Adventures

+ Play / Adventures — 1 Comment
10
Jun 09

Putrajaya Dragonboat Race: 4secs Too Late to Bring the Medal Home!

Team Corezone-BUFF
Team Corezone-BUFF

It was a sunny bright morning. Everyone was exciting. Team Corezone-BUFF was gearing up with their gels and bars. The other teams were also getting ready. Friends came to support and wished us good luck.

As I was paddling to the start of our race lane with the team, I suddenly felt butterflies in my stomach. It’s been a while since I participated in a competitive event, more so it was dragonboat, which I have never done before!

The referee shouted from his microphone, “Ready Ladies, Attention, GO!” We digged in deep and we felt our boat charging off at the start of the racing line. It felt like we had a bit of a lead for the first 50ms. It was very close with the other girls.

Coming to the 100m, I saw started to notice the dragonhead on my left passing by. Holy crap I told myself. Lol! But I kept paddling and paddling. Then another 100 m or so, I started to see the red team coming after us on the right. Holy crap again!

I was huffin and puffin with the other girls! I kept digging and digging but I was also slipping and slipping off my seat. Very soon before I knew it, the race was over.

We finished in 4th! 4 seconds too late to bring home a medal! But hey… the shocking news was, we finished off with 3.00minutes! That’s 15 seconds faster than our best practice time!

Though, we left the race course with a little pinch in our stomachs like “damn it! I could have given a little bit more to finish 4 seconds earlier” but hey, I thought it was one awesome experience we left off with. We’ll do better next year girls!

finish-line
Final Efforts at the Finish Line

Race Results
1st: Team Splash - 2.52 mins
2nd: Team Venus-Get Active - 2.54 mins
3rd: Pacific West - 2.56 mins
4th: Team Corezone-BUFF - 3.00 mins
5th: Skrine - 3:01mins
6th: POS Malaysia - 3:06mins

Congratulations to all ladies!! Hope to see you at the race course again next year! Woo Hoo!

+ Play / Adventures — 4 Comments
1
Jun 09

Putrajaya Dragonboat Race: Gonna make all the Huffin’ and Puffin’ worthwhile!

Yesterday was my final team practice for the upcoming Putrajaya International Dragonboat Festival 2009. It is the first time Putrajaya is having this international event and I feel an outburst of energy about it! My team Corezone-BUFF have been training every fortnight over the past many weekends . We all started with zilch knowledge and experience for this activity. I remember how cacat (handicapped) we looked about 8-10weeks ago. Not only did we row awkwardly while huffin’ and puffin’, we were most definitely not in sync as a team. Thinking back, it has been quite a team journey. :-)

For the dragonboat sport, the secret is to get your entire team paddling and propelling at the same time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a power and strong rower. Team work definitely makes the magic work with dragonboat. Today our rowing efforts are definitely more synchronized. I actually feel rather proud of how far we’ve come :)

Yesterday was a fantastic practice. Great team effort. We had the best time record ever from our fortnightly practice - 500 metres, 3:15 minutes . I am not sure how we stand among the other teams, but it felt like good timing for an absolute amateur team!

We’ll be racing with 5 other teams which makes a total of 6 boats for our category.
1    Pos Malaysia
2    Team Splash
3    Pacific West Foods (M) Sdn Bhd
4    Team CorezoneBUFF
5    Team Venus-Get Active
6    Skrine Dragon KL

Actual Race Site

Putrajaya Actual Race Site

Come and cheer for us this Sunday. The race site is beautiful! So catch some sun, bring a camera along ;) Cheer for Team CorezoneBUFF ok? I’ll give you my best row! We’ll be on Lane 4, dressed in blue! :-)

Event : 1st Putrajaya International Dragonboat Festival 2009
Date : 7th June 2009
Time : 8:30am - 5:00pm
Venue : Water Sport Complex, Presint 6 Tasik Putrajaya

My Race Time : 10:15am
 Category : Malaysia  Corporate Ladies Crews ( 500 M )

*If you wish to be there earlier or stay on throughout the festival, you may download the itinerary here for the entire festival’s events and schedules for 5th-7th June. They are some other exciting categories as well. I highly recommend you to catch the Open International 2000m Challenge, which also falls on Sunday 7th June when I’ll be rowing too!

See ya!