Post
by PJM » February 12th, 2008, 5:14 pm
quote="Bill Hawthorne"]Hmm - its getting interesting! Looks like some production is required this evening. Last night's fare was a 10K and 4x2,000 power 10's - stimulating. For me, Saturday is Pittsburgh Indoor Rowing Championships (Pittsburgh is one of the top 4 Crash B qualifying events - not that I'm that good, just crazy enough to try) - most likely I will repeat last night's workout as final prep and as a way to log some decent meters for Timbuk2 - will have to to row long but easy on Thursday to give the bod a few days to recharge before Saturday.
Pat looked up my main sport of Dragon Boat Racing and suggested I mention it in this forum as it might be of interest to members of the team not familiar with it. I got into the world of C2 as off-season training but didn't anticipate that I'd get hooked on it! Dragon Boating is a 2300 year old sport that originated in China and is the fastest growing paddling sport internationally - very big in Canada- growing in the US - will be new in the coming Olympics. I belong to two teams: Steel City Dragons (Festival Racing competition team) and Team Pittsburgh (Sport Racing competition team). For anyone interested - You Tube has some great videos of Dragon Boat competition: its basically a speed and power sport. Our boats are about 46 feet long with a dragon head and tail at the ends - 20 paddlers, a cox who beats a big drum,and a steersperson who keeps us on course and controls the boat. Races are 500m, qualifiers are 250m, occasionally races include a 2,000m event and are flat-out power, usually lasting only a little over 2 minutes for the 500m in Sport Racing Class. Stroke rates in our boat range from a slow 60spm to about 95 spm or even more. A dragon boat paddle is a little like a canoe paddle - the stroke is all about core drive with alot of back and shoulder power initially - but most of the power comes from the core. The boat seats do not move - because of the torque , "Dragon Butt" (that is spelled b-l-i-s-t-e-r) is a fairly frequent anatomical consequence of the sport. I figure that our boat fully loaded weighs about 3,500 to 3,800 pounds. We think of it as an ultimate team sport: 20 paddlers have to be in perfect synchronization - no heroes - just one living, (fire) breathing unit. Its immense fun (if you look closely in my picture, there's a Dragon Boat in the distant background - it was taken at a Fall competition in Oakville Ontario. So, that's my other paddling passion. As an aside, I got my team to take the boat out for a 50k paddling event at the end of our 2007 season - we may even do it as a challenge next fall as there are only a few teams that have done this kind of distance in a Dragon Boat competitively. There are always new goals to go for! We'll put the boats back in the water in late March then 6 to 8 hrs a week on the water training and, yes, more time on my C2!
Here is info on Dragon Boating Kona2
[img]http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k195/lockaroundmyheart/Not%20Real%20Pictures/Animations/diddle-1.gif[/img]