lunch wars

Snapping our lunches and texting each other the pics. I win!! Oh the things we entertain ourselves with :)

Or as G put it: "No, not competitive at all...you win... dork."

Yum.

just 9 weeks to marathon day

Thank god the snow is finally starting to melt.. we need to start doing outside runs if we hope to not only finish our 13.1s but also beat our previous times. This will be our third time doing the Burlington race, and we're going back to where we started. I'm doing the first leg, through town and the $%#&*! belt-line, and G will do the glorious finish along the lake-front bike path (where she'll get a shot of beer from the good folks at mile twenty-something). Feeling a little nostalgic, I decided to dig around in my photo albums to see if I couldn't bring back some memories of that virgin run.. oh yeah, that was a torturous but amazing day.. see.. we're smilin'! But looking at our bodies.. wow, have we come a long way since then! So cool to see it.

Our first marathon together (2-person relay) in 2008. Holy crap!

Second race video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Jba7TDOZY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Like a machine we are. If I haven't said this before, I CAN'T WAIT TO GET THIS BOAT OUT ON THE OPEN WATER!!!

So en route to practice this morning, we stop, as we usually do, at the border. A nice, Francais-speaking young guard greets us and asks us where we are going this morning.

"Oh," quips driver G, "to Canada." The guy just looks at her in disbelief. So she adds helpfully, "for dragonboat training."

"Where...?" he presses on.

"Oh, to St. Patrick, to the canal." Oh yeah, that clears it up. The guy is now considering what this girl might have had for breakfast. A canal? In 30-degree weather? And what kind of place is St. Patrick? The nuthouse she escaped from? He looks oddly at her again, as he scans the ID cards. Slowly, G begins to register the expression on his face. "Oh... it's indoors. We have an indoor facility there. We come every Saturday."

Whether that explained it or he just didn't want to deal with us, I don't know. But he moved on to the 'alcohol, tobacco, firearms, mace or pepper-spray' bit and shooed us away.

"Wait... " ponders G out loud, her brow furrowed with concentration, as we drive off, "did I just tell him we are going to Canada?" I am almost on the floor laughing at this point, glad to not be the ding-dong for once.

"Uh-huh" I splutter, unable to articulate anything more intelligible.

"OHHHHHH!!! HAAAAA...." and we both dissolve into fits of laughter.. that lasted pretty much the entire rest of the trip to the canal at St. Patrick in Canada. LOLOL.

Oh yeah.. relive the golden moment with us!

Here's a video of the first race in the final round that netted us the gold. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni9lJHjJbYs

Competition videos are starting to come out...

I love living in this day and age.. and youtube! If you want to see the live action... here's the video of our team doing the face-to-face mentioned below. So cool.. especially love the crowd's energy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c9c3lOK3Rs&feature=channel_video_title

now that the blonde has worn off some...

..well i'm still blonde, just not as blonde... but now that i'm less blonde, seeing as this dragonboating thing is eating into my color budget and it's also winter so hair's been sans soleil for several torturous months, but i digress.. anyway, what i'm trying to say is that i finally figured out where the permissions on this thing are and gave G blogging rights.. so yay, expect little beast to start writing her own silly posts from now on and add a little latina balance to this little epic... hee!

Head first into Week 23

Of course we brought our medals to the gym yesterday, to show a few of the gym-rat friends we've made over the past 22 weeks. They're really starting to understand that we're training FOR something in particular and are sharing in our progress and our success. It's the coolest thing - even more so because it was a little unexpected. Guess we shouldn't be too surprised though, with G's overexuberant personality, my whatever, and our various effervescent mishaps ....

And so on a high note, we began week 23. Upped the weights, focused our energies and powered through our lifting routine, following it with a 45 minute, easy run. Totally awesome.

Also got info on upcoming tryouts for Team USA for the World Championships in Tampa this summer. We're pondering how we might fit in a few roadtrips to go check out how things look on the US circuit (and see if we would have half-a-shot-in-hell...). .. now might be the time to finally get the kids those wireless headsets for the on-board dvd .... (can we quit our jobs and do this full-time yet? is there a grant/sponsor/sugar daddy out there for us? hee.)

ok, time to stop dreaming and get back to work... blargh...

A few more pics from the Indoor Cup

Face-to-Face with Cascades (that's us on the right)

THE race. So strong, so powerful - love this boat :) 

So...

So many firsts.  First competition of 2011. First competition as members of an elite team. First time in a boat (and not in the training pool) as a team. First competition as a woman on a men's boat. First capsize. First place. Yeah, this is gonna be a looong post. Grab a cup of tea.

