... the mice still train! - Strange, but true. Papillons hauled themselves outta bed early Saturday morning as usual for water training.
Nevertheless, some chaos was to be expected when the cat is away getting married. The situation was made worse by an influx of primary school children in the compound, which made it difficult to find a patch of ground for warm up. So we jumped right into the boat for a warm up row instead.
Our cameo coxswain-of-the-day - Freddy! (whom we stealthily koped* from Veterans for the day) - decided to put a twist in the concept of 'warm up row' (and maybe our muscles too) by introducing a couple of hard-10s while we rowed towards the Sheares bridge. Not to worry - our muscles did not spas up, even as Christy lamented the lack of push ups and land-based warm up.
*Koped = poached
From there we headed to our favourite destination - the mysterious supposedly '300metres away' yellow buoys. Our boat was feeling alittle groovy, so it 1, 2 stepped to the left, then 1, 2 stepped to the right. (Of course, it was unintentional laaa.. Alright, next time I'll cox.)
So anyway, we reached the buoys, then decided to let freshie Ben Chua try his hand at coxing. The boat did the 1, 2 steps left and right too, but not a bad attempt - we didn't crash, did we?
This was followed by an attempted boat chase - we wanted to qie4 / 切 / overtake a nearby boat which, in Jon's humble opinion, was moving very slowly (yes - we're suckers for cheap thrills). So off we went! BUT, just as we engaged 4th gear... the other boat stopped rowing. What a downer - cheh.
I think I have yet to mention any break - let me assure you that we did pepper our training with sufficient breaks and boat stretches. In fact, we found some time to do ambassadorial work for Singapore Tourism Board by waving enthusiastically to the tourists (or locals?) onboard the Duck tour boats that passed us. (Tour guide to tourists: "To your left - you can see dragonboat rowing along the Kallang river. *Spies Papillon waving excitedly* Look! - Singaporeans are such friendly folks.")
A few start sets (10 hard - 20 fast - 3, 2, 1 - 10 maintenance - easy) and pair rowing thrown in, we then took a well-deserved break during which we observed hilarious antics by kiddos learning to row dragonboat. Paddles literally up overhead, at various angles, lovely wavelike incoordination and plenty of splashes amidst friendly paddle fights - what great fun they had! *Brimming with cheap thrill ideas again* - How nice it would be if all our J.I. race competitors rowed like that!
Snap back to reality - we returned earlier to the pontoon to wash up and make our way to our favourite cat's ROM lunch.
喜喜 Congratulations to Patrick on your marriage! 喜喜
喜喜 Wish you and Geraldine happiness forever after. 喜喜
Papillons - good effort at today's training. I don't think we let up on the intensity even as Coach was not around. (*Conscience-stricken* Okaaay... maybe there was no tyre. Alright, alright - I confess we skipped the push ups too...)
Anyway - let's keep it going! With gym and all - build it up!
= Chief Editor signing off =
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