For what it’s worth, we finished 7th in the 2008 Dragon Boat West Team Ladder Rankings.
Andy C courtesy of Phil.
I’ve just been notified that for political reasons, the United States will not be participating in the ICF World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan this year.
However, there is still an opportunity to tryout for the USDBF team that is going to Prague in Summer. More information on this opportunity will be released in the next few days.
I will keep you all posted.
Thanks.
Crash and burn…
HPC tomorrow (Sunday) @ 8am – bring running shoes, knee braces and yoga mats.
Charles Barkley has a new TV show on the GolfChannel with Hank Haney, Tiger Wood’s swing coach.
The show starts next Monday.
Barkley has one of the funniest and most absurd golf swings known to man. No wonder he drinks.
Get ready to laugh.
Many of you know my love for bikes. I have been on a bike since about the age of 6. I have ridden and owned all types of bikes – mountain bikes, triathlon bikes, BMX/Freestyle Bikes, single speed, road bikes, the list goes on.
This love has drawn me to professional cycling. Although I do not have the skills, lungs, legs or desire to race anywhere near such an elite level, the professional cycling tour is absolutely amazing and has taught me many life lessons.
I have taken both positive and negative lessons from cycling. On the negative side, I have learned that it doesn’t pay to cheat or do drugs because you’ll likely get caught (besides, my head is big enough as it is). I’ve learned that it takes dedication outside of race day to be successful – merely thinking you are competitive on race day because you try hard is not enough (see my disaster story trying to ride the Livestrong Century with no training).
One of the best lessons I’ve learned from cycling is how to be a true teammate. Another example of that lesson was displayed last weekend. Perhaps the best rider in the history of the sport, Lance Armstrong, was a domestique for Levi Leipheimer at the recently completed Amgen Tour of California. For those not familiar with cycling jargon, a domestique is a rider that races solely for the benefit of his team and leader frequently sacrificing his own race placement for the good of the team. Lance did not try to win the race for himself. He was merely a role player in the U.S.’s most prestigious cycling event.
Despite Lance’s seven Tour de France victories, he did everything he could to get his teammate Levi Leipheimer the overall win – sacrificing his own comeback to be the ultimate teammate. From helping control the peloton to neutralizing the many attacks throughout the eight stages of the tour. Such actions are virtually unheard of in any major sport. What did Leipheimer say after winning the race?
“It will be a different role for me now,” Leipheimer said. “We have such a strong team, and I need to pay these guys back.
“I’ll ride for Alberto at Paris-Nice, Lance at the Giro and then get to July and the Tour de France, and we’ll have the best team there and I’ll ride for the strongest rider, Lance or Alberto. Now we have to wait and see.”
The level of sacrifice these riders make for their team during these multi-day races is truly unparalleled. If the team leader’s bike malfunctions, a domestique will give his bike to the team leader so the team leader can continue racing. Watch the end of almost any stage race and you will see riders that are leading the pack after 100+ miles only to slow down and move to the side 100 meters away from the finish. For the casual viewer it seems ridiculous. However, what that rider did was perhaps one of the noblest moves in modern sport.
What was he doing? He was setting up his team’s best sprinter – shuttling that rider to the front of the pack, breaking wind for him and catapulting his teammate to the front of the pack in hopes of a stage win. A truly selfless act.
There are many more examples of sacrifice throughout the peloton that probably blow right over my head.
What can a dragon boat paddler (or any athlete, for that matter) take away from this? The lesson is simple, yet very hard to implement. Put aside your ego and do what is truly the best for your team. Every paddler has his/her role. Play your role to the best of your ability- even if your role is to sacrifice your own personal goals to get your team to the final race.
Every role is important. Play your part.
During a panel discussion on illegal immigration, Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) told a Chinese-American lawyer from Dallas to ‘Kiss My Ass’ and ‘Go home.’
More on the despicable Mr. Berman can be found here.
Bring your balls!
