Boston 10K medal, B2VT finisher glass, Boston Dragon Boat 2nd place C Division medal
Boston Dragon Boat Festival Date: June 8-9, 2024 Location: Boston / Cambridge, MA Distance: 2 x 200m Sat; 3 x 500m Sun
B2VT Date: June 15, 2024 Location: Massachusetts, NH & VT Distance: 142 miles Goal Time: 12:00:00 Actual Time: 12:27:20
Boston 10K Date: June 23, 2024 Location: Boston / Cambridge, MA Distance: 6.2 Miles Goal Time: 52:42 Actual Time: 54:25
“Wisdom hath builded her house,
she hath hewn out her seven pillars”
~ Proverbs 9:1
I made the right onto Exeter and
then left onto Boylston. The rain; the
heat; the humidity; the lack of running for a week – had clearly taken a
toll. But, I was still within an
acceptable pace. We crossed the Marathon
finish line and had a little more than 1 km to go. The calculations in my head said I would have
to average a 7:15 mile for my last kilometer.
(SPOILER ALERT: That wasn’t going to happen). I sped up a bit over the final stretch but
definitely didn’t put myself fulling into the red zone. Across the finish line, I got my medal from
McKenzie and headed to the DM tent for a ceremonial 9:15am Sam Adams.
Living Root getting our awards
The Boston 10k finished up my 3
races in 3 sports in 3 weekends. I
reached my B goal in each of the 3 events: Boston Dragon Boat Festival, B2VT
and Boston 10K. This success was because
of generally consistent generalist training over the past 6 months. Between running, lifting, cycling and paddling,
I did the bare minimum to achieve my non-spectacular B Goals.
Where do I go from here?
I have about 12 weeks until my
next big block of events in September 4 events in 3 Weeks:
9/8 - Bike Not Bombs 105 miler, JP
9/14 – Spartan Beast Race, Killington
9/21 – Lake Winni Dragon Boat
Race, Alton Bay, NH
9/22 – Lone Gull 10K, Gloucester, MA
Vermont along the B2VT route
With this in mind, I plan to build
a training structure around two main goals
Training for life
Some specificity for events I am registered for.(I need to be able to run 13 trail miles with
obstacles, bike 105 and paddle 4 races in a day over 3 weeks – plus Lone Gull.)
Rough Draft of 7 Pillars of
Generalist Training
I need to start somewhere. I will start with a draft using guidelines of
health from DHHS while adding two more – accountability and recovery – that are
required to achieve the other 5
Accountability – I need to be accountable to myself,
my wife and my teammates
Strength – Commit to continued strength training
Cardiovascular Endurance – Continue and increase
my running / cycling
Muscular Endurance – add more endurance strength
to my workouts
Flexibility – Mobility and malleability are
often limited when strength and running are practices.Need to add to this
Body Composition – cutting fat and gaining
muscle. Exercise is one step of this; calories
and quality thereof is another step.
Recovery
– sleep better and more. Also commit to hobbies that can help relaxation.
I know many people will find the
idea of slowly building a program as the lazy way out. And maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m just lying to myself. Or maybe trying to create a strong foundation,
I can do this I like for longer. We’ll
find out which one it is.
“If
you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where
they should be.Now put foundations under them.”
~Henry
David Thoreau.
Turin the Black Sword
Event: Boston Hong
Kong Dragon Boat Festival
Location: Charles
River, Cambridge, MA
Date: June 11-12, 2022
Distance: 2 x 200m, 3
x 500m
Out of the peripheral vision I saw
us closing on the boat to the left. Dave
was yelling from the back (many of the words that were not acceptable for a
family friendly blog like this); we were pushing and panting. As we hit the last buoys, there was the successive
air horn blows… Whoong! Whoong! Sadly, the second horn was obviously for
us; we just missed winning our Semis.
From the Pits of Angband
In early March 2020, we had
probably 25 paddlers lining the edge of the kiddie pool; Dave was standing in
the pool.He asked: “Do you think it’s
safe with Corona going around to stand in the pool?”I theorized the chlorine would probably kill
the virus and we would be fine with indoor pool practices going forward.I was right about the first part; I was wrong
about going forward.
The next 26 months, I will not
go into detail – we all have our own story of that.
