200m heats race day

We're dividing by 10 today and going from a 10 minute race to a 1
minute race. Our first heat is at 2:40pm, where the top 3 boats will
head to the semi-final at 5:20pm, vying to secure a spot in the final
tomorrow (sat). If we are not in the top 3 in that first heat, then we
race the repechage at 4:40pm. Our plan is to race just twice today,
but as we saw yesterday, the competition is much stronger than it was
in Toronto in 2006.

In 2006, the 'worlds' were slightly disappointing since they became a
contest between just the Canadian boats. Here, although Canada is well
represented, there are strong teams from the Middle East, Asia, and
Australia. These truly are world championships.

In terms of how we see ourselves placed, yesterdays race gave us a lot
of clues. While our time was slower than Montreal, our heat was much
slower in general than theirs as we contended with higher wind
conditions. Of the teams in the top 5 spots, we were the only ones
from our heat. We know that we are very competitive with Montreal, and
they in turn were only 6 seconds off of China over a long race.

We can expect that the Chinese team will be strong in this short race,
with their turbo rate, but we're also hoping that they are tired from
yesterday's effort. After the 2k, many of their women had to be helped
out of the boat. Of course, many of them are also smokers (?!?), so
that might explain their lack of recovery right after the race.

There were 2 teams that rested yesterday instead of competing in the
2k, so there are still some unknowns, and well-rested unknowns at that.

We also know that the Trois Rivieres team has been very close behind
us before over the 200m distance, so they can't be discounted either.

We'll be meeting at noon today to go over our 200m race plan and then
hop on the bus to the site.

Sent from my iPhone

third in the world

After waiting in the shade of the tents for almost an hour, the
combined two heat results came in. China took the gold with their
insanely fast stroke rate. Our ladies took the bronze, behind their
rivals from Montreal. It is unfortunate that the top three boats
couldn't race in the same heat, but I think the team is happy to have
raced a great race, won their heat, and finished third in the world
(in the 2k at least). Tomorrow, the 200!

More details

I'm told the pressure is on this blog since other team members are
giving the address to friends. So, welcome Cascades team supporters.
I'll give you some more 2000m race impressions.

First, and I can't believe I didn't put this in the last post, our
steersperson, Joce, steered the perfect race. We were 1/2 meter from
the turning buoys at each turn, and snuck inside at least one team to
overtake on the corner.

The rate in the boat was long and strong the whole way. We aimed for a
quick stroke rate upwind, and a slower one downwind with lots of
sitting up to let the wind push us. We may have been able to bring it
up a little higher than we did, but with only 18 paddlers, it was hard.

We made our first pass on the first 500m, and reeled in the next 4 of
6 boats in front on each leg. Nobody passed us, but we may have been
slightly cut off at the end. Montreal on the other hand started 3rd in
their heat, so they passed their two boats and had clean water after
the first 1000m.

The last boat to start in the 2nd heat was china. They had a crazy
fast stroke rate and in one of the turns as they were coming up on a
boat blocking their way, their strokes actually put their paddles in
to check the boat as the rest of the team kept paddling. We've heard
that this may be the Chinese national team, a professional team.

The last boat to finish was the Malaysian team, who probably had never
seen such a long race before. They didn't look as if the were going to
make it over the line, but they dug deep and did it.

Aaron said that at the start line our boat went out like a rocket.
Considering that I was not bringing the start rate up as fast as I
would on the 200 and 500m races, we'll really take off tomorrow.

Sent from my iPhone

2000m Race done

4:15pm: after a 1/2 hour delay due to high winds, we started. They
made us race with only 18 paddlers, because their logic said that we
would be less likely to take on water and sink. The conditions were
windy, but not that bad. Plus, two women paddlers will hardly make a
difference. Julie (our coach) had to take 2 paddlers out of the boat at
the last minute. What an awful decision to have to make.

Since we've raced in much worse conditions, the wind didn't phase us.
The race was muscularly hard, but not so bad cardiowise, likely
because of those two less paddlers pulling the boat weight. We raced
hard and well, pulling ahead of 4 of the 6 boats that started ahead of
us.

