Penang Beach Carnival
Posted On Monday, November 30, 2009 at at Monday, November 30, 2009 by Sharon
Let me start by telling you how it was BEFORE the competition.
Wednesday, in our usual paddling session, coach was satisfied with our performance. He was almost certain we're gonna bag the gold medal, FOR SURE (yes he sounded damn confident) He made us believed we were already winners even before we compete wtf. Our confidence level shot up high!
Friday, sea training at Golden Sands beach, where the competition was to take place. We went with full confidence. It was hot but thank god for the wind. Sea looked fierce, waves were rough, possibly from the amount of water sports, but we weren't worried..... yet. The first batch of the men went down, they looked like they had a hard time getting the boat to move. We were watching from the shore and thought 'it couldn't be that bad!'
When they came back up, one of them said 'I hope you don't have seasickness'
Then it was finally our turn. Despite dad's reminder to wear life jacket, I decided to go without it. Getting into the boat was... clumsy. Paddling in the rough sea was much harder than it looked. The constant unpredictable waves splashing on our boat made it harder, it's either the water hit the oars too soon or we hit nothing at all. Everyone was so out of sync it's frustrating, we're as clumsy as a baby learning to walk.
The boat's condition was another problem. Unlike our more modern boat which is lighter, this one was made of wood and heavy. Inside, there was no place for leg grip or support. When we paddle, our butts kept slipping off the seat FOL kau kau
In less than 10 minutes, it hit us. Most of us started to feel sick and giddy. Training was too short of a time but we must continue to go on. Paddling with seasickness and trying not to vomit was a hell lot of effort @_@
In conclusion, when we finally got back on shore, our confidence level shot down to 0.
Gold medal my ass. Coach lied to us.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Wednesday, in our usual paddling session, coach was satisfied with our performance. He was almost certain we're gonna bag the gold medal, FOR SURE (yes he sounded damn confident) He made us believed we were already winners even before we compete wtf. Our confidence level shot up high!
Friday, sea training at Golden Sands beach, where the competition was to take place. We went with full confidence. It was hot but thank god for the wind. Sea looked fierce, waves were rough, possibly from the amount of water sports, but we weren't worried..... yet. The first batch of the men went down, they looked like they had a hard time getting the boat to move. We were watching from the shore and thought 'it couldn't be that bad!'
When they came back up, one of them said 'I hope you don't have seasickness'
Then it was finally our turn. Despite dad's reminder to wear life jacket, I decided to go without it. Getting into the boat was... clumsy. Paddling in the rough sea was much harder than it looked. The constant unpredictable waves splashing on our boat made it harder, it's either the water hit the oars too soon or we hit nothing at all. Everyone was so out of sync it's frustrating, we're as clumsy as a baby learning to walk.
The boat's condition was another problem. Unlike our more modern boat which is lighter, this one was made of wood and heavy. Inside, there was no place for leg grip or support. When we paddle, our butts kept slipping off the seat FOL kau kau
In less than 10 minutes, it hit us. Most of us started to feel sick and giddy. Training was too short of a time but we must continue to go on. Paddling with seasickness and trying not to vomit was a hell lot of effort @_@
In conclusion, when we finally got back on shore, our confidence level shot down to 0.
Gold medal my ass. Coach lied to us.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
After the horrific training the day before the competition, we weren't sure if we can pull it off. It'll be really embarrassing to lose big time to the rest of the competing teams. Like it or not, it's too late to back out, hence, die die also must try.
It was such a lovely pleasant day for a beach carnival,
though I must say I'm really disappointed with the amount of things they had there. Apart from the water sports competition, there weren't much to do or see, unless of course you want to spend the day playing sand and building sandcastles with kids.
Forget bout that part, let's focus on the race itself.
We were one of the last few people to arrive, oh wait I think we WERE the last one. We figured there's no hurry since our race doesn't start until 4pm. When we arrived, everyone was already there, the team manager was already busy talking to the coach on race registration. Some of the guys just stood or laze around talking, some.. splattered sun block and wiped on each others' body hehe
A beach volleyball game was in progress but didn't pay much attention to it.
