I think I might be sore...

Well I'm quite exhausted. Today was the highschool dragonboat races. Our school entered 2 teams and I was one of the "captains" or "coaches"...whatever you want to call it. Our teams had 2 practices in the past month and today was race day. I arrived at around 9 to make sure everything was set to go. There really was the potential for a lot to go wrong. We had 40 kids coming and they weren't on bus - they all had their own rides. Last night I dreamt that only half showed up and some got lost and it was just a disaster. I knew the day was going to be a good one when EVERYONE showed up, and EVERYONE was on time. (Well actually one group got lost but thanks to the fact that the races were delayed we all arrived in plenty of time!)

The first race of the day. I was so nervous - it's my competitive nature. As soon as there is something on the line I get somewhat intense. The boat that I was one raced first. We met in the marshaling area, then boarded the boat and headed out. Our start was great! We were cruising...but then we got cut off by the green SRSS boat to our right and we had to head towards shore. So everyone stopped and then we all started again. Despite getting of course we still finished the heat in third place with a time that I thought was very respectable at the time. The second boat raced shortly after us. They put out a strong showing. It was exciting being able to watch them and cheer them on.

After a considerable wait we were ready for our second race of the day. We were once again pitted against the team the cut us off in our initial race. Time for revenge. We had something to prove - and we did just that. Our team was solid that race - we pulled away from the competition and won by a significant margin. Once the race was over we learned that we had just finished the race in a time of 2:24. This was a full 8 seconds better than our first race...and it happened to end up being the second fastest time from any boat when all the heats were over! How impressive and how proud I am of those kids!!

To make the stories from a long day short...they averaged the two heat times for every boat to determine who we would race in the playoffs. Our boat finished fourth overall (out of 24). We were in the first playoff heat. The second boat finished 12th overall - something to be proud of. So we were under the impression we had a bit of a break so half of our boat headed to subway for a well deserved meal. Little did we know that they were no longer taking a break. Half our boat was missing when we were being called to the marshaling area. It was stressful...but they ran back from subway and got back JUST before we loaded the boat. We were all a little tired and frazzled but still made an impressive showing in the final race. We finished fourth in our heat, but our time was still an impressive 2:26. It turned out being the fourth best time overall...but because of the setup we didn't get into the championship final (cause they choose top teams from the playoff heats). The other boat was impressive in the playoffs as well - probably racing the best the did all day. ANYWAYS...the day was great - the kids were AMAZING. I am honored to be associated with such a fine group. They were excellent representatives for the school and community.

I have lots of pictures from the event but I can't really post too many of them - because I don't know if some people would appreciate seeing pics of them posted on some random web page...so I did some cropping and now you get to see me...I apologize. I'm tired though, and ya, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be quite sore tomorrow and probably the whole week. Good thing I took a personal day on Friday - I'm definitely going for a massage!!