In the Simrarillion,
Tolkien tells the tale of the father of dragons. Glaurung was raised to be the fighter of
elves. He spent a century in the pits of
Angband growing to be the great fighter.
In the past 26 months, the Living Root Dragon Boat team had gone from
around a 70 or so active paddlers to like 30.
May 1, 2022 was the first time we paddled in a boat in almost two
years. This became our time in the Pits
of Angband to grow again.
The Fellowship of the Ring
Races 1&2: 200m qualifiers
Location: MIT Boathouse
Times: 61.8” and 60.9”
Saturday was the 200m
qualifiers. These are short sprints
where you put it all out there for a minute (or preferably less). With a midday start time, it was a nice way
to ease into the regatta. Without the early morning wake up, I was able to
conveniently make my way down to the river with plenty of time to stretch and
pet Quinn’s dog.
We lined up for the first time
trial at the same time as Mustache. We
got off the line slowly. But then pushed
a bit more speed. Unfortunately, for the
200m there is little room for making up time.
The second 200 was fantastic. We fired off the line like a cannon and were
able to maintain if not increase the speed into the finish. We qualified into the Pool 1 for the main sets
on Sunday.
The Two Towers
Races 3-5: 500m
Location: Weeks Footbridge
Time: 2:22.4, 2:18.7, 2:24.9
I sat calmly at the start. We had paddled out with a few warm ups and I
was in my element. The Charles has been
my athletic home for as long as I remember.
I’ve roller bladed it, cycled it, ran it and kayaked it. Today, I was in another big event upon the calm
waters. Just adding to my collective
memory of the river.
The first race was to place us
into our divisions for the Semis and finals.
We had made the top half, now to make the top tier.
The horn went off and we
pushed. It’s one of those feeling you
can’t quite understand until you are out in competition. The ability to push beyond a) your training
paces and, b) what you thought you could do.
My arms and back felt like they could do nor more… and yet we pushed on
another hundred meters before Dave pushed us again into the final stretch. As we barely finished in second, I (and
probably others) knew they could do it again – and maybe win this time.
The Semis were probably our finest
hour. Not only was it the fastest race,
but our boat that could with only 17 paddlers hung on in the A Division to
finish just 0.7 seconds behind.
I felt exhaustion coming on. And maybe many others did as well. By our finals, the festival felt like it was
over – food trucks were packing up and tents were being dismantled. We went out, we pushed but I don’t know how
much we had left. We pulled off our
third straight second for Sunday. The
first race was on condition, the second on training, the third was on heart.
Our next few months is time to rebuild
our foundations for our 2023 return.
The Return of the King
Event: Boston Athletic
Association 10K
Location: Boston, MA
Date: June 26, 2022
Distance: 10km
Time: 58:37
Originally, I thought I was
undertrained for this event. But looking
back, I had run 32 miles in the two months leading up to it. That’s not undertrained, that’s completely
untrained. It’s the most castle in the
sky nonsense I’ve ever built.
I tried to keep myself contained. I hoped to run 9:00/miles for the first three
and then drop the hammer for the last few.
I achieved the first part of my goal.
It was the second half that was a failure. But the second half wasn’t really the failure;
the failure was the 4 miles a week I ran to train for a 6 mile race.
Alas, it is time to build back the foundations. Every step is one step closer to being fit
and competitive again. Unfortunately, some days those steps are backward. Today was the backwards day to remind me to
step forward.
Living Root representing strong at Worcester-
Red, Blue and Purple boats
"Now this is not the End. It is not even the beginning of the End. But it is, perhaps, the End of the Beginning."
~ Winston Churchill
In the Autumn of 1942, British and American troops drove back Rommel in North Africa. At the Battle of El Alamein, the Allies secured the North African coast and Hitler was finally faced with a force between the combined American and British/Commonwealth equal to his. The Allied forces could threaten fortress Europe from Britain, the Soviet Union and - what Churchill word term the "Soft Underbelly" - the Mediterranean front of Greece and Italy.
Like the Allied forces 77 years ago, I too reached the End of the Beginning this weekend. (However, there was far less global survival on the line.)
Urvi, Ryan, Amie and I rolling into the Semis at Lone Gull
photo by: Erin Morin
Saturday
Race: Worcester Dragon Boat Festival
Location: Lake Quinsigamond, Worcester
Distance: 200 m
Times: Heat 1 - 52.5"; Heat 2 - 49.9"
Sunday
Race: Lone Gull 10k
Location: Good Harbor Beach, Gloucester
Distance: 10k
Time: 46:01
Purple Boat heading out to the Start Line
photo by: Mark Estrada
Sit Ready!
