We have a new traveling companion...

We have such amazing supporters.

We got a package yesterday. Just a simple manila envelope with the words "to the Hungry Dragons. Open when you cross the border."

"It's from K," G texted me when she got it. "Do we trust her?"
I'm thinking no, but surely even she wouldn't put anything in there that would get us in trouble.

So we dutifully keep it closed til we cross the border. Then we rip it open with glee.

Inside are: dragon temporary tattoos, the two-headed dragon you see here (she will be traveling in whichever car we travel to practice in from now on, boy is she gonna get some mileage!), a stack of papers, a CD and an obviously used pair of socks. SOCKS?

Then, we get an email.

"I just wanted to let you guys know that I am really proud of you! Going to Hong Kong??? How cool is that!!!????


AND, you are going to represent Canada! Doesn't get any better than that. Sorry America, but Canadians are more welcomed around the world... And having a Canadian husband it's even more special!

GOOD TO KNOW, cuz I'm working on mine :)

So for that reason, I thought you should get familiar with everything about Canada: Imagine yourselves at the opening ceremony in Hong Kong and they start playing the Canadian National Anthem?? You gotta get familiar with the words, so from now on you have to promise you'll listen to the CD at least once on EVERY trip to Montreal!

Promise? (this is the part where you both say out loud: Promise!) Say it!"

WE PROMISE!!

"I have also included a print out of the anthem and some facts about Canada. Since I'm looking to save the environment it's printed on the back of our news prints. 

Go out there and paddle hard! 

Puke!!"

WE PLAN ON IT!! THANK YOU K and all the rest of you who have encouraged us, pushed us, listened to us, put up with us thus far... we could not have gotten here without you. XO.

Fit test part deux (for real this time)

So.. as promised, here is the sad sordid story. (Well it's not really sad or sordid but i like the alliteration. It's part of this whole writing adventure I'm on. But I digress.)

In a nutshell, I cried twice, almost broke my face, bashed my still-recovering-from-surgery foot, and rowed one-legged pretty damn well. G's test wasn't quite as dramatic, but it was kickass all the same.

So the test was going to look like this: bench press (do the max weight you can for 3-5 reps), rest, pullups (max u can do), rest, 500m for time on the paddling erg, rest, and then a 12 minute run for distance. Those who can't run get to row on a regular rowing machine for 12 minutes.

It comes to my turn on the bench press. The comedy begins in earnest when I give my answer to "how much weight do you want?" I know what I want the weight to be, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make it all compute. This is worse than when G and I are at the gym training. I look at what's already on the bar - two 25lb plates - and try to figure out how much I need to add.

So, if there's 50 on the bar, and the bar is 45, that makes... oh shit. Umm... 95 right? Ya, right. Ok. Phew. That wasn't too hard. So how much do I need to add? [My fingers come out and I start going thru the numbers...] 135 minus 95 leaves... err... ? I try to get thru the math.. but I am stumped. I start to panic. I start walking circles around the stupid bench, trying to make it look like I'm just psyching myself up when in reality I'm becoming more and more traumatized by the whole addition and subtraction thing. 

G sees my consternation and comes over. "Help!" I message her telepathically. TelePATHETICally. Ugh. Really? It's not like it's fractions or decimal points for crying out loud.


Well, HA, G can't figure it out either. We're BOTH idiots.

"L, how much weight do you want?" asks our trusty spotter for the day.
"Err... 135?"
"OK, so take everything off and put on two plates."
 DUH!  

Bench gets readied, all is well. I get down to business. One... two... two and a half... two and three quarters... bloody shoulder freezes up and no matter how much I push (or try that telepathy thing again) I can't get it all the way up for the third one. I rack it and stomp off, tears of pissed-off-ness welling. BLARGH. Walk it off, try again. No big deal. You got this.

One of my teammates, bless her, offers encouragement and helps me set up for the next try. I decide to go down 5 pounds.... I get down, unrack the thing, and BANG, drop it right in my own face. Well SHIT and OW. BIG OW. Somehow we get it off my head and I catch my breath. OK, focus, let's try this sucker one more time. Unrack, down, up, down, urghh... forget it. I'm a mess. Nothing is cooperating.. least of all my brain.