Now, we wait for results. Montreal had a good race after us, and had
less wind which will definitley advantage them, since they'll spend
less time going upwind. We're not expecting right now to take it over
them, but their coach is nervous and is over by the results tent,
something he never does.

Waiting...

Sent from my iPhone

Waiting to race

1:40pm We're at the race site, watching the start of another race. The
waiting has been hard, but soon it will all be done. There is a stiff
breeze flowing that will push us away from the start, and make the
first and third leg hard going.

The pic is of our tent setup.

Air quality

In 2006, the air quality in Toronto had us horking up our lungs after
the 2000m race. Today's air quality in Penang doesn't look so top-
notch. This is the view from our hotel window. Yesterday the hills and
beach horizon were clear.

Btw- the building at the bottom right is the KFC across the street. We
think it is the colonel's personal residence.

New Challenges

This is the inside of one of the porta-potties at the site. I'm usually shy about using squat toilets, but I decided to suck it up and follow the pictogram instructions on the back wall (there is a big x across the picture of someone facing the door and a green check mark on the picture of someone facing the back). Notice the empty roll of toilet paper...we'll have to go armed with our own. The tube/hose at the back is so that you can wash yourself (with your left hand of course) instead. That's not happening for me. I saw the end one of those tubes resting on top of the bowl where it had obviously sat for a few uses...I'm not touching the end of those.

Besides squat toilets, there are some other specific challenges we face:

• Sun: The heat is making a huge difference in everything we do. It is like the hottest day of the summer in Ottawa, with a little extra scorching when the sun is direct. Staying at the race site for more than a few hours is very draining and we changed how we warm up. We are already warm, so doing the usual run would overheat us, sending our blood out from our muscles and to our skin for cooling. So, we're doing gentle stretching instead to get our muscles ready, which for me is a bit of mental block because I'm so conditioned against stretching before doing some exercise to warm up. I'm coping by first doing loosening things, like hip rotations and slow side left-right, right-left punches. Sun screen is of course very necessary, but we have to be careful that we don't block our pores and stop the sweat getting through. I'm wearing Neutrogena SPF 55 on my face and Kinesys Sport SPF 30 spray for the rest of my body.
• Boats: I mentioned before the boats are different, so I've had to shift my stroke a tiny bit to accommodate the lack of leg room. I'm noticing some new muscles being used that haven't been before.
  
• Language: The organizing committee has provided us with a liaison officer, but her command of English is not 100%, and fair enough. I'm sure the German team has it worse than us and the Chinese teams last time in Toronto must have faced this too.
  
• Drug Testing: This is actually not a new challenge, but we heard last night that the testing will be randomized by team and by racer number. In Toronto in 2006, they also talked about this, but we didn't actually see anything. If they do more than just threaten it this time, we'll have to deal not only with someone watching us pee into a bottle, but also with trying to do that while squatting at the toilet.
• Drink: The woman who greeted us at the airport said that 'The water in Penang is safe, no problems. You must boil it, but it is clean' (?!?) Our Rough Guide says that the water in the main cities is drinkable, but the Lonely Planet doesn't distinguish between urban and rural and just says 'Don't drink the water'. We've been buying large 5.5L bottle of water and using it to stay hydrated and to brush our teeth. A few times we have slipped up and put our toothbrush under the tap, but we've been okay so far. I know other team members have been brushing their teeth without using the bottled water and are okay. Coconut water is a boon...it has hydration and electrolytes all in one, and it's fun to put the straw in the coconut and drink it all up.
  
• Food: We're all quite worried about eating something bad and getting sick, but so far we've been okay. The hard part is getting the quantity of vegetables we normally get since most platters are rice / noodles and meat with a tiny bit of veggies. Bihun, a clear noodle soup with bok choy is probably our best bet for food vitamins.
  

That's about it for now. Time for the hotel's buffet breakfast!

pre-race training

This is our race course...very beautiful. You can just see the finish line between the lighthouse-looking thing and the shore.

