It's been awhile (ha! I always start my posts off this way!).
This time around, I've been named to the Canadian crew who is going to Fuzhou, China for the inaugural world cup (http://dragonboat.ca/node/789). Initially the competition was to take place during the actual dragon-boat festival in China, however, we'll be attending toward the end of the festival so will miss the majority of the cultural events.
The Chinese government has decided to host us, and will be televising the event (although, not entirely sure if that extends to international broadcast) - still... pretty cool! This will be the first time I have had costs covered by a host organization, and the ability to win money to boot!
However, as with most things in my life these days - I feel like this trip is one big rush... I leave Ottawa on Sunday morning, arrive in Fuzhou just before midnight on Monday, and begin racing on Tuesday. Considering the calibre of competition, I would have hoped for at least one day to acclimate and prepare for a serious time zone disruption - alas, it wasn't meant to be.
I'm racing in Montreal on Saturday which didn't exactly leave me a whole lot of time to transition from racing with my club crew to getting into a "world cup" mode, however, I'm going for the racing and the experience - and hoping that our crew (who hasn't really ever paddled together), quickly finds our groove. To top it all off, because I'm working full time and on limited vacation time, I'm working right up until Friday evening - making preparations a bit more stressful than I would have liked.
The race format is very different than my previous attendance at world level events. I will be racing standard mixed crew, as well as small boat single sex (women) crew. I've got a total of 10 minutes of experience in a small boat, so again... the dice will land where they land during those races ;)
I will attempt to update as much as possible - though, I've heard that can be difficult due to the "great firewall" of China...
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