There's a lot of commotion to get to the start line. Everyone has to pile into the boat in an exact spot. We have to go out on unfamiliar water and the captain has to steer us around unfamiliar buoys. (Before Heat 1, Dave had to yell, "whoa, right side watch out" as a small green bobber we didn't see before slapped around against the boat.) There's turning around; there's other dragon boats with unfamiliar people milling about as they get to their start line.
But as you get to the start line and everyone is nearly lined up, there is moment of peace. The paddle is buried into the water. The starter isn't yelling; no one is joking around in the boat. It's peaceful and calm.
On Saturday at the start of race 2, we sat there in silence. In the 3 and a half months, this was really the metaphysical definition; I was ready. Since back in June was when I first picked up a dragon boat paddle again, from 11 years earlier. I talked to Fed about getting into racing. He probably knew I wasn't the slightest bit ready for it. Instead, he told me to look at Worcester at the end of the season. So I did, I imagined my training arc from that moment until that quiet moment on Quinsigamond. (Just in case non New Englanders don't have enough problem with Old English names of towns, e.g. Worcester and Gloucester, we decide for lakes to take the Nipmuck names; at least it wasn't being held at Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.)
Then we were messing with Lester while he was trying to order BBQ
photo by: Mark Estrada
On Sunday, I stood on the backside of Good Harbor Beach "ready." It was almost year since the Chicago Marathon and many months ago, I thought this would be the great "comeback" when I was finally healthy and finally ready to race for "real." By two weeks ago at Salem, I had long since realized this was NOT going to be true. But here I was at a USATF Grand Prix race with many members of SRR and was a possible scorer for our men's masters team.
GO!!
For a moment, I'd like to hop into Mr. Peabody's WABAC Machine. January 3, 2019. It was probably the beginning of one of the worst months of my life. I got laid off and then tried to run 3 miles on the treadmill. My knee hurt for a week and then I found out my thesis topic wasn't accepted. Awful awful month.
Early on at Lone Gull, Dennis and I merged into one person: Jennis
I assume this picture is actually from Tim Morin since Erin was running (maybe it was Keagan?)
I recovered from that month well enough to pick up running again in March. Several one mile runs on treadmills and indoor tracks eventually became 45 miles in April and 57 miles in May.
By June, I was done with my masters (new thesis topic and all) and itching to get out there. I also knew that running right into the knee would cause problems. So I kept my slow build of miles going (95 miles including a few attempts at fast ones).
However, this was not going to be enough. That's when I returned to dragon boating. I surprised Dave wearing an old school Living Root shirt to the Boston Dragon Boat Festival. Talking with him and Mark, I got myself invited to the next Thursday practice. Paired with Jeff on the boat I tried to remember everything I could from before (which was very little). But for the next month, I tried to get to every practice and weight workout I could.
Thus on Saturday for the second heat, our blades were buried in the water. I had Julien's back-up paddle instead of the t-ball bat sized ones that the festival had (below). The air horn went off, Dave gave a yell and On banged the drum. We paddled away.
Pablo!
photo by Mark Estrada
Power!
We got an amazing jump on the go. There was a confidence (which Dave & Matt had both attempted to install* instill in us during the previous 2 weeks), and a pure power. It felt like we knew what we were doing. I noticed that I was reaching (and rotating a bit) without having to tell myself to do so. The leg drive from the nubs beneath the seats were driving my paddle harder and faster. (Thanks to Alfonso for teaching me to leg drive from there instead of the side of the gunwale nubs).
In July and August, I dove into training. I ran over 100 miles each month and paddled nearly 40 each time. Slowly, I watched myself move from a newbie in dragon boat and in recovery in running into a regular paddler and almost "normal" runner.
While there were constant reminders of how far I had come, there were equally constant remiders of how far I had to go. On the roads and tracks, I would see the effort required to put in what previously wasn't a real fast pace. On the water, the reminders were largely from the mouth of Mark Yuen to correct my form that could be described as "atrocious" at best.