Yes, an amazing day at our first competition as Montreal ELITE Senior Women. I could do without the "senior" part, makes us sound like geriatrics, but when the announcer, who happens to also be our head coach, introduced as as such... (was it my imagination or did he stretch out the "e..lll..eeeeete" part just a teeny bit?) it gave us goosebumps. G and I looked at each other and it was obvious we were thinking the same thing .."HOLY SHIT WE'RE ELITE!" It was surreal and real and awesome and crazy all at the same time. (As was learning that two of our teammates earned spots in Canadian National Teams and are going to be competing at the world championships in Tampa this summer!)

Going into the competition we were told to expect tough opposition from the Cascades (a strong Ottawa team) and the Montreal Elite Women (a 20-somethings team from our own club).

We both joined other teams (in other divisions than our own of course) to increase our fun - G a mixed team, I a men's. I have to say, sitting on the men's boat for the first race I almost puked right there. Sooooo nervous and excited at the same time.. and seriously hoping I wouldn't eff up.  I guess I didn't cuz I got moved to the engine room for the next round.. so cool, I think my grin was almost as big as last night's gigantic harvest moon.

So what were the races and how the hell does it work indoors anyway?

THE ALL IMPORTANT RACE: We are in the rear, grey boat, just prior to start.

Look in the back (rear) boat, that dark head with the ponytail.. that's the fierce miz G powering down on her paddle, yeah!
(For more pics, check out www.bateaudragon.com or if you're on facebook, look up 22Dragons)

Two full-size dragon boats in an olympic-size swimming pool, joined together with a complex system of pulleys and industrial-strength bungees at the front and rear. The purpose of this is two-fold.. so that they stay straight and don't crash into the ends of the pool. Three different race types: 1) 30-second sprints where whoever is ahead at the end of 30-seconds wins. You had to win 2 out of 3 to be declared the winner of that round; 2) a face to face: 8 paddlers from each team sitting facing one another, middle two rows left empty. On the horn, you paddle for your life and try to get across the line - an on-water tug-of-war; 3) a race to cross the line. You could paddle for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, depending on how evenly matched you were with your opponent. (OK maybe not for 30 minutes, but you get the idea.)

So, one of our first matchups for the 30-second sprints was with the elite women. When the horn blew at the end of 30-seconds, we were declared the winners. I think both teams were in shock. And onlookers too. Holy tamale what the heck had just happened we all were asking ourselves. And then it was time to race again. Unfortunately they beat us the next time, and the third.. winning 2 out of 3 and therefore that round. OK, disappointing, but we have a great captain and pacers who were able to identify the problem and tell us EXACTLY what we needed to do to get it DONE the next time.

We got this into our heads and watched a few of the other races. G went in for the "race-to-the-line" round with her mixed team... and it proved to be a race that tested the athletes' physical stamina to the max. In case you don't know, paddling a boat when you are a) tied down and b) trying to pull another boat back whilst trying to get slightly ahead is REALLY hard. (And you take on so much water that you're bailing out the boat between every race.) 30 seconds leaves you wanting to puke. Well... this race went for 45 seconds, then a minute, then 2 minutes, then 3 minutes.. to 3 1/2 minutes. G's team was looking like it was getting nosed out, but at the last little bit they got some crazy energy from somewhere, pushed past the pain, and just pounded all hell out of the water and surged ahead to win. The noise in the room was deafening - the crowd went totally NUTS!

They also took on so much water, that the boat looked like it might sink. Instead... as they were coming back to the side, it started tipping.. and plop plop plop... 18 paddlers fell into the pool. G right on top of her seat mate (who, incidentally, also made one of the Canadian National teams, yeah H!). Way to go G, you almost killed a national champion.

Just perfect.

A little later, a few teams had to struggle for 5, 6 minutes. Watching, we felt their pain. And hoped to hell we wouldn't have to suffer the same ordeal. Give us QUICK wins, please!

When we got back on the water as our true team for the cross-the-line race,  we got our breathing calm. We focused. We listed to what our captain and pacer said. The "I do NOT want to do a 6-minute race" was full of purpose. The horn blew, the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the water as our paddles dug deep and hard was exhilarating. We got into a groove and.. the horn blew. What? Already? Oh yeah... it took us 21 strokes to win. It felt connected, powerful, smooth and just plain amazing.

"That's what we need to do. Bottle THAT up and remember how it feels. THAT IS HOW WE RACE" said our captain. Yes indeed. Bottle it we did.

Last race, the final with the elite women. We now needed to uncork that bottle and beat them. We'd done it once, we just needed to do it twice more. Could we do it? We went into that race knowing we could. We had to. We had been training for THIS moment.

