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Join us in our 30th year, and swim to get fit! |
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Chlorine ChronicleNMSC Nov/04 Newsletter22 HEARTS 1 SOul ON FIRE!Newsletter Contents | Previous Article by Margie Bermel For the 7th year, a fantastic group of 22 people from NMSC entered the National Capital Dragon Boat Festival in Ottawa. For those who haven't heard of Dragon Boating, a team is made up of 22 people: 20 paddlers, 1 steersperson, and 1 drummer. The festival is held at Mooney's Bay each June. 170 teams paddle (hopefully in sync) a 500 meter course to the finish. It's just over 2 minutes of pain and a whole weekend of fun. The skills for paddling and swimming are very similar, so we are fortunate that we have had a lot of success in this fast growing sport. We are competitive, aiming for a top ten finish each year, and we always have a fun, sun, and friendship filled weekend. Our unofficial motto has been "It's just a festival." This year we reminded ourselves of this many times as we proved anything can happen and it did! At the end of the day Saturday, we were in 14th place out of 170 boats. A good placing since our team tends to get better as the weekend progresses (something about all that swim conditioning must give us endurance!). We won the Education Cup, which was the category we were entered in. On Sunday, while racing in high winds, our boat was rammed by the boat in the lane beside us. Despite a bit of panic and a few of our paddlers needing to stop paddling, we managed to finish in 7th place. I'm not sure who was more shocked, our team members or our young coaches who were pleasantly surprised that this boat full of swimmers, with an average age of about 40, could compete with the best of them. We were delighted and pumped to participate in the Championship Final race against many teams who train all winter just to paddle and who participate in many festivals over the summer. Our Championship Final race got off to a great start, but then all of a sudden our steersperson, Nancy Binnie, was doing some impromptu aquatic research at the bottom of Mooney's Bay! The clasp that holds the steering oar broke and poor Nancy was launched over board! Thankfully, she's a good swimmer. The rescue boat picked her up (more like hauled her in), John jumped back to steer the boat, and we continued the race short one body. We crossed the finish line to the cheers and applause of a beach full of fans! What a hoot. Nancy was bruised and shaken, but was a really, really good sport about the whole thing. Technically, we got a DNF, but our fabulous team is number one in my heart. It takes a lot of people to pull the team together, so thanks to everyone on the team for making it a festival to remember. A huge thanks to John Burrows for his continued leadership of the team. As well, we owe a lot of our speed to John and his wood craftsmanship. John hand-made a light, custom-sized paddle for each and every team member - the paddles were they envy of other teams and really gave us the edge on the water. And special thanks to the members of our swim club for sponsoring the Breast Cancer Survival Trophy. Paddles Up! P.S. check out more photos of the team in action in our album section. |