On Monday night, we were reminded why we were in Penang, and to quite tiring ourselves out with the touristing. You can bet that the Olympic athletes in Beijing right now aren't doing a huge amount of touristing and are instead concentrating on race plans, site visits, and short practices. So, that's our focus.

We've had 3 practices at the race course now. The first practice on Monday had us in the Asian-style boats that will be used in the concurrent Asian Dragonboat Championships, with our knees up around our ears, our seat under the waterline, and our armpits on the 3" gunwales. Needless to say, the boat felt like a tub, and the practice, although necessary to get out some of our heebie-jeebies, feel the heat, and visit the site, was tough going. We saw later that the Asian teams actually stand in these boats to paddle. Craziness.

It was a great relief to get back to our regular IDBF-sanctioned boats on Tuesday. They are not the BuK boats we use, so most seats are wider than people are used to, while Ivana and I are crammed in at the front. I found myself falling off the back of the seat every time I leaned forward for the catch, so I had borrow Judy's butt pad to help me stick to the seat. Today I wore my racing shorts and am happy to report that I either am getting used to eating my knees or the shorts are stickier.

The weather is hot. Aaron said 'So, this is what walking on the sun feels like' when he visited the site today. We are sucking back the water and electrolytes, and many of us (including myself) are dropping our buffs in the water as soon as we get in the boat and then putting them on our heads wet. The first practice felt awfully hot, but we are getting used to it, and by the end of the second practice I was feeling great. There was a bit of a wind today to help cool us off and we count any time the sun goes behind a cloud as a blessing.

You can see there weren't many clouds out today. We will walk this hill each time we race, between the 1st marshalling tent at the top (behind where I am taking the photo) and the 2nd one at the bottom, near the docks (that white spot on the left side of the photo).

Tomorrow is the 2K race. Even though this is our favourite race since it involves strategy, turns, and overtaking other boats, we're all apprehensive about it since it is 5 times longer than a regular race and takes 10+ minutes of agony to complete. The boats will go off one at a time for this race, 12 seconds apart and the final placement is based on time. There will be two heats of 10 boats each, and Montreal Women (our current best competition that we know, but we only know 4 of the 20 boats in our category) will be in the other heat from us. So, we'll have to try to overtake as many boats as possible in our heat and then wait for the next heat and hope that our time is good enough to top those boats too. We're heading out 4th from last in our heat, which is an excellent spot to be in...we'll get the thrill of the chase, but hopefully we won't get too involved in the mass pileups that can happen around the turns near the end of the race as the faster boats catch up to the slower boats.

Our race is at 4:10pm, which means it will be 4:10AM in Ottawa and 1:10AM in Victoria/Vancouver. I don't expect anybody to wait up for the race results, and likely it will take a few more hours before we'll be able to post them.

at the mall

A couple observations from the mall...

1) Disposable underwear is big here. All of the drugstores are selling them, and not just one brand, but many on a shelf.

2) The man-titty is missing from their romance covers.

First days in penang

Photo is Chinatown in Georgetown with the KOMTAR tower behind, which is an excellent landmark for us lost tourists to find our bearings.

This is a post about touristing about in the first few days. Next post I'll update about the more important pre race training.

We spent Sunday and Monday walking around Penang. We checked Guerney Plaza, a mall that is about 1/2 hour walk along the beach-front road away. Walking here is abnormal- nobody does it and the sidewalk is crumbling, narrow, overhung by short trees you have to duck under (but that provide some much needed shade), and running beside open sewers. Ah, yes, the smells can be overpowering, but I'm surprised that it's ok and I'm not gagging the whole time.

The mall was just like any North American mall with the Body Shop, Guess, et al. The real difference is the food court. The food there is cheap and fabulous.