"Are we ready to rrrrruuuummmblllle???" yelled the announcer. The boat next to us was yelling and thumping the side of their boat in answer. Our boat sat quiet, calm, focused. Oh yeah, we were sooo ready.

The airhorn blew, and whoosh whoosh whoosh went the power. Driving our paddles down into the crazy churning mess, water dumping into our laps and faces, having to feel the rhythm more than anything, because we couldn't open our eyes long enough to look and see if we were keeping time... We hear the crowd. The horn goes.. we stop. And are declared the winners! Wow! We did it.

And have to do it again.

And did it we did. We screamed, cried, hugged, slapped high-fives with such force we rocked the boat. The crowd went INSANE. Screaming, pounding, clapping, whistling. Our coaches looked shocked and thrilled and prouder than new parents. And when we got off the boat you'd have thought we just won the olympics. Hee.

Amazing amazing amazing. Bottle it up and remember it for next time.

In the meantime, breathe deep, relish it, and continue training. Week 23 begins on Monday.

Oh yeah, and we're totally wearing our medals to work tomorrow.

Golden start to the 2011 season...

2011 Indoor Quebec Cup

Little Beast, Big Beast ;-)

Yup, these past 22 weeks of torturous fun have paid off. We had an amazing day, with an incredible team and  lots of good friends, old and new. Too tired and sore to put it all into words.. that'll have to wait a few days.. just wanted to share a few photos with you.

Gold for the Women's Division, Bronze for the Men's (yes, men's!)

Mmm... tasty!

From recovery to hell... and the first competition of the year!

So this past week was slated as a recovery week: one weighlifting session, a bit of rowing, a little light cardio, and a mandate to go get a massage. Well, of course on the first day of this much-looked-forward-to week of respite we got hit by a hot mess of a blizzard. For the first time I can remember, we were actually snowed in. And of course around 4pm, once i'd managed to clear the end of the driveway enough to get the car out, the city snowplow came along and dumped it all right back in. And so the process began again - only this time it was all the crusted, heavy, salty rock hard stuff. UGH. And then the sidewalk plow made its contribution... blargh. G and I texted back and forth all morning, bemoaning our shoveling injuries. "My wrists hurt." "My whole body is shaking." "Owwww my shoulders!" "I'm running out of biofreeze." Etc. All in all  I think I spent about six hours shoveling myself out. And then I took a coffee can out of the recycling bin and started a snowblower fund.

Tuesday began on a much better note. Wednesday too was great (although when I got home from work the driveway entrance had disappeared again, so i got a little extra cardio), and I was on such a high I treated myself to a not-so-healthy but oh-so-super-tasty meal that included sweet potato fries and a double scotch. Yum. G took her family to Boston to see a Celtics game, had a plate of fries herself, and worked out her voice good and hard.

Thursday, we decided to give ourselves a fit test followed by a nice muscle stretching swim, topped with hot tub and sauna. I drew the short straw and went first. Got through the chinups very happy with myself, then the lactic bench, thrilled to meet my goal, and then moved to the erg, determined to mash 500m into a minute thirty-nine. Well, suffice it to say that my scotch-and-fries combo from the day before decided to say hello again, and bang went my workout. I tried a second time, and gave up again. (Extra embarrassing since G had announced to the guy on the bike next to the erg that it was about to get loud and no, when she starts making noise she's not actually dying....). My whole digestive system was freaking out! Guess I learned that junky food and a couple of stiff ones have no place in an athlete's diet. Dumbass move for sure.

I guess I wrecked what little motivation G had too, (plus her body was making its displeasure with her french fries weakness) so we decided to can the whole idea and just get through SOMETHING. And since G had left her swimsuit at home along with her energy, that part of the plan flew out the window too. LOL - all in all a very educational week ;-)

So we relaxed on Friday, got our massages, and came to practice today ready for a nice moderate practice to end the week and prepare for the ramping up of next week. But alas, coach's first words were "recovery week is over ladies. This one is gonna be tough."

HA! And tough it was. But so awesome we grinned the whole way home. And now, totally dead, we're relaxing the rest of the weekend, gearing up for a tough training week ahead and our very first competition of the season on Saturday. It may be indoors, but it can mean only one thing: winter is almost over and we'll be on the water sooner than you can say "attention please.... go!!"

long story short...

on the decline bench, heard something funny, couldn't help myself, start cracking up, bar comes down and pins me down, laughing so much i can't do anything with it, entire gym is looking and laughing, G can't lift the damn thing off me, has to recruit my 14-year olds to help. HAHAHA.

o dear god we are tired this week.