I stomp off a second time. Pissed a second time.

I go to the locker room to calm down and notice my mouth is all bloody. Oh great. Please don't tell me I knocked anything loose in there! (I haven't, it's just a flesh wound!)

OK forget the dumb bench press. Focus on pullups.

I take the plastic walking boot off one foot and my sneaker off the other. I hang on the bar and feel balanced for the first time in a while. I hang rod straight just like coach wants and when he says go, I go. One.
"Beautiful!"
Two.
"Yes!"
Three. "Yeah! Keep it up!"
Three-and-a-half...
"Come on, you can do it!"
Three-and-three-quarters...
"Do it!"

Ha, I do it alright. In trying to get myself up, my form disintegrates completely, I kick out with my right foot, and smack it hard against the cold hard steel of the machine. #$%! I drop and sob. Damn, that hurt even more than the face plow!

OK. Collect yourself. Breathe.


Time for the paddle machine. I adjust the seat & the foot rest, callibrate, sit, plop my re-boot-clad foot up on the plate and begin. I'm out of the gate at a 2:14 split rate... feeling strong and solid. Coach is happy. "I like it. This is beautiful. Keep it right there the whole way." The WHOLE way? Uh, ok. I'll do my best. I keep going, and suddenly my dumb boot slides, my butt slides.. everything is just sliding. It's hard to adjust when you're one legged and going for bust. Somehow I keep it together, but lose about 19 seconds in the process. DANG. Still, it's over, it's done and it's totally respectable.

Coach gives me the choice of ending my test right there, since I ran last time, and will run again next time.  But obviously I can't this time. So it's either stop now, or get on the rowing machine and have at it.
"Since you're here, go ahead and row. I won't have anything to measure it against, but go ahead, get your heart rate up." Dude, can't you see it's ALREADY up? :)


So I strap one foot in, rest the other one with the boot on top, and go. Whoosh whoosh. Yeah, this is it. 12 minutes.. piece of cake. I row hard. My split time is good. I've got a teamie next to me about to start. She sets off strong. We push and encourage each other. I watch the minutes count down. I get to the last 100 meters and crank it. My neighbor grunts encouragement at me. It's puke or shut up time. 10, 5, DONE. I roll off the machine and just lie on the floor, motionless save for my chest which is heaving like crazy.

"You ok? You look very white."
"Yeah coach. I'm good."
And I am. A few hiccups. No worries. March 24th I'll fix it all. (I better because I won't have any excuses. No boot, no face plow, no kicking, no NOTHING.)

As for G... well, she's still writing up her tale from a beach in Florida at present. Lucky mutt. So you'll have to wait for that installment. Actually, she's not just goofing down in the lovely sunny heat.. she's about to run 13.1 in the Miami Marathon. And she's gonna KILL IT.

Where are the bubbles??

Second fit test is the day after tomorrow. We're both starting to freak out. G because she wants to snag a spot on the boat; me because I want to keep mine. Even though I made the first pick, it's not a free ticket. In some respects the pressure is even greater now than at the first test back in November. I have to justify my spot and coaches' choice.

Trainings this week have been tough. Still a lot of humor though. And lots of positive energy. We started doing our routine yesterday, super-setting our exercises so we could get out of the gym at a reasonable time. At one point we looked at one another, raised our eyebrows and wondered if we'd somehow goofed up on the weights we'd chosen.

"Do your weights seem light to you?"
"Yeah. Yours?"
"16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Yeah!"
"Could we be THAT much stronger? Than last week?"
"Err... did u write down your numbers right?"
"You did them."
"Oh. Then they're right."
"Wow. This is crazy."
"I guess we're just beasts."

I don't know what was going on, but it made us feel great. We finished and went to hit the hot tub.