Purple Boat racing the second heat
photo by Mark Estrada
On Sunday, I was determined to put what I could in. But I remembered the failures of being too overconfident from Salem two weeks ago. So the game plan was simple. Start towards the middle, get over the first steepish hill and down the water to mile 2 before thinking about plans. At mile 2, I readjusted. I had put in two decent miles - 7:17 and 7:17. And unlike two weeks ago I wasn't totally gassed yet. Carrie-Anne in her all-black singlet and shorts was right ahead of me as we headed into the hilly neighborhood part of the race. I put two more goals here: catch up to C-A in the next mile; run no 8 minute snowman miles.
I reached the first goal right at the 5k. "I'm going to settle in behind you for a second," I said. "Ok," she said, "I'll block the wind." (A little tall guy and short girl joking here.)
Urvi, early on in the race
photo by once again Tim or Keagen
Settle!
I actually didn't settle in too long. Within a minute or so, I pushed ahead. I worried that I might be going too fast here. I didn't want to crush myself early and get to the 5th mile and just have to reset with an 8 something mile. So I just kept telling myself "no snowmen; no 8s." If I have to run a 7:59 that's fine. But, I'm going to keep this up.
At the beginning of August, the dragon boat calendar started to get real. I wasn't the new guy just trying it out anymore. And we had two erg time trials at the beginning of the month. Each of these were to be 2:15 and as far as you can go. (One assumes there is some sort of 500m bench mark for men - but I could be wrong). Needless to say I was still new to this. First one was 432m and the second one was 438m. I guess, on the plus side one can only go up from here.
Worcester also so the Living Root Dragon Boat's Dip Off!
Renen's Mexican refried bean** dip with delayed jalapeno won
The end of August brought me to my first race: Lowell. While I was not on the boat that flipped, I was able to enjoy the whole day. (Or maybe BECAUSE I was not on the boat that flipped...). It also got my competition juices flowing again. By the beginning of September, both the Pawtucket Dragon Boat Race and the Salem Road Race were on my target. Neither of these went as well as I wanted them to. But, they were nice bench marks and reminders that I was getting better and healthier.
Purple Boat's Second Race
video by Dave Parker
Saturday, our first heat didn't go as well as any of us wanted. We didn't get off the line as well. And the three other boats slowly pulled away from us. We might have held the line for a while through the finish area. But in the end, we finished 2.5 - 3 seconds behind.
But in the second race, after our massive start, we were hanging with the other boats in our heat. We started the power and I saw through the periphery that we were pulling up on the team on the right.
Finish!
First there wasn't a settle and then Dave didn't even wait for us to complete the power. He just shifted from "Get Some!" to yelling FINISH!
Sunday was much the same for me. While I ran along the estuaries of the last mile trying to retain the last bit of cold water Tinger had flung upon me, I just pushed at slightly faster than I think I could have before the Finish sprint.
Andy and Ruth got shots of us on the finishing stretch on Saturday
Erin, Deb, Liz, me, C-A, Dennis, Mark, Gonzalez Victor and Urvi
Saturday the Finish command just propelled us faster. The last 100m we just put everything in. I put 3.5 months of training, 15 months of anger about my knee, 10 months of anger about my thesis into Julien's paddle and - in Fed's word's - "attacked the water with anger" while maintaining form and timing.
Sunday, I passed the 6 mile mark in the parking lot and then Paulo and Patrick who were sitting up against the dunes. I realized there was less time in the 10k left than the entire 200m on Saturday. So I let everything out. I just heard Dave, still from Saturday, in my head yelling "FINISH! GET SOME! FINISH!"
Between the heats, many of us look for skipping rocks
Let it Ride!
Across the finish, I was totally spent. On Saturday it was after breaking 50 seconds: 2.5 seconds faster than the morning heat. On Sunday it was just over 46 minutes: 1 and a half minutes faster than Salem.
Both times I couldn't just stop. On Saturday we needed to go into Hold Water - hard - unless we crashed into the other boat that angled into our lane after the finish. On Sunday I needed to avoid vomiting and find shade.
The End of the Beginning.
And, thus, the Summer ends. Purple Boat didn't make the final race. But Saturday, Living Root Blue WON the Finals for the Worcester Championship! And on Sunday I scored for the SRR men's master team.
But for dragon boating or for running, it isn't the end or even the beginning of the end of my comeback. Instead, it's only the End of the Beginning.
Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke....