“I don’t need any stinkin’ balls!” ~Keyees
Here’s how Mike from HPC describes the effort level needed for the Lancer circuit:
“vomit inducing is probably the most appropriate adjective to describe Lancer when done well. Push the exercises & the runs.”
This is going to be fun!
Team:
1. On Saturday, bring running shoes, yoga mats/towels for the HPC Land Training Session. If you use a knee brace, wear it. If you regularly wear underwear, wear it. 
Please be on time. The workout will begin at 8:00 a.m. Chuck & Otto will likely run Saturday’s session as I will be in San Diego if my creaky back will allow it. It is imperative you arrive on time. Last week, we started late and did not complete the entire workout.
2. On Sunday, we’ll be doing some medicine ball throws and sprints (designed by Will Wu, PhD). Bring running shoes, knee brace and underwear. As for medicine balls, you need one ball for every 2 people. If you are confused as to med balls, I have recommended a few here. Please make sure you get a medicine ball and not a kettle ball (kettle balls are metal and have a handle sticking out of the ball). The workout will begin at 8:00 a.m. I will be leading this workout.
Obviously, on water practice will follow each of these land sessions.
Have a great Friday!
“I don’t wear underwear.” ~Midas
… I ditched my Treo when the iPhone 3G came out and I have been VERY impressed with the iPhone.
The UI is great, the screen is fantastic, and the multimedia management is absolutely amazing. iTunes is absolutely incredible. It makes syncing and buying/downloading song and apps so easy.
If you ask me for a recommendation, I’ll tell you that if you want a media player, get an iPhone, if you are more into email, get a Blackberry (I’ve played around with my brother’s BB Bold and find it very nice).
That being said, there are some things about the iPhone that bug the bee-jeezus out of me:
1. No cut and paste. WTF? Sure, there are apps that allow cut and paste on the iPhone, but you have to jailbreak your phone to get them. Far too complicated for me. FYI – the WORST thing you can ask an iPhone owner to do is text you someone’s telephone number. The iPhone owner either has to memorize the number or write it down on a piece of paper to transcribe to an SMS message. Eeesh.
2. No video recorder. My POS Treo had it and the onboard camera on the iPhone would be able to handle video recording. Apple, for some reason, decided we didn’t need it. Again, I could jailbreak my iPhone for video recording capabilities, but, uhm, no thanks.
3. No MMS. On an iPhone, the only quick way you can send a picture you take is via email. You can’t text the picture. Almost EVERY smart phone but for the iPhone has MMS. Come on Apple.
4. No Keyboard. Doy. Although I can have good runs typing on the touchscreen, sometimes, I can’t hit the right buttons to save my life. I have my sausage-like fingers to thank.
5. The Auto Correct. Mine is on crack. When I mean to type “for”, it always suggests “fir”. Are you kidding me? Apple provides no way to easily change autocorrect entries. Although I have taught the iPhone to recognize “oc1″, “retarded”, “fart”, “gay”, and “deadlift”, it still bothers the hell out of me.
6. Email Loading. When you see a message in your inbox, you click it, and it takes awhile for the email to come up. The phone appears to only download the header and waits for you to pull up that specific message before it downloads the rest. Very strange and very annoying.
7. No Landscape Mode in Email. Since I have sausage fingers (see #4, above), it would be nice if I could turn the phone and get the keyboard to go into landscape mode. Unfortunately, the only time you can use this mode is if you are typing a url in within the iPhone web browser. Also, it would be nice to read emails in landscape mode. Again, the iPhone won’t let you do it.
8. No Flash. Purely retarded.
With all those negatives, you may wonder, why the hell do you like your phone. Well, to put it simply, it does everything else SO well, it outweighs all of these negatives. Hell, how can I give up the iPhone when I have this cool free application that makes all these great farting sounds?
I’ll post about the cool apps I use on the iPhone later.
UPDATE: Contrary to the earlier information I received, the paddlers involved in this accident were NOT in an oc2. Rather, it is reported that they were in a 2-man canoe.
Austin Crisologo passed away in an oc2 accident last weekend in the Tomales Bay.
