2008 Montreal Dragon Boat Regatta

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. Much has happened, so it will take a few entries before I will be able to fully update everyone with what is going on with me these days

First, I would like to talk about the latest competition I attended, the Montreal International Dragon Boat Regatta or, amongst dragonboaters “Montreal” as it is affectionately known. For those that don’t know much about this regatta, it is a 2 day event with roughly 150 teams participating. Factor in that each team has at least 21paddlers plus a cox as well as a couple “spare” paddlers you can just imagine how large this event can be. That’s at least 3300 paddlers! Not to mention all the spectators, vendors, staff and volunteers in the area! Rankings are from A Division to G Division (or to the end of the alphabet if there were more teams). As well, each Division was then split into 3 categories, Premiere, Intermediate and Rookie. Since most of the top teams were not in attendance as they were in Penang, Malaysia for the 2008 6th World Club Crew Championships, the competition was a bit watered down. As a result, some teams that don’t normally “belong” in the A Division category was subsequently ranked as such in this regatta. There were also other “special” races such as the Women’s Division, Men’s Division, Out of Town Race, and Financial Cup to name just a few. Last year, when I raced with the Corporate team, we also participated in the Women’s Division, Out of Town Race as well as the Financial Cup. This year, I did not race in the Women’s Division. However, unbeknown to the Corporate team I was on last year, my team also raced in the Out of Town race as well as the Financial Cup since our team was sponsored by an insurance brokerage firm. They were quite surprised when they saw who they were racing against. Victory never tasted so sweet <insert evil laugh, MUWAHAHAHAHAHA and freaky suspense music here>.

All in all, there was still some pretty decent competition. I am happy to say that my team performed very well that weekend. Although, we did have a rocky start on the first day. I’m pretty sure I can speak for the rest of the team when I say that we were not very happy with the way we performed in our first race. In a nutshell, we just weren’t prepared and focused. One paddler was late and ended up not paddling. Coach SM ended up filling in and he was definitely not happy about that as he said this was the first time he’s raced in 2 years. As well, many paddlers in the boat said they did not hear the referee give the signal to go. Fortunately, I’ve raced at this particular regatta before so I am well aware as to how some of the referees “operate”. There is very little time between when the referee says, Paddles Up! (meaning get your freaking paddle ready to race!) and GO!! Since many in the boat were not ready, our Start was affected and subsequently we did not perform as well as we should have. In fact, there was at least 1 team there that beat us when we know we’ve beaten them before. However, we still ranked 3rd in this race but we were pretty unhappy about it. After the race was over, Coach SM debriefed us on our performance. I won’t go into the details except to say that everyone, including Coach SM and the late paddler all felt extremely bad and upset that we performed so poorly. We all felt we needed to do a lot better in our next race and that is exactly what we did.

I got sat out in one race, the second race that is, as I think Coach SM was concerned about my performance. I’ll have to back track here a bit. About a week before Montreal, during a practice I had a severe asthma attack. At that time, we were getting quite a few hot spells. Usually when the weather is this hot, I am not outside at all. My asthma is triggered by the environment as well as Smog. Any extreme temperatures, hot or cold agitates my asthma A LOT. Normally, when it’s this hot, I stay inside in a very air conditioned room. However, since we were ramping up for Montreal, we were all pushing ourselves to do well in practice. I was just finishing up my TCRs and went up to Coach SM to tell him what my time was. I was only able to tell him once and then I had to grab my inhaler as I felt the all to familiar constricting feeling in my lungs. For those that don’t know what it feels like to be asthmatic, the best way I can describe it is that you literally feel like you are breathing through a straw. As well, and I don’t know if this is part of my asthma or something else, I also feel like there is a huge weight on my chest. Almost like someone put a big heavy cement block on my chest and thereby preventing me from breathing. Sometimes, when it gets really bad I start to cry. Which is what I did that day. I absolutely hate it when I get emotional or cry in front of people and try my best not to do it. However, when you do see me crying because of my asthma you can be certain I am in pain. A few of my teammates came over to me to see if I was OK as well as Coach SM. In the end I was fine. However, Coach SM asked me if I wanted to sit in the front of the boat or the back. I requested to be in the back in case I need to stop paddling for a bit. I am pretty sure that is why Coach SM put me in the back of the boat for Montreal. I’m fine with that as it was also very hot that weekend. One thing I do like about Coach SM is that he moves people around in the boat. He already knows that I can paddle in the front of the boat as well as in the back. This is great as it makes a lot of paddlers versatile and more valuable. He not only switches people from front to back, some can switch sides from right to left and a few can also sit in stroke, Seat 1.

Back to our second race. Even though I was not in the race I sat on the sidelines and cheered us on while we raced. It was definitely an exciting race to watch. For about half of the race, we just dominated everyone. We were at least half a boat if not a whole boat ahead. Then, the boat in the lane next to us, called their Finish early. Calling a Finish early is risky. The cox or coach really needs to know their team well. If they call it too early, their boat can tire out too early and subsequently will have nothing left to “finish the race.” When that boat called their Finish, they started to inch up and was quickly making good ground on us. Alas, they were still no match to us. As soon as we called our Finish, our boat just surged ahead. It was absolutely fascinating to see it on the sidelines as I am usually in the boat. It wasn’t a quick surge ahead. It looked like there was a very deliberate push from the boat inching forward towards the finish line. Of course, we won that race. I was so proud. Later on, I found out that our Sponsor’s son was watching the race. He was quite cute as he was so enthusiastic about the sport. Apparently, he was running with the boat and was cheering us on and was so excited when he found out we won that race. We all felt like we were back in the game and were determined to not repeat the same mistake we did in our first race of the day.