We finished Sunday with some festbier and some of the worst wurst (true, not just a pun) at Notch
* - We're not computers but install did sorta work. But really I meant "instill."
** - Renen claims there are no beans in this dip. While I'll take him at his word intellectually, my tongue doesn't have the same brain cells.
Top: Living Root Dragon Boat Club at Pawtucket
Bottom: Somerville Road Runners at Salem
September 7, 2019: Outside Providence, Rhode Island Dragon Boat Festival
Despite causing issues because I gave Emily the wrong phone number, Emily, Casey, Harshil and I were able to get to Pawtucket before the race.
“My brother's in a wheel chair because of a freak accident as a kid. One day we were playing touch football and he fell off the roof.”
While that time I had probably gone to like six practices, now I've been at it for nearly four months. But the big issue is that these are different types of boats; Pawtucket, (to quote myself) they are:
... Taiwanese boats. These boats are considerable larger and harder to steer. They were called “barges” by Scott. The paddles are massive, like swinging a softball bat after practicing with a t-ball model... the massive size of the boats made it as much, if not more effort.
"What's a prep school?" "It's to prepare you for not getting your neck broke by me."
Some teams took the prep time to take out one of the boats and practice with the cricket bat paddles. For the most part we all tried to stay warm on this windy cool morning.
Taiwanese Dragon Boat
"Oh, you're gonna throw the fuckin' daht?"
Our first heat went off at 10:12. Quinn made sure we didn't burn out with the heavy boats and short paddles. The 1:24 was good enough for 11th of the 33 teams. But we were able to find the wind and currents and - once the race started - stay in a straight line, like a daht.
"Okay, Satchmo why don't you play us a few notes?"
Each team had to qualify on the 23 seat "big boat" and the 15 seat "small boat." I wasn't assigned to the small boat. So I got the chance to watch as they ran our second heat. Once again looking good - with Jess in her first drumming ... playing a few notes. Out of the water, we had moved on into 13th overall and into the E Final.
Living Root Small Boat Qualifier
"Brown University? We got one of those in Providence."
Regardless, what Matt termed the "real race of the day" was next. While a few of us got Living Root colored bolts on our faces, Andrew and Julien prepped for the dumpling eating contest. On the line was free airfare to Taiwan.
Julien and Andrew vs. Dumplings
In two minutes, Julien ate an impressive 30 dumplings. He was outdone by Andrew's 41. But sadly both were out done by some big guy named Eric whose 55(!) dumplings won him tickets from JFK to Chiang Kai-Shek Airport.
"You hit a parked cop car?"
The last race was the E finals. Frist place went home with the much coveted 13th place overall. We saved our best for last. Our start was good, we had very little settle in the middle and then crushed the finish. I watched the boat to our right disappear from my peripheral vision as we pulled in at a 1:18.
Living Root's Final Race.
We're in the middle taking the big lead!
photo by: Matt Scotti
September 8, 2019: The Witch City, Salem Road Race
Urvi and I caught the 8:30 train out of North Station, along with a large number of others. Getting our numbers was a bit of a shitshow with thousands of people packed into a little park area. But, slowly it cleared up.
Because of the aforementioned shitshow, the race started late - at 10:15. But on the warm day (the winds and coolness of Saturday gone), it was actually pleasant.
Urvi and I in Salem
Miles 1-2: The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The first mile, I went like a bat outta hell. For reasons unknown to me, I decided to run ahead of Dominic from the start. We flew down the narrow Derby Street, through the National Historic Park. That first mile was like when you read The Crucible in High School after reading Shakespeare or Tennyson - fast and liberating with all the hysteria of Salem 1692.
We hit the second mile and it was like reading The Crucible in your college literature class. First you say, "oh, I love this play" and then the professor explains McCarthyism to you. blerg. The fast liberating read becomes a bit more challenging. Tying the hills together without burning out was like relating the play to things you only really knew as black and white newsreels.
Mile 1 was a decent 7:04; Mile 2 was a less decent 7:38.
Miles 3-4: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
By the start of the third mile, I knew my first race since Chicago wouldn't be any great American piece of literature like Huckleberry Finn or anything. Instead it would be something really dull - you know like The Scarlet Letter. Indeed, I tried to push through the first part of mile 3 like something good was going to happen (like the the first chapters of the novel); but nothing interesting every did (like the novel). The 7:24 and 7:38 of this section told me I wasn't going to be taking the world by storm or anything.