Since there was nothing much to do but to wait, we decided to fish out our camera and start camwhoring. Man it's good to be women, self vanity knows no bounds or limits.
You see people, don't look down on us, we not only know how to party hard but also paddle hard haha The girl in white is YT, one of our close crazy, talkative, caring buddies. She actually came with us and stayed throughout the whole event with us, that's what good friends are for!
A total of 5 ladies rowers in the team
When the men saw us camwhoring, they started to tease us. We made one of them pose like an Ah Kua (transvestite) which he gladly did. He's definitely the clown of the team
Give us an 'S' shape!
I made Luke pose like a Godzilla about to stomp on the sandcastle
Feeling very much kiasu, we checked out the other competing teams. Look at their team t shirts!
Why so sexy one? Looks at ours! How to show off our tone body like that? Not that we have any to show to begin with but if you're wearing something that reveal your body parts you'll surely work harder to make sure it's presentable, no? No wonder we are all still kinda flabby la, no motivation to show off our body wtf
Oh look who came all the way to show their support! My grandpa and parents! They were very proud of me for doing this lor, and they stayed all the way to the end until I'm done with my race
After what seemed like endless waiting time, the first race finally kicked off. They began with the juniors rowing team. Our juniors, from Chung Ling high school bagged first place effortlessly! Kudos!
Second race was Men Veteran.
Here's our bunch of 'uncles'
M.U.S.T.N.O.T.L.A.U.G.H.A.T.P.E.O.P.L.E
getting ready
Pushing the boat into the sea
Eh don't look down at uncles ok! They, too bagged the first place effortlessly. The picture below showed the boat close to the finishing line and there's no other boat that came close. Bangga bangga~ Huge round of applause for the
old
men!
While waiting for their turns, the other men were getting ready for showdown. Group warmup.
And it's Premier Open category, whatever that means.
I think they came in second, automatically qualifying themselves to the finals.
The winner is none other than these bunch of super fit, super toned guys from Perak Navy.
It was finally our turn! They guys were giving us so much pressure that I started to have butterflies in my stomach. My hands and feet were cold, and to be honest, I was nervous too. But can still smile and pose for the camera wtf
Coach giving us last minute instructions before we start. His last words were 'DO NOT PANIC!'
Calling for help to push the boat
So kua cheong right, so many people 'sending us off' hahaha
We paddled slowly to the other end where the starting point was. All the while, the men in the boat kept telling us not to panic -_- The more they advise the more nervous I got.
The most nerve wrecking moment had to be the final moment waiting for the race to start. Actually it was CHAOTIC, very much so. There was no referee to blow a whistle or anything. We were so blurred out we actually started late! FOLs
The other two teams at the sides started before we did, like WTF right?! I don't know who gave the GO permission, all I knew was my nervousness was all gone when our drummer in the front yelled at us to start paddling. And paddle hard we did.
We paddled with all our might. The butterflies in the stomach were replaced with tiredness and yet I can't stop. Try hard or die trying. I screamed out loud when I'm in pain and continued paddling. My strokes were probably all wrong but I just kept going. It's better than to stop and screw up other people's timing.
More vain pictures of me rowing, marked with star, third in front, left rower,
although you can't see much unless you clicked on the pictures and squint your eyes
Paddling towards the starting line
Alas, we came in 3rd :( Disappointed, real disappointed but our drummer said it was because we started later than the other two teams or else we would have had a chance in first or second... sigh...
Anyway, we still managed to collect RM200 for the team! First place was RM400, second was RM300. Ok la, not too bad right, first time ma.. only train for less than 3 months you know :P
After the race, the girls showing off their so called muscles haha.. eh the one on the right damn skinny must drink more protein powder to buff up.
Prize giving ceremony, FORWARD team very keng lor, these two from the team bagged first prize for kayaking competition
Wendy and another dude from other team bagged the second prize, you see the women in our team can be quite intimidating also ok? haha
Our team manager accepting the prize for Men Veteran
Me, the camwhore queen of the day took the spotlight for our 3rd prize
The medal
Another winning shot of the ladies, yay~!
