Chapter 6: Adrenaline

Hey hey..first and foremost, sorry huibing. i have collated all the pix and the videos alr. but cant find time to upload in my blog. Will find a gd time to do so, or perhaps pass u the hard disk for ur viewing pleasure when i see u!

i havent been blogging frequently as i shd.

不知不觉中，我已归队快两个月了。

i joined team ocbc since aug. have been a gd rower, or so i convince myself. hahaha. attended all trgs so far, apart frm 1 land and 1 h2o trg which was scheduled on my bdae wk and i was in phuket. muahaha

Saturday 25 Sept 2009
as we approach the sava sprints which is held on 10th and 11th Oct 2009, trg has been stepped up to 2 water, 1 land per wk. this was announced to us during last sat's trg.

i embraced the change coz i really love the feel of the water. although i cld anticipate the tiredness and lethargy tt comes with more trg, i enjoy the stepped up intensity leading up to a race.

today's trg was held at...Bedok Reservoir! 2-4pm in the scorching sun.

超怀念这个既熟悉， 又拥有灿烂美好回忆的地方。

it's a place tt has kept my laughter. and tears.

today's trg was damn feel-gd coz we had full boat strength. or shd i say, over-load. we had 12 pple on a small boat. the past trgs had seen really pathetic strength of btwn 5-7 pple turning up for water trg.

the boat literally soared! we did warm up row to clock mileage, a gd 2.8km. thereafter, we clocked another 1.5km.

rowed towards the 1km start mark (nostalgia~), U-turned and rowed towards the finishing pt.

aft clocking sufficient mileage, we left 2 pple on the pontoon to have 10 rowers on the boat and carried on with sets of 30 strokes to practise the explosive starts.

Oh my, oh my. the adrenaline! the adrenaline tt builds up during the brief seconds tt exist btwn 'paddles up' and 'go'.

the boat really, really glided and soared during the 30 power strokes.

在那一刻，我深深感受到我的“金箍棒”已恢复神勇，重返光荣

I smiled, because it happened.

Sunday 26 September 2009

trg was 10-12pm at SDBA.

turn out was a pale comparison compared to ytd. there were only 5 of us, and hak loon..and the kim tuck huat SDBA small boat.

we clocked mileage to sheares bridge and then back to SDBA pontoon. as there was a shortage of right rowers, coach asked annie to row right today. annie is actually the left pacer.

well well..so there was a vacant pacer seat.

"cindy..u move to the front" (i was taking the 2nd seat for the past mth's trg btw..)

argh.

why am i always stuck in front?

actually i'm ok with it. my only gripe is tt i cldnt find a gd footing. there's no bar or front seat as foot support. so i literally have to stretch my leg to paste it to the front.

as we headed back to the pontoon in the hope tt there were some rowers who came late, i saw..Joyce Chua.

tt girl was late for her nus mixed trg and was stranded at the pontoon. haha she took the initiative to ask, and we are a nice and friendly corporate team (muahaha) so yea of course, coach told her to hop on and we rowed out in search of the nus boat.

joyce was whining abt how they didnt wait for her, and i was like arguing to her (of course in a joking manner) abt how she can expect em to wait when she was like.. so late?

we managed to locate the nus team who were practising their starts and obviously we cldnt stop em in the midst of it. so waited till they completed before joyce frantically shouted "nnnnnnuuuuuuuuuuuussssssssssssssssss!!" to alert the boat not to go any further.

saw some familiar faces, such as edward, sarah ching, christie, wen yan, and plenty of new faces as well. haha

it was quite fun, i thought. the graduation frm nus to now..ocbc. the transition frm inter varisty polytechnic (IVP) race to inter corporate challenge.

长江后浪推前浪,世上新人换旧人

后浪，推越大力越好， 加油!

reminising the gd old days

aft my 2-4pm trg, i headed to join raine, wenya, wenting, huibing, karine, bc and weili to have a picnic on the boat frm 4-5pm.

we had to engage the assistance of 4 strong guys who so happen were ard the nursery area, to help us launch the heavy small nus boat.

*pls rmb tt we are no longer in our glory days where we cld lift metal bars with big iron weights attached to them.

anw we rowed out and spent a gd 1 hr baking in the sun. and pigging out with complements of bc and weili bringing popiah and rojak, and bananas tt i offered.

we stopped rowing at a particular pt where we used to race back to SDBA. the 500m mark. then we started telling lame jokes and had our conversations and updates and of course..gossips. hahaha

we decided tt we were too tired to carry on, so we rowed back and parked the boat back to its original spot. again, we asked for assistance frm another 4 guys. hahaha we are 弱小女子who nd help frm 阳光男孩 ok!?

the fun began aft 'fun row'. we bathed, split ourselves up into 4 different cars and then headed towards Seletar for spicy wings.

BC's car: Weili
Wenting's car: picked rang and rang's other half. haha
Wenya's car: raine and karine
My car: huibing

it was gd training for those who get married in future. we followed closely to the car in front of us coz only uncle chua knew the way there, or at least she tried to figure the way there.

Anw its very very far in! We had to venture in Seletar East Camp (who wld have thought cars can juz drive thru without being stopped by sentry)and got lost a couple of times.

We managed to catch a nice view of the sunset across Seletar Airport's runway while making our way there. perhaps the most exciting and thrilling part of the journey was the unexpected slope downwards tt left all of us (drivers and passengers in all 4 cars) hollering and den unanimously wanting to go, 'again again!!'

hahaha. its very deserted place and if u wanna go eat the spicy wings, u gotta be equipped with 2 basic must haves: 1) a car and 2)very gd memory (if u've been there before and know how to navigate) or direction sense

You may refer to the following URL for previous food reviews:
http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/sunset_grill_pub_seletar/

it's kinda creepy and there was no lamp post on the way out so i had to turn on the high beam lights. its waaaay cool, ambience wise.

food wise, i stopped at level 4 spiciness coz it was getting a lil too hot for my tongue. perhaps my tolerance for spicy food has reclined over the yrs.

