What a tremendous year.
Papillon began the season with an enjoyable family row - where our loved ones got to experience what we subject ourselves to every Saturday morning, namely:
Testing our resolve to wake up ultra early in the morning, trudging our way to a not-very-extremely convenient part of Singapore, embossing our palms with intricate tarmac prints while doing push ups, sniffing lovely scents emanating from the life vests, and finally, getting onto a boat ride where *horrors of horrors* we have to row the damn thing ourselves?!?
Yes, that is what we do. For several months too. March through to July.
But in the end, it all paid off. We achieved what we always knew we are capable of. Amid the oodles of fun doing it.
Make no mistake, there were bouts of uncertainty and of tentativeness, as Papillon faced a myriad of changes:
- A new stroke - This was never going to be easy for those of us who have gotten used to the usual stroke of yesteryears.
- Role changes - We saw William rise capably to the challenge of the right pacer position.
- Personnel movements - Samuel and Freddy moved to our Vets team, a tremendous boost to their firepower, yet, as ever, continue to show Papillon the greatest support in heart and spirit.
- National service - Nation being first, we released (albeit reluctantly) our Yen Nee to heed the PM's call for more Singaporean babies.
- Trips - Business trips, vacation trips and plant trips were always going to inject some hiccups into our training plans.
- Fresh blood - Joe (not -that- fresh but still considered fresh la) and Ben (very fresh) eased into the sport and our team like fish to water.
- Changing landscape - Kallang was undergoing major cosmetic surgery, which came with complimentary ruckus, too.
- Government intervention - THEY CLOSED THE BLARDY STADIUM GYM.
How Papillon got through all these - I don't know. But we did. It did prompt a little 'wake up email' from Captain Jon midway - after which we rallied admirably to get our act together. I guess it was a timely trigger - for us to dig deep into ourselves and rediscover our movitation for why we were doing this ('this' = refer to blue section in the beginning of post).
The timely moment of reflection took away all the distortions from the changes and uncertainties, and refocused our goal for this year, that is:
To fulfill our potential.
(Which, by the way, would logically result in medals - judging by the quality of our team.)
And that was about 1 month before our first competition - the 800m SDBF race. So our drive was now aligned - GOOD.
But still, there were kinks. For example, our start pattern. 10hard-20fast was proving to be ineffective for our new piston stroke - despite the rapid strokes, we just weren't seeing the speed. Plus, by the end of it, our breaths were literally taken away... and we still had two-thirds way to go?!?
And here's where Coach Patrick came in, again. He just kept tuning. And finetuning. It was always going to be a challenge to introduce a new stroke and have us bloom in time for the races. But Patrick never wavered - he threw in all the tricks - bailers, tyre, Trivium paddle, GPS, his coaching brain - it was as if he had a Doraemon* pouch.
* Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon character with a magical pouch that can give you anything fantastical that you can ever imagine.
In the end, we formulated our ideal start pattern in time - The 30hard. Of course, it took a heck lot of testing both starts, before we concluded without a doubt (nor strength left) that the latter was more suited for Papillon. That, was the week before the 800m race - talk about "Just in Time"...
In that 800m, we did well to beat away many teams - including all-men ones - to land a semi-final slot, in which we finished a commendable third place.
Sounds like a good start to the race campaign.
The CCG was another kettle of fish (shorter fish - only *nervous laugh* 250m niah). Although we bettered last year's result by capturing Silver, a tinge of 'wasted'ness* lingered as the finish was so warrau-eh-close... there was a feeling that Papillon could have taken the gold, if we had that something.
* Wasted - a very Singlish word with no real English equivalent. Chinese equivalent would be '惋惜', which translates as 'to feel sorry over something that should have happened'.
So, what was 'that something'? Papillon spent the next two trainings finding out. Again, the "Just in Time" team shone through - we hunted down that renegade Aggressiveness in Seletar reservoir, wrestled it into submission and shoved the damn thing into our Psyche (then moved it into the Stomach - where it could run amok and - just as well - kill all the nervous butterflies before J.I.).
After that - boy, were we ready to rock and row. Even when we learnt that Patrick wouldn't be able to cox for us - no matter. He had said before that we have already matured as a team - so yes, Papillon would take to the battle, strategy all mapped out and all that's left to do is the flawless execution. Sounds easy huh.
Not so easy.
Post-photo-reviews (accidentally captured by our EM photographer) showed that we were all over the place towards the end of our heat race - kinda looked like a reenactment of the 1000-armed Guanyin (seriously, not kidding). No wonder we didn't feel any surge at all as we charged to the finish (1:22:45). That was why, in spite of the runaway lead, Capt Jon seriously said that we can do better.
Which we did.
Indeed, the semi-final was better (1:21:11). But all that wouldn't matter, if we didn't fly in the Final. So the Papillon boat was remarkably focused as we lined up at the starting buoy for the Final. The Police were in as well, and so was SRC (whom we had to give the gold to last year - compensation for crashing into their vehicle) - but that didn't matter too - for the greatest enemy was ourselves.
It was THE amazing race. By the end of our 30hard, we were flying. Maintenance was a cruise, before we let fly with a ROARING charge to the finish (1:20:38). Blown away - that's what our opponents were. The second placed boat was three-quarter boat's length behind us! And we were in the correct lane - so, no dispute there, sorry, uh-uh, nah, no way we gonna let you have the gold.
ExxonMobil was jubilant. Papillon was jubilant. And each of us was delirious - from both the win, and atomizing every molecule of our energy in the race.
We did it; You did it.
Whatever difficulties and initial tentativenss there were, Papillon pulled through, with shining results.
- Individuals with an inexplicable sync - check.
- Coach with a kaizen* philosophy - check.
- Commitment and determination - check.
- Goals and medals - check.
- Achievement and satisfaction - check.
* Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement.
Be proud of yourselves, you deserve it!
= Chief Editor signing off =
