Summer in review - dragonboat

Now that it's autumn (as opposed to the winter that we called summer), I figured I'd write a few reviews.

Was away for the first chunk of the season, but was back in time for Leduc. It was pretty fun, and nice weather at least. Paddled on the rec/youth team, but knew a few people still. Met someone great but have barely talked since. Team dinner was ok foodwise but socially quite good (though quite a few people chose to do independent things). I simply couldn't stop laughing at some things Jeff said. Raced some cars afterwards, but otherwise noone was interested in going out and doing anything. Did a 2000m race, and joined strangers for a couple other races, so it was a lot of paddling that weekend.

Calgary dragonboat I steered one rec and paddled another rec (though I practiced with comp.) In the B-final those two rec and the comp were against each other, it felt like my team vs my team vs my team. I chose to steer, and we beat the other rec. I argue that if I'd chosen to paddle, that would have been the superior rec team. Yep, it all came down to me. Volunteered before, in between, and after races. Overall the festival went smoothly, except for the ridiculous lineup for lunch. Though it would be nice if it was the actual committee-run festival rather than ending up being topmade-run festival again.

Wrap up for 'love boat deluxe' was at 'west' downtown, and we hung out a while afterwards, walking around, watching fireworks, getting bubble tea. Nicolas infringed on my position as token white guy. Wrap up for 'spirit' was at keg down macleod, I realized I actually hardly knew anyone on that team. Wrap up for 'mixed red' didn't exist.

Was happy to continue practices and they became extra intense, but then the last few weeks before kelowna were all single digit temperature and sometimes breezy or drizzly. It was really sapping the enjoyment out of it. Then kelowna itself, normally the lovely break from the deteriorating calgary weather, ended up also being cool and wet, which was disappointing. My room strongly voted for team dinner to be vietnamese, but we were overruled by the others. Interestingly, at the restaurant we ended up at three of us ordered pasta (while noone else did). Afterwards, our room went to minigolf. Seemed our room, though randomly determined, were all be on the same mental wavelength that weekend.

Now the season's over, the nice weather has returned, my body's recovered, and I'm starting to miss paddling again.