We had our first dragon boat race in Pickering, Ontario! We've been training since fall of last year, building up our cardio, core, upper body and lower body strength doing circuit training. We recently started water training at at Sunnyside Paddling Club by the Toronto Harbourfront area.
These training sessions are grueling 2 hour practices of just continuos padding. On race day, however, the races last about 2.5 minutes, and we have a couple of hours rest between races. It as actually fun!
We left at 6 am to meet at the GO station where we shuttled from the station to the race location. It was interesting to see a lot of different teams.
We were in the "recreational" division and placed 2nd overall! Each race was preceded with some "pep" talk and advice from our team captain Simon. We'd review our technique before each race and ensure we were warmed up.
A lot of us were new to dragon boat, so we weren't sure of how we would perform but we ended up placing second!
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| Celebratory ice cream after a long day! |
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| Paddlebears shirt and logo! |
Yay go Paddlebears!! A city near me just started having a dragonboat festival last year, it looks like it would be a lot of fun, but last year and this year it was held on a Saturday and my husband works on a Saturday so I haven't been able to go... hopefully next year! I really want to see a Dragonboat race! Congrats on getting 2nd place!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Jess! I've never been to a dragonboat festival, I wonder if this upcoming race we have is one.
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