Dragonboating and Beachcombing

I was fortunate to be involved in my first dragonboat race the other weekend and it was really fun. One of the partners at my firm sponsored a boat and anyone and their friends could join the team so Mancini and I decided to go for it. It sounded really cool, although upper body strength is not my specialty, so we signed up. It invloves putting 20 people in a specially designed dragonboat and using paddles to get your boat moving. You use the paddle to pull the boat through the water instead of using the more familiar rowing motion to get going. We had one practice on the Thursday prior to the race and we learned all about how to paddle effectively and learned a lot of dragonboating lingo. "Check it down!" We were expertly guided by a really cute surfer type and Mancini was called out three times for minor infractions, lovingly being referred to as 'green shirt.' On the day of the race, I decided to rollerblade down to the boathouses on Kelly Drive. It was so hot, I totally forgot about that whole heat wave thing and I was dripping with sweat when I arrived. Mancini arrived a bit later, so we carbed up for our first race and watched a few of the first heats before it was time for ours. We all scurried up to where the boats where launching, grabbed a paddle and a life vest and jumped in the boat. I was starting to get a bit nervous! It was a 500 meter race and lemme tell you, that is FAR to paddle. We queue up at the start and then we are off! Three big strokes followed by 20 small and quick strokes and then we settle into our long strokes for the duration of the race. We are quickly passed by a superior Chinese team, but we blew away the other remaining boats to get a second place finish. Awesome! The only bad part was having to paddle our boat all the way back up to the start so another team could use it. My arms were like jello so this was the last thing I wanted to do after we were done.

After the first heats, we were placed 25th out of 50 teams so that made us the #1 seed in our division (D I think). Soon we were lining up for our 2nd race and were informed all of the boats finished within one or two seconds of each other in the standings so this would be a much close race. I paddled harder than I ever thought possible and it was so close during the race! when we finished we thought we came in second, but it was verified that we had won by a dragonhead! Yay! Unfortunately I was unable to stick around for the third and final race due to work (hello second job), so I said my goodbyes and proceeded to rollerblade back to my apartment in the hazy heat. Mancini later informed me via text that we ended up in 3rd and we got medals! It is officially the most valuable thing I own. It looks like an Olympic bronze medal!

I woke up on Sunday absolutely exhausted from dragonboating, rollerblading and then working on my feet for 8 hours. I definitely bit off more than I could chew on Saturday so it only made sense to do my recovery at the beach. I proceeded to roll on down to Avalon with Pope, Jen, Eileen, and Marfisi and together we braved the hot and humid conditions for some lounging by the waves reading trashy gossip magazines. Seriously, my brain was fried and it was the only thing I could handle intellectually. With snacks, sandwiches and magazines in hand, we relaxed and soaked up some rays, well maybe too many rays. Even with vigilant sunscreen application, we all managed to get a fair amount of sun. Eileen somehow managed to stay transparent and Marfisi's back looked like you could fry an egg on it, while Jen and Pope made marginal advancements in the evening out of their farmer's tans. Luckily I have a decent base from my travels so it mellowed into a nice golden color on me with little peeling, but my tummy was quite sensitive for awhile. I need to invest in some better sunscreen (any suggestions?).

After a few hours of rest and relaxation, we headed over to Mike's Crab Shack in Sea Isle for some beers and food by the water before heading home. I got me some oysters and stone claw crabs and chased it down with some cold Amstel Light, while Pope found a new friend in Bud Light with Lime. I'm always suspect about any beer that requires fruit or fruit flavor to make it more palpable and this was no exeption. I ate way too much, but found room for ice cream before piling back into the car and heading back to Philly. A perfect day at the beach!