The third and fourth race was interesting as they were the Financial Cup as well as the Out of Town Race. As I said previously, my old Corporate team was not aware that my team would be racing in the Financial Cup. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they realized they would be racing against us. Priceless.

Our Start was a little rocky. However, at some point in the race my cox yells at us to “smarten the f*!*k up” which we quickly did. One thing I haven’t mentioned are the distances of each race. Each race is 500 meters. For some races, such as the Financial Cup and Out of Town Cup, the distance is only 250 meters. There are specific strategies for each type of race. In a 250 meter race, it feels very much like sprinting the entire time as the distance is so short. So really, it feels like you are going all anaerobic (think of it as running as fast as you can, and I mean REALLY as fast as you can, for as long as possible. Yeah, that’s what it feels like.) There really isn’t much time for a Transition (the middle part of the race) and so really, you don’t feel it as much in the boat. However, in a 500 meter race you can really feel the difference between the Start, the Transition and the Finish. And yes, you are still going all anaerobic in a 500 meter race too. In the Finish, Coach SM would say to us, I want you to keep giving me everything you got when you think you have nothing left to give. Now THAT’S what I call giving it your all.

I was very happy with the result of both our races, the Financial Cup and the Out of Town Cup as we won both of them. In the Financial Cup there were actually 2 heats. We were in the first heat and we clearly won that heat. Coach SM went up to me before the race and asked me how I was feeling. I think he wanted to make sure I was OK and I wasn’t going to have another asthma attack. I told him I was good and I wanted to be in this race. It’s personal. Coach SM said he didn’t want me to do the race because I wanted to do it. He needed to know if I was able to do it. I said, oh definitely. I’ve been itching to do this race and said, the anticipation is THERE. As well, I’ve been staying cool and hydrated throughout the day. He was very happy with my response as that’s what he wants everyone to feel. In his words he said, “good, I like that!” You need to be ready physically and mentally during a race. You have to be so on edge anticipating and just itching for that gun to go off. For me, it was personal. I wanted to win this race. Specifically I wanted to beat my old Corporate team. Looking at our times you could tell there wasn’t really any competition for us. We won that race and it definitely felt good. I wanted to beat my old Corporate team so bad and now I can say I did. Actually twice since my team was also in the Out of Town race too and we just blew everyone away. I was very happy with our results during our first day of racing. To me, the goal was to race well but also to beat my old Corporate team. And that, we did. One other thing I will say is that we were also in the “bad lane”. Meaning that some lanes have more of an advantage to them because of external forces that we can’t control (ie. THE WIND). Lane 6 is apparently the bad lane. Interestingly, we still won the race even though we were in the bad lane. Guess that means we are just a pretty good team .

The second day of racing we only had 2 races, a 500 meter race and a 250 meter race. Teams are seeded into the appropriate division as a result of their performance during the first day. As of the second day, my team was placed 7th overall out of about 150 teams. B Premiere Division. Not bad I would say. Interestingly, Coach SM thought we should have done better. The teams that we were racing against in our division really had “no business” racing against us since we already know that we are faster then them. Our performance in our first race the previous day really affected our ranking. That being said, I think that going in being 7th overall is still not bad. The 500 meter race felt good too. Again, I felt like we had no real competition. We won this race by at least 2 seconds. For those that are not familiar with the sport, a lot of races have teams beating others by a fraction of a second. So winning by 2 seconds is a LONG time. Our second race of the day, the 250 meter we did not perform as well as we should have. We came third in that race and so some of us were not happy that we ended the regatta on that note. Basically, what happened was that there was a delay in getting our race to start. One team had a broken boat so we were waiting for the organizers to get that sorted out. In the mean time, the organizers raced the A Division race before ours and so teams that were in our race basically had to wait until the A Division race completed. It was very frustrating since our warm up, on land and on the water was essentially wasted. By the end of the day, we were generally happy with the way we performed on the weekend. We won gold in the B Premier Division (500 meter), ranking 11th overall in the festival (out of about 150 teams), silver in the Financial Cup (but first in our heat), and gold again in the Out of Town Cup. Our sponsors were also quite happy with us as well. They made an announcement at the end of the day on Sunday that they had so much fun with us that they wanted to sponsor us again for next year. I was so excited when I heard this as this meant that I would be racing again next year in Montreal. I definitely had a fantastic time in Montreal. Both as an athlete racing as well as getting to know my team on a more personal level. This season I am really beginning to like my team as I get to know each one. Some things are surprising, in a good way, that I have learned about my team.

After Montreal, my last out of town regatta was Huntsville. This one was certainly an interesting if not fantastic story to tell. However, since I am half asleep I will have to continue on with that story another day. In the meantime, check out some of the pics that Coach SM took in Montreal as well as pics one of my teammates’ fiance took during our car ride up there.