The First Ten Days Back

The past week and a bit have had ups and downs. At some times I've been totally and so very homesick, worried or scared, other times I've been totally and so very high on the moment and happy.

Downs: My grown-up bully; Worries about the unknown; Homesickness
Ups: Good Friends; Cycling; Sporting Events

I'll elaborate on the ups :)

Dobroyd Regatta
Sept 2 was the first regatta of the dragonboating season, commencing a weekend before on-season began. It was pretty much mostly a trial run I think, for the coaches to experiment without sacrificing an actual race. But it's still a race and also a social run for us as a team, because well, what's more fun that spending a warm day on the water with your friends?

In a mixed-10s race, 200m. This race is quite short, lasting only about one minute in duration, but it's a hard minute and by the end everything burns. It's the sprint race of dragonboat racing.

True Grit 2013
Sep 8 I participated in True Grit, a 10 km military-inspired obstacle course. While I handled the cardio portion of the course no problem, some of the obstacles were indeed a challenge. Particularly, the obstacle where you have to run at a 3m high wall and hoist yourself up to the top. My teammates helped me up on that one. It was great to be part of a team and to witness the camaraderie  that too place i.e. there was one girl who had difficulty getting across the monkey bars. I'll admit that even I found it difficult. Not only are monkey bar skills something that most of us haven't used since grade school, but when it's part of a course where you're already fatigued and covered in mud, there's added difficulty. I had to wipe my muddy hands on the grass, which was also muddy, and find dry-ish parts inside of my shirt to somewhat make my hands less slippery. I think it helped a bit, but the bars are already covered in mud from other people. And, if you let go of the bars, you drop into a mud swamp. This other girl fell in already and was getting frustrated, so two of the guys went into the swamp and helped hold up her legs while she did the monkey bars. Teamwork!

The Team! (R to L): Skyn, Emma, Genghis, Indy, Butch and me.

This was harder than I expected. Hehe and apparently that guy beside me fell into the mud.

Finishers!!

Other
Also, no pics but:

-My Canadian-friend Carmen and I went to Rockpool for burgers. Hamburgers are not really a big deal in Sydney, which only makes me crave them. In some other blog/website somebody went on a burger hunt and found what they decided were the top three. So far we've hit up #1 and #3, so now we just gotta make it to #2: Jamie Oliver's.

-My friend Steph invited me to her Israeli friend's picnic at Rushcutter's Bay, a swankier area of Sydney. It was great to meet some new people while hanging out on the grass and eating some delicious homemade food.

So yeah, lots of fun stuff :)