dip dip and swing'er back

yikes.
my arms are going to fall right off my body.

I challenged the dragon x5 today, and did pretty well considering! My official team was CH's, my team that I put my full heart into was the SVFF team (of course!) and ... then there was the random race with the hospital's team... uh.. yeah...

I'm not sure where we are on the "annual" list for the 'burg's dragon boat races, but since this was my second.. I'm calling it the second annual dragon boat race. SVFF needed some extra rowers, so of course I jumped into their boat when their first race was called, we did pretty well... well... ok, it was kinda slow, but most of us hadn't been on the water since last year's race... and we were just warming up.

And then it happened... the wind picked up... race times went up for every team... WAY up, we were paddling into the wind, waves jumping the side of the boat on the turns... and the steers calling for all to paddle so we didn't flip. I was doing ok with the whole thing till he yelled that at us.. then the panic sat in my throat for awhile.

My second race was with CH, we had a full boat, it went ok... MUCH slower than my first race, I could feel the difference in the boat, feel the pull on the paddle as being different.
Then back into the festival boat for an AMAZING race, we were together (after a false start, the wind blew us out of the right angle before the race started... our steers kept yelling to the race official "we're not ready yet!") and pulled HARD.

Then our last race was called... I didn't know what to do! my teams were against each other!!! We rallied up a few extra bodies, and I decided to stick with the festival crew... but only three of us showed up... we stood at the cue wondering where the rest of the team had gone... joking about them being in the pub.... when one member wandered by... we hollered and got his attention... and he said they were all at the chili cook off... then took off running to get them.

I knew there was no way he was going to run the two blocks to down town, find everyone and get them back in less than two minutes... my own team had enough people... so Manda and I joined the Hospital's team (they were really short on bodies) and poor AJ stood forlornly in the festival's lane by himself wondering what to do... when... out of nowhere.... the festival crew showed up! (sans tambourines) Yeah... turns out they weren't at the cook off... they WERE in the pub. Money was thrown on the table, and drinks left full when they took off running.

So really, it turned out for the best in the end... I didn't have to sabotage either boat in the end!

SVFF came in first in that level... the third level overall... pretty darn good!