A very, shall-we-say, portly, sixty-something lady in a bright, flowered bathing suit was sitting in the tub. And taking up a lot of it. As I approached, I noticed the water was awfully calm.
"Hello. No bubbles?" I said as I got up to the edge. Please don't let it be broken.
"No bubbles."
"No bubbles?" I repeated, dazed. This was completely unexpected. And unacceptable. What does she MEAN no bubbles?
"No bubbles," she stated a little more forcefully now, with a meaningful look. As if to say "what don't you get?" But I got it now. It's not that there WEREN'T bubbles, she just didn't WANT any. Drat!
"Oh." She must have thought me thick as two short planks by this point. "No bubbles. Ok."
I got in carefully - my first time trying this out after surgery... didn't want to slip and fall and mess everything up, everything's been healing so well. G at my rear, we maneuvered around the lady's knees and sandaled feet (really? who does that?) and plopped down at the opposite end of the tub. It was too much like being in a bath and not the exciting, massaging experience we'd been anticipating. Grrr.

"Hey, there's sort of a jet over here," G said, "slide over here." I scooched over. It was weak, but it felt good on my still-bruised leg. The gentle pressure loosened some of the stiffness and eased the tension. I closed my eyes and started to doze.. as much as you can in that sort of situation. I started to lose my seat a bit and righting myself, glanced up just in time to see a man, also of considerable girth, who'd been looking over at us since we'd walked in, raise his bulk up and out of the swimming pool to our right and approach the tub. I was partly annoyed at the thought of having additional companions in the tub (yes I was feeling  decidedly anti-social, so what!?), but mostly I was hopeful that he would just hit the button and swirl up the water. Fat chance. Instead, he lowered himself in with great difficulty, and claimed a spot directly opposite the lady.

They seemed to know one another, and though she started talking at him, he seemed more interested in G and me. Sorry, but we're really not interested in small talk. We just want some bubbles!! 

Each time the lady (who, it turned out, was the man's wife) altered her position, G and I sent her telepathic messages, trying to convince her that she really wanted to get out. It was excrutiating! But eventually, out she got. G and I looked hopefully at the man.

"Would you mind if we turned on the bubbles?"
"As soon as she leaves, you go right ahead."
Yay! The day was saved!
"I'm big," he said, "but SHE wears the pants."

Writing it ALL down

So we had this crazy idea.. write a book, or maybe a screenplay, or heck, just sell our story and have somebody who's written a blockbuster screenplay write it for us. Would it be a drama, a thriller, or.. no a comedy, definitely a comedy. A romantic comedy at that.

Today at the gym, I'm on the bench press. I've got 135lbs of iron in my hands and I'm scowling and grunting at G to stay the heck away from it, I need to do this myself. It comes down, squashes my chest for a moment, and then, miraculously, goes back up. And down. And up. And a couple more times... then I rack it, all happy .... but G gets all in my face.

"You want me not to touch it?"
"Yeah. Not unless it's gonna squash me."
"Well it was squashing your boobs."
"Eh, there's not much there anyway, so no problem."
"Well, when there's a line in your chest... I worry."
And after we stop laughing we go onto the rest of our program.

Anyway, I started this post with the idea of some sort of fuller documentation of our story. So I picked up my notebook (well, one of many notebooks, I am sooooo unorganized -i have journals and bits of paper all over the place) and opened it up. Funnily enough, I landed on a page where I described an experience we had in September of 2010. September 19 to be exact. This was still at a time when there were four of us driving up from Vermont. [The funny part is that G and I were JUST talking about this incident on our way back from practice last week.] We'd started out as six, then whittled down to four, and later it came down to just G and me.

Anyway, there is a Tim Horton's on the corner of Rene-Levesque and something in Montreal. It was 6:15 am and day two of the Quebec Cup - one of our favorite competitions. We'd left our hotel a little early in search of some respectable coffee and breakfast nourishment. Tim Horton's was all we could find open.... anyway, I was driving us around in my SUV. I parked and we all marched in. I managed to get to the head of the line (when i need coffee i need coffee) and headed back to the warm car to wait for the others.

