Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team at Lotus in May 17th

The Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team had a nicely satisfying day at the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.  After racing at heat 9 scheduled for 9:28am and Heat 29, scheduled for 2:58pm, we posted respective times of  2:27.400 and 2:29.120 in the dreaded Gemini boats.

We are in a collision course for Rec C Finals.  Hopefully will be in the Medal Finals at 2:58, instead of the Consolation Final at 2:47.

We finished a surprising 5th in the morning heat… beating the expected higher seed in our race, then came 6th in a race of teams destined for Rec A, B and C.

But Saturday morning was very distracting.

• We didn't know where the tents were
• We needed to set tent up
• Give out new team shirts
• 2 paddlers needed to sign in at the registrar tent by 8am…
• 2 paddlers were very late for the race.
• All actions affect how the team moves together and works together, and takes time away looking for other paddlers because we
  don't have a full boat.
• Consequently
  I wasn't able to spend the time with Killarney Junior team and Gung
  Haggis that I would have liked to with race prep.

But despite the confusion, our practices have helped to improve our starts and we have a strong finish.  So generally, we are happy with our performances… but we know we can do better.

Our plan for Sunday

8am… cheer on G. Force Winds…
It
is important to give support and encouragement to our paddlers and
friends on G. Force Winds.  Gayle has been an incredible force coaching
Flight Centre, coaching and organizing G. Force Winds, and being lead
stroke and an assistant coach for Gung Haggis Fat Choy.

IMPORTANT.
8:30am   Gung Haggis team meets to go through race strategies… + team details.

We have a short window of time to complete:
a) race visualization.
b) traditional one finger lift
c) race strategies
d) paddler 1-to-1 coaching

We need to start warm-up asap,  including team exercises…
if paddlers are missing for race prep… it's like not being on the boat for the race.  There are psychic holes in the team.

Let's work together and have our best races of the weekend for am and pm.

Let's get into the medal round and do our best.

Every race is getting better,
Our starts have improved,
Our finishes have improved…
Our communication is improved.

Let's have our veteran paddlers be role models for rookie paddlers.
Let's have our multi-year Gung Haggis paddlers really welcome and work with the new-to-the-team paddlers.

Slainte, Todd