Hi Doug!
I hope all is well - it's good to see that you had a great weekend up North with Carol and Steve! Over the weekend I had some fun of my own - I took part in a relay duathlon organized by one of the local canoeing clubs, in which two people formed a team where the first person would run 4 km, both would paddle 8 km, and the other person would then run 4 km. It was a pretty large-scale event, drawing participants from school teams, club teams, and just about any other imaginable entity.
Our category (women's open) started off with half of the teams from the mixed open category. I ran first (and my partner would run later, after we paddled together), and so there was a mass start for all the first runners from each pair. As expected, when the horn sounded, everyone tried to sprint ahead and break away from the crowd. I wasn't sucked into the melee, however, and kept a steady pace right from the beginning (I was around 7/8th place). It paid off because I managed to overtake most of the people ahead of me by 600 m, and overtook everyone by the time we reached the turnaround point at the 2 km mark. What made it cooler was that since we had started with the mixed open category, there were guys running as well, and I passed all of them as well. So I got back to the transition area first and my friend and I got the kayaks and paddles and started paddling. The first round (we had to paddle two large rounds, probably around 6 km total) was tough because I had practically no time at all to catch my breath after the run, but it did get better during the second round. By the time we completed the row, only two mixed open teams were ahead of us (and barely), and the next closest women's pair was nowhere in sight. It was amazing. So my friend had a pretty easy job of the run (but of course she went all out as well). In the end we finished the entire race in 1:10:57, which was pretty awesome, considering that that time would have earned us maybe 5th or 6th placing in the men's open category and perhaps 3rd in the mixed opens.
I can't even emphasize how amazing the race (especially the run) was. It's really testimony to the superb nature of CF methodology and training methods - I hadn't trained specifically for 4 or 5k races, and I hadn't done kayak-specific sports training in a few years since I went into the military/ abroad for studies - but the functional fitness I gained from CF over the months at HFUSA/ back in Singapore was really evident in how the race went. I mean, I don't even do track work or specific running drills (unless they're in the HFUSA WODs or CF WODs), but the very structure of typical HFUSA/CFHQ WODs (ie. BC WODs where you incorporate 200/400/600 m runs with exercises) primed me enough to be able to knock out a fast 4k. Amazing stuff.
Anyway, I included several photos of myself and my teammate at the race. I think you'll like the body-marking which I did ;). The pictures speak for themselves!
Cheers,
Feng




