Within a few seconds a rather shady looking guy comes up along the dimly, orange-lit, sidewalk and stops directly in front of my car. He's a foot away from the hood, 3 feet away from me. Though I'm protected by metal and glass his eyes bore into me and make me itchy. He just keeps staring right through the windshield at me. Annoyed as all heck, I meet his gaze and challenge him with a flick of my hands.

"What?!!" I yell through the glass.
Bad move. Shit. Like SUPER BIG shit.

"What?" he yells back. "I have to fucking pay to look at you??"
Ah crap.. please hurry back kids.. i just wanna get the hell outta here now.

"FUCKING AMERICAN!! Do you want to FUCK me?"
Excellent. Of course I want no such thing. But there's no sign of the others yet. Now what? I'm hoping he doesn't have some sort of stick hidden in his jacket that he wants to imprint on my car. Or a hook to yank me out of it with.

He keeps yelling, I'm ready to just flee, but thankfully the others are finally back with their breakfasts and slide into their seats with very confused and concerned looks on their faces. Before all the doors are even closed, I squeal out of the parking space quicker than I think was legal and gun it. Sick man, for sure, but why MY face that particular morning? Ugh!

From the back seat, A, at 19 the youngest in our group and the sole male, pipes up:
"I totally had your back L... I was just waiting for a reason to go. Just so you know."
LOL. Thanks babe. I love when my back is got.

What's next in this journal of mine I wonder...

Step away from the cookie jar.

The holidays are over. Get back to it.

So says our head coach. No BS, no sugar coating, just plain and simple - leave the leftover cookies alone (or better yet, give them away) and get back to serious. Have you seen the new planet fitness commercial by the way - it's a hoot and a half. Basically there's this humongous meathead checking out the gym and all he says is "I lift things up and put them down"... hilarious (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FGZvFZdVbk). Would be even funnier were it not for the fact that thru my head all that's going around is "I'm a dragon boater. I have to train." Hee.

Second fit test is in 10 days. It's a big deal.

Foot is healing well...I figured out I can row one-legged.. and now I can do it two-legged... sort of ... it's not pretty, and it's not efficient, but it works. Well I say not efficient.. but I am getting better times than I was last year, so this year's training is obviously working. (Yes A, it's WORKING!) And this week I also discovered that I can do the elliptical with the boot on.. go figure! Hooray for a little variety because I am mighty sick of the erg.

G is struggling a bit with some sort of bony growth under her finger on her palm, getting that checked out very soon. (What is going on? We're twins so we both have to have bony growth issues?? Sheesh!) But it's not preventing her from making big gains either.. we are definitely keeping each other motivated and on track. Well most of the time. Apparently I can't say "focus" with a French accent while she is doing the  bench press. That is not helpful I'm told.

This weightlifting thing works.. G can now lift ME!! 

We spent New Year's together (weird huh?) ... what possessed us to attend a party at a local hotel i have no idea, but it was lame with a capital L. Dinner was served at 7:30 sharp, under bright lights, without any music. Crazy right? The bands came on at 8:30.. they were ok, but definitely not what we were looking for. We were seriously among the youngest there. So we left the mix of sparkly tops and carpenter jeans, ball caps and construction boots (and even teva sandals, yes, without socks!) and hightailed it downtown. There we found a great table in a great restaurant noshed and drank to our hearts' content, kissed our sweeties at the stroke of midnight and welcomed 2012 (the year of Hong Kong!) into our lives.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! Make every day count!

Hong Kong on the Horizon

Coach M has announced half the roster for Hong Kong... the rest will be set on January 16th, the day that rosters need to be submitted to the IDBF (I think anyway). Team reaction was a mixed bag, but overall I think it's been very positive. Those who have been confirmed have nonetheless been struck with the humble-slash-fear stick... at the next fit test (January 14) these 10 better perform even better than at the first one and show that our coaches do actually know what they're doing (they do). The rest of the crew has a fire lit under their respective tushies and are absolutely killing it in training over these next few weeks to make sure they are their leanest, strongest, fittest, and best possible selves and crewmates.