The fifth mile so my desire to put together anything that was any good wane - like the 1995 film adaption of The Scarlet Letter.
I picture the production meeting now: Can we make this book any more boring? Sure let's put wooden, one dimensional actress Demi Moore in the lead. Every one loved her in Ghost!
That's pretty much what went through my head as everyone started passing me when my pace slowed to 8:12.
Mile 6: The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
With a little more than a mile to go, I tried. I really tried to get the pace down again. I tried to recreate the fast image of myself, like Hawthorne tried to write an English gothic novel. Neither of us did too well. But, at least it was better than the previous miles...
Urvi in front of The House of the Seven Gables - there was a wedding going on inside.
(Hopefully not haunted by the previous ones.)
As we made it back up to Congress Street, we passed the mile 6 marker and I put in everything I had left. My finish was actually pretty strong; I ran the last quarter at a 6:15 pace. So there is something there, but it's mostly a mirage right now.
The after-party at Notch allowed me to enjoy my double medal weekend
Event: Lowell Water Festival
Distance: 500m
Times: 2:48 and 2:50
Dave basically jinxed it. As the A team boat, Cheddah, finished its third race he breathed a sigh of relief and exclaimed, "Well, at least we didn't tip over."
****
Gouda, Qualifying: 2:48
Hours earlier, we started the regatta with some qualifier races. Aboard the boat Gouda, we were pretty comfortable and confident. Dave sent us out from the Ryne Beach boathouse and we paddled down past the UMass Boathouse to the 3/4 Hand-off for Mill Cities near the Rourke Bridge.
I guess this is where the race used to start. Not so this day, the race directors began yelling at us that we'd gone too far. So we turned back and made our way to the start line. The other team had a monster take off and we were playing catch up the whole way. But, still thinking it was 1000m, it didn't worry us because we were pulling them back. But when the race turned out to be 500m, we just ran out of water to catch them.
We thought our 2:48 would be good enough to make the knock out round. But both Lester and I discussed that we wished we had known it was only 500m. I think we could have pushed that boat earlier and won the qualifier.
Cheddah, Qualifying: 3:10
All week Dave had been discussing how hard it would be to steer these Sampans. While I'm sure we all took it to heart on an intellectual level, Harris probably didn't understand fully until he was doing it. The two boats came around the bend and Cheddah looked like it was tacking a sailboat into some ridiculous wind. He was pushing it toward the wall and then back and to the middle line and then back to the wall. Cheddah came in a little ways down.
**** Gouda v Cheddah, Repechage: (Gouda 3:11)
Both Gouda and Cheddah were forced into the repechage. And then they learned we had to race against each other. Dave and Harris quickly huddled. They rearranged the teams with the more experienced paddlers moving into Cheddah and the rest of us into Gouda.
Cheddah had the better boat and the better lane. Match that with the better paddlers and Cheddah crushed us. On the plus side, Harris - who had moved to our captain - was much more comfortable steering. We went straight.
**** Cheddah, Quarterfinals
Cheddah went out in the quarters against the highest ranked qualifier and it looked it. The rival boat clipped across the inside lane and rolled its way into the finals.
Cheddah finished strong with its head high and then Dave uttered the fateful words.... "At least we didn't flip over"
And Cheddah flips over
That's not the boat you left the shore aboard....
It was a nice day. I had some awesome Teriyaki and sticky rice.
Date: September 6, 2008 Distance: 1000 feet (~305 m) Location: Blackstone River, Pawtucket, RI Type: Dragon Boat
While Hannah was more of a whimper than a storm most of the day the finals were still delayed. After a long delay – flags being replaced, boats going sideways and lastly one of the official’s boats stalling – the Dragon Class finals ultimately got underway we stood on the edge of the river watching Living Root Boat 1 run its last race. Our boat jumped out to a quick lead. We were yelling with the extra potential energy the delay had bottled within us.
A guy from one of the teams said: “Wow, look at the guys in the yellow boat.” We kept yelling: “Come on Living Root!” “Let’s go Living Root!” etc. “Hey, which one’s Living Root?”
“The yellow ones,” I said.