Sarah, Joyce and Yihan joined us ltr. dinner was very enjoyable coz of the stupid stuff tt was discussed abt. like how there was a dispute btwn 2 of them on who is the team 'player'. in the end, the conclusion is tt one is the team 'player' while the other is the MVP (most valuable player). 放肆！ muahaha

on the random note, guess what music we blasted in the car with huibing as my passenger? 五月天 后轻春期的诗. and we were singing at the top of our voices as we raved abt how they are really talented.

perhaps why we can talk non stop abt mayday is coz we can identify with their lyrics frm the different songs. its sad tt as we enter into the workforce, we lose a big part of our original self. the one tt used to have big, bold dreams. the one tt used to be in control of our lives.

i cldnt help but repeat this phrase each time i looked at our paddles, of which huibing will complete the sentence for me.

Me: 金箍棒那么神勇
Huibing: 现在祇能掏掏耳朵

五月天-孙悟空

the grey owl had seen its glory days.
these days, it stands in some of our rooms only to collect dust.

wenting asked me wad made me decide to join ocbc dragonboat team. i replied, "i miss that feeling of winning together..and i believe i can find it back..here"

我要我的金箍棒恢复神勇，再一次重返光荣

Chapter 4 and 5:Power and Stroke Correction

I admit..i havent been consistent in blogging. well tts coz of Mayday! hahaha i'm still suffering from a hangover although their concert was a wk ago.

if u noticed, last wk's entry was dedicated entirely to Mayday and how 棒！their concert was. Their songs are still ringing in my head, and btw i had a bizarre dream abt em last Monday. lolx

To compensate, let me do 2 chapters at one go.

29 August 2009 Saturday (Chapter 4: Power~):
went for trg in a slightly groggy state coz i had night shift which ended at 8am. this basically meant tt aft my shift ended at 8am on Sat morning, i had a gd 4hrs rest at home before heading out to SDBA for trg.

trg menu today was focusing on anaerobic. speed work. smtg tt i 即爱。。又恨. reason why i hate anaerobic trg is coz i suck at it. ha my heart cant seem to react well to anaerobic trg. we did 3 sets of 8x30sec. aft every 30 sec, there'd be some sorta active rest in btwn. den we had longer rest in btwn the sets.

since i suck at anaerobic, u cld almost picture how badly i was left panting at the end of each set.

anw the gd thing abt speed trg, as its name suggest, is tt it's extremely speed-y. ha! the sets are completed in a blink of an eye. everytime i'm made to do speed work i always think "长痛不如短痛" and tt seems to help me get past the physical aspect of it. mind over body almost always work for me.

aft we finished speed trg, coach decided to go for endurance row. frm nicoll hwy bridge to sheares bridge and repeat tt again.

omg! for a moment i thought how deja vu it was. flashback to yr1 intensive trg period where we had to literally pull the heavy barnicles-surfaced(we call it orh-lua, dunno why)SDBA boat to sheares bridge and back. in those days, that alone constituted as warm up row only.

tiz time rd, the difficulty was tt it was 11 rowers on a big SDBA boat. though there's no tyre, it was equally tiring coz we had juz completed the speed trg prior to tt, and furthermore we are not youthful pple but pple working in office who are leading sedentary lifestyles!

it was by no mean feat tt we completed it. thankfully.

so tt sums up the trg on 29th Aug. btw right aft trg tt day, i went Kallang Leisure Park to wait for my 4 frens to go for the Mayday concert. i didnt bother abt image (since when did i..ha). i bought a drink at coffee bean and pretended to read a story book. in actual fact, i was laying my head down and sleeping. i was really that drained. accumulation of tiredness frm work and trg.

5 September 2009 Saturday (Chapter 5: Stroke Correction):
today's turnout was small. there were only 7 of us so we took a small boat. coach focused mainly on stroke correction. to be more exact, correcting my stroke.

well coz my stroke is slightly different frm the rest. front is ok, he needed me to perfect the ending part of the stroke. for a gd 30min or so, he explained and break down the stroke for me.

he focused on

Entry: how to obtain a gd front catch, the angle he wanted my blade entry to be.

Middle: where to pull the stroke towards

End: where to execute a twist to obtain a nice finishing stroke, recovery. then preparare for a pause in front in anticipation of the next stroke.

coach is actually quite lame. he was commenting how he was gonna coach the Sunday Dragons frm 4-6pm, and den Lisa quizzed him why Sunday Dragons' trg is Saturday and not Sunday.

His reply: coz the heats are on Saturday mah! if they want to be able to make it on Sunday, day 2 of race day (semi finals and finals), they muz train on Saturday instead. Muz qualify during heats which is held on Saturday!

the whole boat totally -_-^

2nd funny incident tt i have to say! (*raine dun be angry hahaha). When we were doing cool down, raine approached me and said tt they will proceed to the nursery to launch the small nus boat, so i can join em ltr once i'm done.

aft raine walked away, hak loon (my coach) said, "你也认识她？she belongs the one of the last few batches in nus tt was very 拼命. their batch is one of those tt worked frm bottom to being 1st"

i looked at coach and replied, "其实我跟 raine 是同样一个 batch"

there are 2 ways to interpret. muahaha. 1) raine looks like she's frm a more senior batch than me..meaning she looks old. 2) im very chui..unlike raine's batch who's v zai.

when i told the nus ex-rowers abt the story, we all burst out laughing. i guess he really thought raine looks like frm a more senior batch than me. lolx.