In total, the team collected RM1200 from the race itself. 2 first prize of RM400, and 2 third prize of RM200, not too bad eh?
The sun was setting, we packed up and got ready to leave, BUT not before camwhoring with the dragonboat itself! Errrmm, please understand that this is our first time racing in a real dragonboat so we kinda got a little too excited.
Being the drummer is damn syiok ok!
The final camwhore pic of the day, our very worn out, tired and ugly faces in our ugly uniform. The shorts!!! OMG like uncle only -_-
We bid goodbye to the place. Needless to say, it had definitely been a fantastic day.
Team picture
Another race coming in December, must not slack, training has been increased to 4 times a week now FML
It was such a lovely pleasant day for a beach carnival,
though I must say I'm really disappointed with the amount of things they had there. Apart from the water sports competition, there weren't much to do or see, unless of course you want to spend the day playing sand and building sandcastles with kids.
Forget bout that part, let's focus on the race itself.
We were one of the last few people to arrive, oh wait I think we WERE the last one. We figured there's no hurry since our race doesn't start until 4pm. When we arrived, everyone was already there, the team manager was already busy talking to the coach on race registration. Some of the guys just stood or laze around talking, some.. splattered sun block and wiped on each others' body hehe
A beach volleyball game was in progress but didn't pay much attention to it.
Since there was nothing much to do but to wait, we decided to fish out our camera and start camwhoring. Man it's good to be women, self vanity knows no bounds or limits.
You see people, don't look down on us, we not only know how to party hard but also paddle hard haha The girl in white is YT, one of our close crazy, talkative, caring buddies. She actually came with us and stayed throughout the whole event with us, that's what good friends are for!
A total of 5 ladies rowers in the team
When the men saw us camwhoring, they started to tease us. We made one of them pose like an Ah Kua (transvestite) which he gladly did. He's definitely the clown of the team
Give us an 'S' shape!I made Luke pose like a Godzilla about to stomp on the sandcastle
Feeling very much kiasu, we checked out the other competing teams. Look at their team t shirts!
Why so sexy one? Looks at ours! How to show off our tone body like that? Not that we have any to show to begin with but if you're wearing something that reveal your body parts you'll surely work harder to make sure it's presentable, no? No wonder we are all still kinda flabby la, no motivation to show off our body wtf
Oh look who came all the way to show their support! My grandpa and parents! They were very proud of me for doing this lor, and they stayed all the way to the end until I'm done with my race
After what seemed like endless waiting time, the first race finally kicked off. They began with the juniors rowing team. Our juniors, from Chung Ling high school bagged first place effortlessly! Kudos!
Second race was Men Veteran.
Here's our bunch of 'uncles'
M.U.S.T.N.O.T.L.A.U.G.H.A.T.P.E.O.P.L.E
getting ready
Pushing the boat into the sea
Eh don't look down at uncles ok! They, too bagged the first place effortlessly. The picture below showed the boat close to the finishing line and there's no other boat that came close. Bangga bangga~ Huge round of applause for the
old
men!
While waiting for their turns, the other men were getting ready for showdown. Group warmup.
And it's Premier Open category, whatever that means.
I think they came in second, automatically qualifying themselves to the finals.
The winner is none other than these bunch of super fit, super toned guys from Perak Navy.
It was finally our turn! They guys were giving us so much pressure that I started to have butterflies in my stomach. My hands and feet were cold, and to be honest, I was nervous too. But can still smile and pose for the camera wtf
Coach giving us last minute instructions before we start. His last words were 'DO NOT PANIC!'
Calling for help to push the boat
So kua cheong right, so many people 'sending us off' hahaha
We paddled slowly to the other end where the starting point was. All the while, the men in the boat kept telling us not to panic -_- The more they advise the more nervous I got.