Practices are looking amazing. The whoosh whoosh of the paddles in the pool could literally make me cry it sounds so good. (And no, it's not the meds talking.. i ditched the narcotics day two of being home!) Goosebump moments all around. I managed to paddle the whole practice 3 days after surgery.. the boot served me well (tho it got a bit nasty sweaty in there, ewww) and then Coach A put me through my paces in the weight room, since I couldn't partake in the killer circuit Coach P had put together for the rest of the crew. I'm glad he rode me as hard as he did, cuz G and the other beasts looked half-dead when P was finished with them!

G and I have not missed a beat in the gym either - but are pushing each other harder than ever. It's a bit odd looking with me in my cast (do you have any IDEA how hard it is to stay put on the decline bench when you can only hang on by one leg???!!) but we're both thrilled to bits I don't have to sit out. That would suck eggs for the both of us. I'm having to be super creative with cardio since i can't do any running, biking or elliptical-ing.. but we discovered that one-legged rowing IS possible.

Other than that we are excitedly shopping for OC-1 canoes. Like little kids were are playing with the design tool at www.huki.com (try it, it's super cool!) and dreaming of getting our very own boats. The kids will have to eat Ramen noodles for a while and forego most of their Christmas presents but I'm sure they'll be totally cool with it ;-)

A second team for Hong Kong!?!!!

The excited words that are escaping my mouth are not really appropriate for publication... but imagine me jumping up and down in my living room and I'm sure you can imagine what I'm yelling. G and I have been invited to paddle on a 40+ mixed team in Hong Kong! When we were first asked we were like "holy crap" (yes i edited) and held our breath a bit because there was an attached caveat. Since this team didn't paddle at the national championships and thus earn a berth for Hong Kong in the usual way, it would be vying for a wild card draw for the remaining open spot. We wouldn't know until November 4th.

Well, it's November 4th and GUESS WHAT?!! We got the spot. Holy freakin' glittery shizzles!! So now we can be excited. And freaked out. And .... really? Two teams? Hey wait a minute! does that mean double the workouts now? LOL. Ok.. on that note... off to the gym!

Tomorrow we travel north for our first indoor paddle and circuit - the rest of the team started last week, but since it was G's birthday party weekend the two of us begged off and stayed state-side. Speaking of which - what an AMAZING night that was. G looked radiant in her sparkly shmarkly sequin dress, and didn't get off the dance floor all night. In fact, I think she danced and sang and yelled so much she lost her voice completely (and lost 2lbs in the process. hee!). And so many of our Montreal family came to celebrate with us.. it was absolutely BRILLIANT. My girl knows how to throw a party for sure.. but our teammates know how to PARTY.

I'll have to steal some pics off facebook and plonk them here :)

A crazy event with a crazy crowd!

So every year, G's BFF (yes she has more than one, I have to share her) organizes a run in memory of her dead cat. (I assume it's dead.) Well, I say every year, but I believe this was actually only the 3rd annual such run. Anyway, the first year I got injured, the second year I can't remember why I missed it (probably because G skipped it AGAIN due to baseball, but, since the Red Sox got creamed and ousted early this year, she was available). The logistics (in theory) are very cool... it's a staggered start, so everyone estimates how long they'll take to run the distance, and the slowest go first, then the next slowest, etc.. with the idea that (assuming everyone was honest) everyone will cross the finish line at the same time.

2011 PusHy Run runners - the winner has the kitty ears on ... can you spot them??

Of course, however, people aren't honest. Or overestimate, just to be safe :) Plus most of us are super competitive.. we can't really play nice. And then there are the 'added value' elements that make the run crazy. Last year's runners had to down babyfood at the halfway point apparently... what we'd have to do this year was anybody's guess.