Guerney drive also sports an outdoor hawker stall centre where we ate dinner on Sunday after another 1/2 hour walk back and there again. The range of options was bewildering and a little intimidating, especially as we were super tired, but we persevered and figured out that you find a table first, order your food at any number of stalls, tell them where you are sitting, then they bring it to you and you pay afterwards. The drinks stall people circulate constantly and you order from them just as you would in a restaurant with a waiter. We had the best chicken and beef satay.

I could go on and on about the food but I will save that for another post. We are taking a picture of every meal we eat in any case.

We walked the opposite direction on Monday and visited Chinatown (photo above), which is also similar to our Chinatowns but the narrow streets and crazy scooter drivers seem to make it more authentic. I recognized the cough medicine I use (nin jiom), so I'm set if I need that, except that i'm worried about banned substances that could be in the stuff for all I know and the random drug testing that is always threatened. So far we are well healthwise, although the long travel still feels a little wearing on the body. We changed time zones right away, but we are going to bed by 9pm at night, dead tired by that hour and sleeping until 6:30am.

We are surprised by how Malaysia is "same same but different" compared to Thailand. Thailand is just a little to the north of us, and the color of the water, the brightly painted fishing boats, the small streets and the two-stroke smelly motorcycles are just the same. I'm surprised by the mastery of English here though. I'm always expecting to do some charades, but they are rarely needed. The people also seem geniunly friendly and helpful, while we never knew in Thailand if we could trust the advice we were getting. On the downside, the beaches don't seem as inviting, possibly since we can see the sewage spilling out in the city mud-flats/beach.

Well I have to head to my last practice before tomorrow's 2k race. Ttyl.

Penang at last

We made a quick trip into HK to see the downtown (and one of the Olympic sites) during our six hour layover. Returning to the airport we then boarded a three hour flight to Penang. After more than thirty hours of travel we had finally made it to Malaysia! Waiting for us at the airport was one of these snazzy official event buses.

Hong kong

So we made it to hong kong! Now only six hours to kill...

Little sleep, lots of waiting

Got up at 4:30am for practice and went full out packing and getting
ready until the very last minute. After all the hurry up and go, our
first flight was delayed and now we've got hours to kill in the
Vancouver airport. We're trying to stay awake until we board our next
flight, but it's also delayed and doesn't leave now until 3:40am.
Since that's 3 hours behind the time zone I woke up in this morning,
I'll be working on 26 hours no sleep.

We're sitting in a little rainforest-inspired area here, with gurgling
brook and bird sounds playing, dim lights and lounging chairs. Most of
the team is in the same area, so here's hoping we don't all fall
asleep and miss the flight.

Here is a pic of the artwork in this "rainforest" and some random
sleeping people.

Pre-race mental training

That's the team milling about discussing trip details (where are you going, how many pairs of pants are you bringing?) and getting our new cotton wear-anytime team shirts, before tonight's last mental training session with Terry Orlick. It was great that he came out to talk with us, given that he's been spending his time briefing Olympic team members before they head to China. We were reminded about what we'll need to think about and the steps we can take to minimize the craziness of the big competition. We'll familiarize ourselves with the race venue ahead of time (e.g. where are the bathrooms?), get a feel for the boats there by doing some practices next week, and remember to keep hydrated. After the mental training, we hopped in the boats and did 4 x 500m race pieces, trying out some new calls.

That was our last Tuesday night practice, and only one more practice on the Gatineau river before we go.

Itinerary / Events

We've added the Google Calendar of our trip. This calendar is live and will update as we figure out where and when things are happening. We've linking to it in the side bar too so you can easily find it.

Welcome!

Welcome to 'Paddling to Malaysia'. I am a member of the Jaymor Cascades Women Dragon Boat team, who in just over two weeks will be racing for gold at the IDBF Club Crew World Championships (CCWC) 2008 in Penang, Malaysia.

We are 10 days away from leaving for Malaysia and it's starting to dawn on us that we are really leaving. I've started a packing list (which I might post for posterity / easy access for myself later) and our list of things to do before leaving is only growing.

Starting this blog is one of the items on that list, so here we are. First!

We (myself and Aaron) intend to keep you up to date with our pre-race training, our results, and our post-race traveling.