The most nerve wrecking moment had to be the final moment waiting for the race to start. Actually it was CHAOTIC, very much so. There was no referee to blow a whistle or anything. We were so blurred out we actually started late! FOLs
The other two teams at the sides started before we did, like WTF right?! I don't know who gave the GO permission, all I knew was my nervousness was all gone when our drummer in the front yelled at us to start paddling. And paddle hard we did.
We paddled with all our might. The butterflies in the stomach were replaced with tiredness and yet I can't stop. Try hard or die trying. I screamed out loud when I'm in pain and continued paddling. My strokes were probably all wrong but I just kept going. It's better than to stop and screw up other people's timing.
More vain pictures of me rowing, marked with star, third in front, left rower,
although you can't see much unless you clicked on the pictures and squint your eyes
Paddling towards the starting line
Alas, we came in 3rd :( Disappointed, real disappointed but our drummer said it was because we started later than the other two teams or else we would have had a chance in first or second... sigh...
Anyway, we still managed to collect RM200 for the team! First place was RM400, second was RM300. Ok la, not too bad right, first time ma.. only train for less than 3 months you know :P
After the race, the girls showing off their so called muscles haha.. eh the one on the right damn skinny must drink more protein powder to buff up.
Prize giving ceremony, FORWARD team very keng lor, these two from the team bagged first prize for kayaking competition
Wendy and another dude from other team bagged the second prize, you see the women in our team can be quite intimidating also ok? haha
Our team manager accepting the prize for Men Veteran
Me, the camwhore queen of the day took the spotlight for our 3rd prize
The medal
Another winning shot of the ladies, yay~!
In total, the team collected RM1200 from the race itself. 2 first prize of RM400, and 2 third prize of RM200, not too bad eh?
The sun was setting, we packed up and got ready to leave, BUT not before camwhoring with the dragonboat itself! Errrmm, please understand that this is our first time racing in a real dragonboat so we kinda got a little too excited.
Being the drummer is damn syiok ok!
The final camwhore pic of the day, our very worn out, tired and ugly faces in our ugly uniform. The shorts!!! OMG like uncle only -_-
We bid goodbye to the place. Needless to say, it had definitely been a fantastic day.
Team picture
Another race coming in December, must not slack, training has been increased to 4 times a week now FML
It's confirmed!
Posted On Thursday, November 26, 2009 at at Thursday, November 26, 2009 by Sharon
The team will be participating in a competition in conjunction with the Penang Beach Carnival happening this Saturday, 28th November.
We have been training very hard, I even went for training yesterday despite still recovering from flu and cough and some dude accidentally hit me real hard on my back during the session *ouch* Coach was pretty satisfied with our performance, at least he stopped picking on me to lecture :p and since I was the shortest person there, he made a joke about me bringing a pillow to support my leg so I'll be higher cause supposedly the real boat is slightly higher and wider on the sides and we have to REALLY reach out to paddle, not to mention it's easier to bruise our thumb too FML Fuck la, being short now is also a crime is it? Well in this case, it is definitely a disadvantage :(
I'll show him, he'll see! Will be training at Batu Ferringhi beach tomorrow under the hot scorching sun with the real boat so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully we won't train too hard that our arms will be too painful to row on the real day itself.
If you have nothing to do for the weekend, come support us and see us
lose
win, hopefully not number 1 from the back *fingers crossed* The club will be sending out 4 teams to compete and our Mixed race is the last, which will only start around 4pm and we have to be there by 1.30pm wtf
Anyway, win or lose, this will be definitely a new experience gained. Life is too short to pause and wonder, just do it! even when you're short and ppl make fun of you -_-
After that we're gonna be partying the night away
and try to get someone drunk
YAY~!
Am excited! Wish me luck!
We have been training very hard, I even went for training yesterday despite still recovering from flu and cough and some dude accidentally hit me real hard on my back during the session *ouch* Coach was pretty satisfied with our performance, at least he stopped picking on me to lecture :p and since I was the shortest person there, he made a joke about me bringing a pillow to support my leg so I'll be higher cause supposedly the real boat is slightly higher and wider on the sides and we have to REALLY reach out to paddle, not to mention it's easier to bruise our thumb too FML Fuck la, being short now is also a crime is it? Well in this case, it is definitely a disadvantage :(
I'll show him, he'll see! Will be training at Batu Ferringhi beach tomorrow under the hot scorching sun with the real boat so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully we won't train too hard that our arms will be too painful to row on the real day itself.
