Finding My Zen

My third Dragon Boat practice ended up being slightly better than my second practice, despite my rocky start.

For some reason, the traffic was insane today. Although I always have the best intentions about leaving work early, I always end up making it out at the door around 5:10 pm. Which has gotten me to Cambridge in the nick of time for practice the first two times (the parking situation on Memorial Drive adds an extra ten minutes to getting to practice). So I ended up getting to practice late today and the boat had already launched! From the first two practices, I knew they made an effort to get late people onto the boats, because a guy from my team had been speed-boated out to our dragon boat during the first practice and then the same guy's second late arrival had caused our dragon boat to be brought back to the dock after launching.

So today, I was the idiot that cause the boat to come back to dock a minute after it had already launched. It wasn't like the boat was far away but it did suck to face all my coworkers and Phu late, especially since I was determined to make a better paddling impression this time. The good news is that another guy showed up late right behind me, so having the boat pull up helped the team get both of us on.

The rest of practice went pretty well - I wasn't singled out for doing anything wrong by our Boston Dragon Boat Festival coach and I found a good rhythm while paddling, although the girls behind me didn't seem to have a clue. And getting splashed by dirty Charles water actually felt refreshing today with the good weather.

Now, I'm debating whether I should attend the optional fourth practice on Thursday to refine my meager paddling skills. I'm also wondering when we get our team t-shirts!