Sunday 500s

No medals for psurgers today. Fought hard though and I ended up with lots of new jerseys. Word is Hungary in 2013. Let the training begin!

Senior a ten man boats

Second yesterday in 200m and third today in 500m with Connie calling and Sooze driving. Fun time though no bling.

200meters

Looks like no bling for wasabians at worlds today. I can say that the senior a boat felt better each run but just didn't get the job done. Psurgers off tomorrow unless they are seated in a ten man race late afternoon. Rain delay right now.

Kathy's back

finding our groove

All wasabians now sporting bling. Not sure of all the colors but my boat took bronze by .04 seconds. Lummie has taken over my role as the claw. I humbly hand over the tube of Neosporin.

2000 m

The weather gods were kind today and we had a cooler day than those preceding for the race. There was a light mist coming down and I thought that might play to our advantage. Unfortunately for the power surgers here, both boats had off starts. At this level of competition you just can't give up the start and get to the podium, even if it is a 2000m race. So, no medals for the Wasabi psurgers today. Of course, Senior A had the same experience in Prague and went on to medal in each of the remaining distances. Just need to find the hang and bang and that will take us to the glide.

Opening ceremonies

Whenever I have seen sporting events held in different countries like the Olympics I have thought that the athletes hosting must miss the fact that they aren't traveling to some distant location. I had no idea what it is like to represent your country at home. People talk to you from their cars to say "go USA". They honk in support. It is really amazing.
Tonight we went to opening ceremonies. There was the usual corralling of the athletes by country to parade in. Lots of pictures taken so I am sure some will be posted. Went inside and had the normal dignitaries giving speeches. Then the music started and we were soon dancing in the crowds. Then the us contingent started dancing over to the other countries and it ended up a huge line of international dancers high fiving. The energy was great and it was nice to see Connie enjoying us enjoying it.
Then, the evening got even more amazing. One of our teammates had met a restaurant owner at starbucks when he was impressed by her biceps. He invited her to bring her room mates back with her to Malios prime where he fed them a three course dinner for free. He told them to bring the team back for free appetizers. We had taken a picture for them and the teammates that had met him had framed it and taken it to him. When we got there tonight we had bread, shrimp, steak tips, cheesecake, chocolate cake... Going back to normal life is going to be tough!
Tomorrow is the 2000. Stay tuned.

Florida

Ok, not to complain, but let's talk about conditions for just a minute....it's hot. No, really, I am talking HOT. Like, 6:30 am on the balcony and you are sweating already kind of hot. We have been hydrating like maniacs for a couple of weeks (because we always do what coach tells us to) and STILL it is just overwhelming. Our second practice was more in the middle of the day, sun is beating down, and at the end we are just dragging our butts off that boat, totally wet from sweat, salt water, the total slimy feel you get from sweating everything out of every pore in your body, salt getting in your mouth, hair sticky, sun screen running down your face. Wow. Now drinking so much more water and electrolyte stuff that most of us can barely make it through our team meetings without visiting the restroom.... All the east coast paddlers look at us and comment on how red our faces are - they've had some more experience with this, I guess. Felt good to see a lot of red Canadian faces as they got off their boats, too.

Tuesday

The boat is definitely coming together mentally and physically. The 2000m race is tomorrow and should give us the fine tuning we need. Our steer had a dream last night that she was on top of a post and a buffalo was trying to get her. Sooze informed us that in native American totem buffalo is raw pure power. Chills all around.
We are learning some great drills. Feels like camp where you spend time with friends from last summer as well as friends from home and are getting ready for the camp wide competition. Paddling here also gives you time to think about how much we get from paddling in terms of being fully present, committed, in the moment and part of something much bigger than ones self.
Loving the expectant feeling. We are going to nail this.

Familiar Sites

For those of you who were here at Nationals in 2005 ... here's a couple sites you may remember. Jackson's restaurant and those brilliant sunsets! :)

Monday

Senior A hit the water at ten this morning. Lummie led us in a warmup first and I think the counting we did in the warmup helped with the San Diego style counting in the boat. We also did a great dry land hit drill before we hit the water and we seemed to blend together better today. We had hoped to get a second practice in but the only slots available were when the sun was way to hot. So, we watched video, lsughed a lot (amazing how quickly things get out of hand) and enjoyed watching our inflatable pet Tuffy the Turtle in the pool and Laurie charm a significant portion of the pool population.
Tomorrow we continue to work on blending and have opening ceremonies in the evening. Rumor is there are some ten an races we may get to do. Thanks Wasabi for buying a ten man for us to practice in.

Sunday - Completed 1st practice day

SUNDAY, 31-July-2011: Tampa, Florida
Sunday was a day of practice and bonding with teammates. We started the day by meeting in the lobby and scaring some of the other teams with our strength and poise (or was that pose) ? Hmmm? Anyway, you read Michelle & Vassar's accounts of the festival racers cheering us as we walked through the crowd. It was truly an uplifting and yet humbling experience. I even signed a couple auto-graphs. That felt ... odd!

Thunder and lighting came through so we waited patiently for practice and finally got out on the water. Tonight Senior A women did a team dinner. We sat in groups of 10 and worked on getting to know each other. Tonight I sat with Wendy from Wisconsin, Lynn from Pittsburgh, Jackie and Annette from San Diego and then Vassar, Christine (Bridge City) and Barb Wells. Very good day! :)

Oh, and last night there was a wedding in the hotel. Today we stole the groom ... just for a minute though ... for this picture! :)

From Tampa Florida...

Laurie

Master's women

Truly an amazing day - we are walking to the race site together, wearing our matching practice jerseys, and along the way we go through a part of the waterway where they have been having a dragon boat festival all weekend with rec teams competing. All of a sudden, we hear people shouting "Team USA". "You go!" and lots of stuff like that and then it swells into a chant of "U-S-A. U-S-A" that follows us all the way to the race site and ends with people wildly clapping and whooping. It was INCREDIBLE! We are smiling at first, then sort of looking at each other in disbelief, then we all walk a little slower and tougher, like, yeah we're here to BRING IT. When it's over, we are just speechless - just amazed at the pounding support, being the recipient of that crowd PRIDE. Never felt anything like it. Will never forget it.

We will not let them down.

worlds in tampa vs outside usa

walking thru the village of festival racers in out team usa practice jerseys, the racers started clapping and chatting usa. brought chills. something extra special about representing the us on home turf...

Saturday night

Most of women senior a is now here. We enjoyed cooling off in the pool and meeting some people doing recreational racing before dinner. The team meeting brought familiar faces, introductions and some great visualizations. Looking forward to great things. First practice and video review tomorrow.

10th IDBF World Dragon Boat Racing Championships -- Tampa Bay USA

The 10th World Dragon Boat Racing Championship will be held in Tampa Bay, Florida, USA on 1-7 August 2011 with racing commencing on the 3rd.
I'm packed ... the uniforms are packed in my carry-on and the flight leaves tonight. One of the more interesting pieces of this year's uniform kit is the skort ... I thought it rather ridiculous at first but it's growing on me. The polo (for dinner's out and other official things) is nice. The tank top has caused quite a surge in retail sales around the Portland area for something to make it less revealing! Ahhh, the fun we have! Anyway, just thought I'd test out the blog site to make sure everything is working. Talk to you all from Tampa!!! Laurie Hansen...

Tampa 2011

Adding the final items to the bag before heading to the airport and finding out how accurate all our visualizations have been.
And testing to see if I can post...