This summer, as a means to check it off my list of things to do in my life, I joined Hubby’s corporate dragon boat team so that I could know what it was like to row and to compete. I wasn’t expecting much from this. Last year, they placed in second last and our goal this year was purely not to embarrass our coach.
We had 6 practices, I attended 4 practices, 1 practice we were away and the other one we got caught in traffic on the way there. The first practice was a huge learning curve, my lower back burned for 2 days afterwards. The next few trainings were a struggle. I become frustrated with my abilities and the lack of commitment that others seemed to possess. I got stuck between a guy that didn’t full commit to his strokes, despite the fact that he was probably the tallest and had the longest reach and a girl behind me that would splash me constantly or bang her paddle into mine. I felt like I was playing a strange form of bumper cars.
Finally, race day comes and we arrive at 7:30am to get ready for the races. I am totally tired and not into it. We have our first heat at 9ish and we place in the top of the slowest boats. Our coach gives us the feedback that we freaked out and rather than pacing ourselves, we over pushed and ended up gasing too early, which completely explains why my arms were burning. So as we headed into the second race, we were prepared to pace ourselves and to focus on working as a team. We kept steady and as our boat pulled through the water and started making advances it was clear that we were 1st when we got to the finish line. This second race was our the race to determine what heat we would be in for the finals. We were so pumped for the final race and actually felt it was possible to win. This is not something I was expecting.
We went into the final race and I could feel my competitive spirit bubbling up. I could feel the eminent win and was pumped for the next 2 and half minutes. As we raced, I felt frustrated that we weren’t surging ahead and that I knew we could do it. I watched as other paddlers yelled but didn’t really put all their energy into their paddling. Even though we were supposed to keep our eyes on our own boat, I sneaked a peak and our boat chugged little by little and we were mere inches from the finish line. And in the end…we came in second by half a second!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What does half a second mean? In less time then you can say “1 Mississippi”, everything can change.
I literally couldn’t believe it. I feel like if we just squeezed out a few more ounces of energy then we could have made it. I feel hungry for more, when I didn’t even want it to begin with. What’s up with that?