A (who'd agreed to join us only if he could be a cheerleader cuz he was nursing a knee injury, uh huh) was our fantabulous time keeper/starter. P was our half-way surpriser. In the first group, off went G with 2 others. 3 minutes later, it was my turn along with the handsome fellow on the far right of the photo. "I haven't run in 6 months" quipped he earlier... didn't stop him from dashing off like a mad man on fire though. I wasn't about to let him get ahead of me but I was definitely a) wondering how the heck I was gonna maintain such an insane pace for 3 miles and b) wondering if my timekeeping skills were as bad as my math skills because this did NOT feel like a 10-minute mile pace! (He eventually paid for his foolishness which was compounded by the halfway surprise but that's another matter entirely.)

The rest of the 9 followed in a few more groupings, and the race was on. As I rounded the last curve (dirt road, hilly, at the base of Camel's Hump mountain) before the halfway point, G and her group were coming toward me. G was grimacing. "You're NOT gonna like that!" Oh GREAT. Just fabulous.

When I got to P though, and saw the bottle of liquor he was holding - i thought, ha! Piece of cake!  I got to him, took the shot glass and with a quick "cheers" downed whatever it was (think I'm too trusting?), gave the glass back, turned around and started the run back. I had a fire in my belly now. Good GOD what WAS that shit!? It was good, don't get me wrong, but $#%^&(!!!! Very glad I'd had breakfast. (Unlike my unfortunate starting partner whose breakfast WAS the shot. Ouch.) Determined not to let anything slow me down, I cranked up my pace a notch, and caught up with the threesome ahead of me. (Thankfully I hadn't gotten passed yet.) I caught up, and sped up some more. Maybe a shot of something should be part of every run? This was pretty cool! P bombed past me on his motorbike... guess that meant everyone had passed the halfway line... if I was gonna get passed, now would be the time. Go faster feet, faster!

G got some fire of her own and started a mad dash after me "that's my partner!!!!" she was yelling in her head, and pretty soon we had the finish line in sight. I saw A's smiling face and was practically pleading as I got near... "PLEEEEEASE tell me this is the finish line and I can stop!!??"

P was back there at this point too and had an almost evil grin on his face. "Well, you can't win until you drink this" he says, handing me a beer. GOOD GOD. REALLY?? Hmm... well I AM parched... and it's a nasty light beer, so other than the bubbles, just like water right? HAHAHAHA. Not nearly. But I managed to chug my way to victory. And G? The Runner Up (yes, of course she chugged too). Yeah!!! Hungry Dragons Dominate! (We won't mention anyone lowballing times or getting disqualified for not imbibing, or any of that stuff, as that would dilute the story and our victory.)

Anyway, it was a good laugh, a good time, and was followed by a phenomenal feast up at P's and K's (the BFF of the dead cat) amazing house. Life is good.

First circuit of the winter season...

Since we'll be whooping up G's birthday with an all-out all-star bash the same day the first Saturday training circuit and pool paddle is scheduled (seriously coach, didn't you know it's a national holiday? and we have to do our hair?? what were you thinking???) we decided to get our butts up north and join the Thursday circuit - see the team, get back in the groove, blah blah blah. We met as usual, I threw all my junk into the back of G's car and off we sped.

We pull up to the border, G hands over our documents.

Border guard: Bonjour
G: Bonjour!
Guard: Where are you going?
G: To practice. On the Lachine Canal [Excellent, here we go again. Canada is bigger than DB and the Lachine Canal, but I'll keep my mouth shut.]
Guard: Is this your only license?
G: Who? Me?
Guard: Yes you.
G: Oh, yes... why?
Guard: It's expired.
G: What??!! It's expired?? ... OHHHH!!! My BIRTHDAY!! It expired YESTERDAY! OH MY GOD!
Guard: chuckles.
G: I PROMISE IF YOU LET ME GO I WILL GO AND RENEW IT STRAIGHT AWAY TOMORROW! OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. OH MY GOD! [hangs head in shame and disbelief. Me trying not to pee myself with laughter at this point]
Guard: chuckles some more. You might have a problem on the other side.
G: Oh dear.
[a little more back and forth that i can't remember but it's not all that important...you get the idea]
Guard: Have a nice day. [Waves us off.]
G: Oh thank you thank you!

HAHAHAHA. Barely 40 and already senile.. good sign for fun times ahead. hee!