Austin and his paddling partner huli’ed and could not recover. Unfortunately, Austin passed away.
His friend was airlifted to a hospital with hypothermia and is now home recovering. Reports say the water was 54 degrees and the paddlers were in the water for approximately 30 minutes.
A Memorial Fund (http://jchan.com/austin) as been set up for him.
Two of our paddling friends up in the Bay Area were involved in a paddling accident Saturday afternoon in the Tomales Bay. One of them did not make it through the unfortunate incident and passed away. The other had severe hypothermia and was air lifted to a hospital (he has since been released from the hospital and is recovering at home).
Both of these paddlers were from our sister team DieselFish and were paddling on an oc2 when they hulied in 54 degree water. Although both were wearing pfds, they were not wearing gear suitable for being submerged in cold water and were in the water for approximately a half hour.
For those of you new to our team, DieselFish was a big part of our team’s growth. It is through their tireless assistance, coaching, and generosity that LARD became what it is today.
An initial report can be found here. Thanks to Mike L for sending me the link.
Let’s all take a moment today and be thankful for everything we have and make sure the next time we are out on the water we are being as safe as we possibly can.
Out of respect for the families involved, I have not named the paddlers involved in the accident.
LARD hopes to do anything it can to help out with the situation.
I have been speaking with a Kialoa rep about the new Kialoa dragon boat blade I blogged on earlier today. With her permission, below you will find her email to me.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the email. I really appreciate the info. Yes we are coming to market with a hybrid dragon boat paddle, that is IDBF approved, built to spec etc…We are coming to market with a hybrid because of the many requests we have had for this paddle over the years.
In the future we will also offer a full carbon DB paddle but we are beginning with the Hybrid.
I know folks believe that wood shafts have a “flex”, and as you may know many outrigger paddlers choose the hybrid because they tend to feel that the full carbons create more stress and pain on the joints and tendons. People often say they want the “flex”. But we have somewhat of a different theory because – well not sure how much you have tried to flex your axel but those shafts are stiff. Years ago Dave was doing some work and he was using a carbon handled hammer. He didn’t like it so he went to a wood handled hammer.
What he discovered was that although the carbon was lighter, he felt that it did not have the same “shock absorption” qualities as wood. He could feel the vibrations travel up the hammer and into his arm. He didn’t feel this when he used a wood handled hammer. We think there is more to the way wood feels than simply flex. We believe that dampening or shock absorption plays a large part in the “feel” of padding with a Hybrid paddle.
We know everyone uses the word “flex”, and if you get a wood paddle that has a thin enough shaft or a flexy blade, you might actually get flex out of it. But we believe they are talking about more than just “flex”. We’ve been making hybrids for 10 years and we are building our DB Hybrids in much the same way, though there will be no flute (no grooves) in the sides of the shaft. As you know the blade is non-negotiable (in terms of specs). We followed the specs and have both our hybrid and full carbon approved.
Distribution – We are going to be doing something a bit differently in terms of distribution in the US. For starters, we are going to be the dealer and distributor for dragon boat paddles in the United States. And we are going to have an introductory offer to US teams/clubs. In the next 2 weeks we will be sending out an email with this introductory offer explaining everything.
We are just starting production this week (the 3rd week of February) so we have no stock. It is apparent that in the beginning demand will outweigh supply so we will deliver on a first come first serve basis. Meaning we will fill orders in the order in which they come in to us.
I should have one of these paddles in a few weeks.
I look forward to paddling it and letting you give it a spin. When the email from Kialoa comes out, I will make sure I pass it on to the LARD paddlers.
For those of you that don’t have medicine balls but want to participate in the Sunday medicine ball/shotput session, Nike has some medicine balls on sale. I have the 10lb ball and it’s built very well.
Here are the links:
If you order soon, you might get it before next Sunday!
I wouldn’t recommend any heavier than 12 lb balls for the throws we will be doing next weekend.
Target also has med balls (not nike) but I think they only have 6 lb balls.
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