My email is late today as I’ve just freshly emerged from a dragonboat. I raced with my partner all day in a tournament called, “Guts and Glory” and yes, our team colour is neon yellow, as pictured below. ; )

I nearly tossed my guts but it was amazing. In fact, it was a tournament I thought I was incapable of competing in.

It was a series of 3 races:

• The first one - 1000 metres with a turn;
• The second one - 1500 metres with 2 buoy turns;
• and the third? I don’t even want to remember it. . .it was a 750 metre, with a turn and then, a DEAD STOP . . .

That's right, with all the momentum built up and the pace at a fever pitch, we had to stop, dead. Hold the boat and then, after the whistle blew, start all over again for a 250 metre sprint to the finish. 

The last race is where I thought I was going to lose it. Between the exertion and adrenaline, tossing my guts seemed the only way to relieve my body from the stress it was under. Instead, I arbitrarily started to yell out every stroke. My last 25 metres were spent annoyingly grunting and yelling inorder to leave every last bit I had on the water. (Apologies to my teammates!)

So, why write an email about it? Because it was fantastic. It was a thorough ‘win’ in my books and I couldn’t be more excited that something I knew I couldn’t do became something I did with a team of others who toiled with me for months, training to compete.

The obvious question to answer might be: did we win? And the answer is twofold - we won a silver medal which is an amazing feat with the team we lost to being mostly ex-army, athletic men - but, the true win was having tried at all.

Our coach would say the secret to it all is just focusing on our timing, pushing ourselves a little more each practice and remembering that it takes the whole team to get across the finish line. I say, as is our team's tagline: It took "22 hearts and 1 soul" to win.

Today, Snogards, we proved we do have 1 soul and the will to persevere. Thank you very much for the experience. 

Paddles up,