“They’re good.” Boat 1, indeed, was good. They blew past the two other boats in the race and charged down the 1000-foot course. With a good three or four boat length lead on the other two, approached the flags. Debbie, the “flag-catcher” leaned out from the bow. The race officials had placed another grommet on the top of the flag to keep it from blowing off, again. As we on the sideline held our breath, Debbie required an extra yank on it. She pulled it off and was safely back in position on the bow. Our sideline yells went from encouragement to glee. Boat 1 had dominated their finals.
Living Root 1 with yellow paddles – Finals Race
I’ve been asked several times, what got me into dragon boating and stand on that sideline cheering. Well, a few months ago I had decided on joining a new team sport team (kickball is not exactly the best “work-out” sport). And, a few years before I’d seen an ad for dragon boat racing. While at the time my schedule did not permit me to do this it was always in the back of my head to try it. So three weeks ago I did just that, showing up to a Saturday practice of Living Root.
Dragon boating has everything that kickball does not. The common dragon boat is about 39 feet (11 ½ m) long and holds 20 paddlers, a drummer and an oarsman. For race days they are decorated with open mouth dragonheads at the front and scaly tales on the stern – giving them the feel of Viking longboats. Each of the paddlers sits on a seat that holds two people and paddles exclusively on one side. A race is 500 meters long and involves from 2 to 8 boats. The course is straight like an Olympic canoe/kayak event.The paddlers follow the rhythm set by the drummer or the oarsman (who is captain of the boat). The paddlers work in unison for maximum power. Each stroke is timed with into the water and out of the water with the paddler in front. Watching a good team (like Living Root’s Boat 1) is an impressive site, some where between the artistry and precision of OSU band’s “Script Ohio” and the athletic prowess of a perfectly executed odd man rush in hockey.
The race in Pawtucket was a bit different. First off, the Blackstone River is disgusting. The Blackstone flows from rural Worcester County down through the exurbs of Franklin and Woonsocket to empty into the tidal portion where the race was. It is here that it becomes the gross, polluted reminder of America’s Industrial Age. All sorts of crap including tires and miscellaneous trash float by. But the worst was the dead fish. Something involving the heat of the river and algae causes the river to lack essential oxygen and fish that cannot breathe merely die in the rivers waters. The other part that made this regatta different is the Taiwanese boats. These boats are considerable larger and harder to steer. They were called “barges” by Scott. The paddles are massive, like swinging a softball bat after practicing with a t-ball model. The race itself was shorter – only 1000 feet (305m). But the massive size of the boats made it as much, if not more effort. Additionally, the race includes an extra element, the 23rd man. No, not like the 12th man in Buffalo and College Station. Instead there is a 23rd person aboard whose job it is at about 280 meters to reach out from the boat and snag a flag hanging on a buoy in the lane. If they fail to grab the flag, the boat is assessed a 3 second penalty. I would say only 2 in 3 boats grabbed the flag properly each race. There is video of Debbie being off balance where she thought she was going in. One flag grabber actually fell into the pleasant stream that is the Blackstone.
Boat One’s second race – notice the flag snatcher with the yellow vest.
There were about 17 teams involved in the regatta. There were corporate one off teams, East Greenwich’s Job Corps had a team (they did fantastic with the second fastest time of the day; keep it up guys). Even the Rhode Island Attorney General and the Providence Roller Derby league had teams. Most of these teams were only put together for this one event. The most-clever team had to be “Big Perm.” They wore 70’s styled perm wigs with short shorts and white tube socks with colored bands pulled up to their knees. Additionally, they beat the team of the Attorney General.
Living Root is a full-time team that trains for races year-round. The great thing about my first regatta was I got to enjoy it as both spectator and participant. I was aboard Living Root – Boat 2, which was a lot like Boat 1 just with 5 or so different paddlers. My first race was interesting. We were calm and relaxed in the boat as the other boats tried to tell us and Evan, the oarsman, what to do. After not listening to them, Boat 2 took off like a rocket. Through my peripheral vision, I saw the other two boats drop away. Boat 2 finished with the best qualifying run of the morning at 1:31. For a moment I felt like Percy Howard.Living Root took a gold and a silver. Woohoo!Boat One with trophy in hand.Next Race is in Hartford 9/20: http://www.riverfront.org/index.php/events/events/dragonboat/
Then Philly 10/4: http://www.philadragonboatfestival.com/Default.asp?id=1&l=1
