easter (and just after Easter) and what do I do? I eat like a maniac over the course of 2 days and probably gained it all back. sigh.

The weekend was such a great time – who would have thought I’d enjoy it so much? Looks like I am becoming an active person after all…if that can happen, well, anything can! 😛

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Is it really Sunday night already?

8 May

Where did the weekend go? I knew it was going to be busy (for the most part) but I swear Sunday night always appears out of nowhere to surprise me. It’s my least favourite time of the week, cause technically it’s still a relaxing chill-your-time-is-your-own time but you have to do boring responsible things, like get your lunch for work the next day ready to go, and finish up any last minute things you didn’t get done, and you have to at least pretend to go to bed at a reasonable time cause you hafta be up early the next day…there are oh so many reasons to hate Sunday night, sigh.

But let’s not focus on the suckyness that is Sunday night, instead let’s look back at the fun that has been had over the past couple days – way better use of time! 🙂

Friday night was my first Dragon Boat lesson – it was soooooo sweeeeeet! 😀 I went with KL and we had a kick ass great time. I was a tad worried my elbow and knees might make it not fun cause I thought they might get too strained cause of being injured but all joints and wounds held up just fine. It started at 6pm but it was suggested we get there early to fill out paperwork, get a locker, all that kind of stuff. Also, earlier that day I got an email from one of the organizers with a list of recommended clothing to wear…the last contact had just said wear something you don’t mind getting a little wet but this list was quite specific which kinda sucked cause neither KL nor I owned any of the stuff on the list. Figures right?

So KL met me at my work and we went to Sportmart to see what we could find – we each got a waterproof shell jacket and biking gloves…we both decided to skip the shell pants as we looked ridiculous in them and hello? fashion first right? 😉 lol There was a bunch of other stuff on the list but we both decided we didn’t want to go overboard with specialized clothing since we didn’t even know if we’d like the dragon boating, no use stocking up on supplies for something we might only do for 4 weeks right?

We got there early, signed in, got a locker and realized we didn’t have time to eat dinner before it started – oh well. The session is 2 hours long but since this was the first one we didn’t spend all 2 hours on the water, first we had to get suited up, get taught the paddling technique, all that kind of stuff. I feel I should mention that it was pouring rain this entire time, Pouring!! We weren’t even in the boats yet and we were soaked…well, our shoes were soaked, and our pants were wet, our upper bodies were nice and dry thanks to the shell jackets we had bought lol.

I don’t have a lot of experience with water based sports…well, sports in general really, but water based ones for sure. I am from the prairies, I like the land. 🙂 I didn’t even think about how when we got to the boat we’d be sitting on seats that had been exposed to the rain this entire time…soooo, my first sensation after getting settled in my spot was “wow, my pants have totally soaked through and now my ass is wet…and cold” Pleasant sounding huh? 😉

The rowing was lots of fun, turns out it’s more of a core exercise then arms cause yes our arms will apparently get all nice n toned but the strength to paddle comes from the twisting motion you make with your middle so if you’re rowing correctly you’ll feel it in your abs, waist, that whole area whereas if you are doing it wrong you’ll feel it in your arms. I felt it in my arms at first and realized I wasn’t twisting correctly so I focused really hard on the twist and timing and boom! my waist and abs started singing! Yah! 😀 Afterwards KL and I went to get dinner, we decided to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory since it is close and cheap and you get a hell of a lotta food – well, seems like dragon boating kicks your appetite in to full gear cause we went through 2 of the free loaves of bread, I ate my entire salad, then we split our entrees so we could each have two things lol. I ordered the Seafood Linguine Alfredo and she got the Vegetarian Lasagne; both were good but I wouldn’t order either one again. shrug. Then! after all that food we skipped the free ice cream and instead ordered a spice cake that is covered in liquid caramel and a scoop of vanilla ice cream! So much food!

Saturday I had an audition for a independent (read that as non paying) web series, the audition went really well and I had lots of fun but I’m trying not to think about it cause I don’t know when call backs are, then I had some chilling time before going to work. The shift I was covering was 8:15p sat night to 2:15am sunday morning but it ran an hour longer so I made some decent coin. 🙂 However this meant I wasn’t in bed until almost 5am so I slept a nice chunk of sunday away, called my mom for mother’s day, showered, ate nibblies, and have pretty much been glued to the couch ever since. lol. I am alternating between watching tv, reading a book and being online. Lazy? Sure. Relaxing? Yup!

A bonus from dragon boating, all day saturday my abs hurt! Yah! The kind of hurt you get when you worked a muscle group and your body really felt it ya know? The good kind of hurt! 🙂 Everytime I coughed or sneezed or laughed I also had to groan cause I caused myself pain, so awesome!

I meant to bake today to take stuff in to work tomorrow but couldn’t be bothered, and really, I should have gone grocery shopping but again, can’t be bothered. I’m lazy today and I feel after getting beaten up thursday, rowing friday, and working late saturday I deserve a lazy-do-nothing kind of day. 🙂

The only sucky part of the weekend, besides the whole it-is-now-sunday-night thing is that I only lost 0.4lbs this week. I am happy I lost, don’t get me wrong, but I would have liked to lose more. I am not really surprised though cause all week I felt as if my body was holding on to it’s weight. That may sound stupid but I am a lot better at reading my body now and I can feel when it’s losing weight during the week and all last week I felt like I was hoarding weight even though I was eating healthy and not using my flex points. I used flex points friday, and saturday come to think of it, so my weigh in today (sunday) is not only reflecting all that food but also my body’s unwillingness to lose weight this week.

I don’t know why it’s doing this but all I can do is be strict with myself this coming week and try to make it do what I want. lol. We all know how easy that is huh? 😉

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