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DRAGON BOAT RACE 2006 Thanks to Jim for the photos and video and to Veronica for the write up. |
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A few memories from the Dragon Boat Racing. Just worked out how to connect my phone and laptop to download photos through Bluetooth - hence the delay! Some of the photos are of us, others are of the proper teams, including a video of one of them warming up! Apparently we've won a prize. I don't know what it's for and I haven't had time to pick it up yet but I will. A prize to the person who can guess what it's for. Paddles in! Jim
A view from the back of the field - a tale of Dragon boat racing Sunday 25th June 2006: A day without any running races … a day of lying in, reading the papers, of getting drunk the night before and not caring? Surely not us? … Certainly not us, highly tuned athletes, who believe every moment should be used to better our physical selves. That would be the day that we entered the British Dragon Boat Racing Cup in Nottingham. We arrived at 8.30am on the banks on the River Trent, and set up camp quickly. We looked so professional: Jim with his sunshade, Mick with his beer cooler and the Black's with their picnic blanket. We soon drew the attention of the other teams, as we strutted around showing off our Herculean physiques - that was until Colin turned up with his bumbag. And any last chance of intimidating the opposition vanished when the rest of the campers staggered in: looking bleary-eyed and desperate for another beer!! We knew then, what we know now - we were the whipping boys! However Jim and Ian were not going to let us go down without a fight. The competitive spirit was alive in them both, and tactics were drawn into play. In essence this involved getting all the heavy people into the middle section of the boat, by politely telling them they were the 'power house', and not because they were worried about the boat being up-ended by their sheer weight. Sue Smith and Jane were put together at the front, to set the pace of the stroke, leaving everyone else to fill in the remaining place. After Jim managed to charm a complete stranger into being our helm (oh-what-a-lovely-boy) it was time to race. I remember hearing the sound of the hooter, looking over at the other boats and thinking … 'we're going backwards'!! But no, it was an illusion - we were going forwards, just not at them same rate of knots as everyone else. One minute and nine seconds for 200m, on this first attempt, was not our best performance but we knew we could improve. Sue Black, who watched from the bank, was polite in her critique, but we all knew what went wrong - Pipe-cleaner Pete's arrhythmic drumming was to blame. Whoever said white men couldn't dance should have included bongo playing in that statement! A change of drummer was needed for the second race, and having noticed that most other teams used a child as their cox, we looked about for the most child-like member there. Powelly was too intoxicated to be trusted not to dive in off the seat, so Sue Smith was the perfect choice. With Jim and Ian setting the pace, this second race was more punishing than the first, taking a whole 8 seconds off - giving us a PB of 1 minute and 1 second. Surely we could round that down to less than one minute when you consider how we were handicapped by being placed on the far side of the river - a longer stretch of water I feel. Anyone would think we were deliberately put out of the way … I knew we intimidated them deep down. Fortunately we had a long break for lunch, so we could prepare ourselves for the 500m races. That lunchtime was a sight to behold. Everywhere you looked teams were warming up: running on the spot, performing tai-chi, having mass group hugs. Everywhere that is, apart from in our camp. Our camp seemed oddly deserted, since the majority of our camp had upped sticks and moved to the pub. Anyone would think that Marv, Rebecca, Nick and co. weren't as focused as those other teams. They were - they were refuelling for our sakes. Mick thought that the 500m would be our forté. Mick thought our stamina and aerobic training would be an advantage. Mick thought wrong. Our first attempt yielded a time of 2 minutes and 37 seconds, and a disbelief at how far 500m could be! Drastic times called for drastic measures - up stepped Elise 'the Voice' to cox us for our last race. We managed to take another second off our time - everyone was shocked at this considering our last valiant effort. Anyone would think someone was "sitting at the back, relaxing and just enjoying the ride"? Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day, and a big 'thanks' must go to Jim for organising it. I do feel the club should be proud of our achievements; after all we did beat the only other scratch team!! (Well technically we did) Veronica |
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