If you have nothing to do for the weekend, come support us and see us
lose
win, hopefully not number 1 from the back *fingers crossed* The club will be sending out 4 teams to compete and our Mixed race is the last, which will only start around 4pm and we have to be there by 1.30pm wtf
Anyway, win or lose, this will be definitely a new experience gained. Life is too short to pause and wonder, just do it! even when you're short and ppl make fun of you -_-
After that we're gonna be partying the night away
and try to get someone drunk
YAY~!
Am excited! Wish me luck!
A little strawberry topping
Posted On Monday, November 16, 2009 at at Monday, November 16, 2009 by Sharon
I wasn’t planning on writing this but I was chatting with a friend about the weekend and I was telling her how cool it was to be doing what I did on Saturday and then I thought, hey, since it was an effing cool experience (in my eyes anyway), why not blog about it?
If I haven’t bore you yet with my paddling stories, do read on.
Saturday, 430pm we had the usual physical training in Macallum St. before the paddling session. It was more like a warmup session where we had to jog 3 rounds, some pushups, jumping jacks and a bit of stretching before getting ready for the paddling session.
The weather got darker as we were finishing up the physical part and I thought ‘yay, great! it’s gonna rain, maybe they’ll cancel the paddle session!’ Yes I was secretly hoping that they’ll cancel the training, I was just feeling lazy that day. But I was dead wrong.
Everyone started walking back to the so called ‘headquarter’ (basically just a container storing all the paddle equipments). It had started to drizzle by then. I thought to myself ‘It’s raining, are we still doing this?’ but kept quiet since everyone seemed to be oblivious to the fact that it was raining.
Moments later, I found myself equipped with the usual glove I always use for paddling and a little bit more, a life jacket -_-“ I contemplated in the beginning whether to put it on or not but some guy told me ‘well if you want to stay save and you can’t swim well, I’ll advise you to do so’
I looked out from the container into the pouring rain, more dark clouds approaching, and the dangerous looking sea. Ok, point noted. Strapped on the jacket it is!
By the time we were all seated in the boat, we were half drenched from the rain. I was a little worried if the rain will make the vision poorer, as if getting sunblock into my eyes is not painful enough, I have to squint my eyes, worrying bout the sea water and the rain. Yes, at that moment, it felt like another FML day.
But whether I like it or not, the training will go on. And we paddled into the sea. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, in fact the rain felt like a blessing because it washed away the salt water we got onto our faces. I was beginning to enjoy paddling in the rain.
Being in the sea, drenched inside out under the pouring rain, thunders and lightnings so visible from where we were, the waves in the sea getting rougher by each passing minute and jellyfish sightings every now and then was actually kinda FUN FUN FUN!
picture for illustration purpose onlyThe most fun part was the part where the boat felt as if it was 'flying' when we paddled really hard and fast riding through the strong waves, I had to contain myself from shouting out loud in excitement
yes I'm crazy like that
oh think medium to hardcore water rafting perhaps?
The team too was very energetic, we had better more structured trainings lately with the competition nearing. The killer part was the 500m paddle nonstop, that's like ~300 strokes nonstop @_@ I was really really bad at that, I exhaust myself far too quickly, my stamina was bad, my arms gave up too soon :( as much as I really tried very hard not to stop too often and kept up with the speed. Sigh.. I think I need to drink the stamina powder the guys are drinking at the moment :p
The only part I regretted was putting on the life jacket, I didn't need it because it was hardly that dangerous and it restricted my movement. Nevertheless, it was one of the best paddling session I had, and I definitely want more of those!!!
Maybe my life is getting too mundane that I'm craving for some hardcore adrenaline rush excitement @_@ hence, the post was named as such.
