When I saw the race crew email I thought there must be a mistake, me, at Seat 1? I thought oh well go with it and when Todd realises at practice I’ll be changed to seat 2 or 5, but it didn’t change and with the great support from Jo in training and in addition to Sally on race day shouting encouragement from behind, I just kept going!
The weather was beautiful, the location was very pretty , the course seemed to vanish into the distance and not having any concept of how I would feel in an 8K race I was amazed when we got to the buoy that we had been half way and it was time to head for home, even though the lactic acid was screaming at me after the first few frantic minutes.
Before the race Kait asked us to think of a word that meant ‘focus’ but not the word ‘focus’ – a few of us have Tahiti as a goal, I suggested ‘brunch’ but there weren’t many takers for that – so when I felt that there was no other part of my body that I could call upon apart from my inner motivation – I thought of ‘Tahiti, Rio, Molokai and brunch’ and it spurred me on.
I especially enjoyed it when Kate yelled ‘Dragonboat finish’ just inside the inner harbour wall, and we seem to have a little bit left in the tank, and were gaining on the 2 boats just ahead of us. With some encouraging shouts from the harbour wall of ‘Go PD’s’ we put in a valiant finish and I think for a few paddlers who have only been in one race before and my first attempt at seat 1 it was a race for all to be proud of and a great base to work on. Roll on Tahiti…Rio, Molokai and brunch..well I achieved brunch already!
-Sarah
{mxc}