The Killer Guppies Dragon Boat Team

The forecast for San Francisco was rainy and windy, at least for Saturday. Aside from a light rain storm Friday night, no gray clouds blanketed the sky as the Guppies arrived in Treasure Island for their last tournament of the season.

Coach Gary Chan stressed to the team to treat every single race as if the Guppies were racing in the last race of the day; to give it your all each time your paddle hit the water. And indeed the Guppies did just that. The waters were choppy as the Guppies paddle out into the harbor, but after Coach Gary’s intense training in the Long Beach by the breakers, this was just another walk in the park.

The Blue boat start off the day with a very early race, racing in Heat 4. It was a tight competition with everyone gunning for a chance to place. Instead of being placed into division, each dragon boat needed to place top three in their seeding to advance up. The Gold boat blew everyone away by taking first in the seeding and semi-finals. They even qualified for the special Visitor race with the second fasted time on Saturday’s race, while taking third in the Visitor race.

Aside from the huge surprise that it did not rain at all that race weekend (not even a gray cloud), the Guppies shocked spectators and other race teams by making it to both the Consolation final and the final race of the day! The Blue boat put up a huge fight in the Consolation race and came up 4th overall. While the Gold boat made it to the last race of the day, fulfilling the goal the Guppies made as they trained for SF. The competition was fierce as the Guppies raced head to head with LA Racing Dragons, Air Canada JetStart, Dragon Warriors, Bay Area Dragons, and Life Scan’s Jambalaya. The Guppies placed 5th in the race, but it wasn’t so much about placing, but the fact that the Guppies wanted to be challenged and they were race with the toughest team of the festival.

The gendered teams and the Masters boat put their best stroke forward. The Men’s made it to the semni finals, but couldn’t place high enough to make it to the Final. The Women’s were joined once again by Arizona’s Hila Dragons, but their combined efforts weren’t enough to take on the power ladies teams. The Guppies Masters joined forces with LA Racing Dragons and put away cross town rivalry to put up a great show.

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Please see the Guppy’s Download section for the SF Race Waiver.  Sign it and bring it to this weekend’s practice.  Also, there will be a race meeting immediately following Sunday’s practice.  Hope to see you there!!

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pssssssst.  Check out the Guppy Downloads section.

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We came.  We paddled.  We took medals home.  CONGRATS Killer Guppies for a killer weekend!!  Here’s the run down:

Division IA (Killer Guppies Gold): Third Place

Division  IIIA (Killer Guppies Blue): First Place

Division VB (Killer Guppies White): Fifth Place

Open A (Killer Guppies Men): Third Place

Womens A (Killer Guppies Ladies): Third Place

Masters A (Killer Guppies Masters): Third Place

Not bad at all!  All those weekly fitness challenges came in handy!  Next up SF Race!!  If you haven’t already.  Please reconfirm your response so we can get a better head count (I am sure this weekend’s victories has wet many of your appetite for more competition!!).  So don’t delay, do it today!

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If you haven’t gotten a chance to fill out the race packet you can download at the Guppy Downloads section of this site. Please fill this race packet out and bring it to the next practice. This is muy importante!!

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Alright Guppies, since we’re getting pretty close to the Long Beach Race, we need each and every one of you to come to practice.  Particularly this Saturday, July 12th.  Coach Gary is planning on having a mixed practice, then a gender practice shortly afterwards.  There are also Gold boat seats still available.  If you would like to be on the Gold Boat, Gary will be holding OC1 time trials this weekend.

Also, there will be a team meeting this weekend after practice. All the important race information, meeting times, and parking locations will be discussed. Not to mention Ellen’s highly motivational speech.  So please PLEASE be there!

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Alright Guppies. The weather is cooler, which means it’snice enough to run a mile or two. Here’s this week’s challenge:

Lower body strength. Our goal again will be to have 30 participants log 180 points.
Here’s how to earn daily points:
1 point for 12-19 min cardio
2 points for 20+ min cardio
3 points for attending Wed. practice
1 point for 40+ walking lunges with twist (count each side as one)
3 points for each gold boat challenge

Gold Boat Challenge:

STRENGTH
20 rounds for time of:
5 pullups
20 twisting lunges (count each side as one)

ENDURANCE (2 workouts - 1 long, 1 short)
long interval
2 mile run: Run at 80% for first mile and then 90% or more one 2nd mile.
Swim substitute: 1000 yd/m swim

short interval
Tabata sprints (any sport)
3 rounds of 4 reps of 20sec/10sec rest, 1 min rest in betweeen each round.
So 1 round would be 20/10 20/10 20/10 20/10 (1 min rest)

Also, Coach Gary has announced the schedule for mandatory practices for SF’s race. Here are the dates:

Aug 23-24
Sept, 6-7
Sept 13-14
Sept 20-21
Sept 27-28

Good luck Guppies!!  Don’t forget to update your response to the eVite for SF!!

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Congrats Guppies to another exciting race weekend! I can’t believe the week is almost over. I am still getting chills from Sunday’s race! Here’s the recap:

The newbie boat was the first to test the sluggedy waters in Long Beach this weekend. That paddled with all their hearts and came in third in the race. Up next were veteran paddlers taking first in the first race and a small technically pushed us to 4th in the second race. But not to worry!! Our burning desire to win the gold earned us 1st in the Semi Final round for the 200m race. Coach Gary then decided to give the newbies another taste of the race as they set out to win second place in the final, in which was the most nerve wrecking, nail biting, photo finish. CONGRATS NEWBIES!!!

Also! The Guppies will be participating in the 24 Relay for Life to help find a cure for cancer. The event starts TONIGHT at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. It’s not too late to donate. Please contact info@killerguppies.org !  Or send good vibes to the runners/walkers!

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Holy cow! Where has the time gone? It felt like it was just yesterday when we were departing for the Tempe Arizona race. I can’t believe it has been a month since then and we have another race coming up! I’m super excited because it’s going to be hosted in Long Beach!! So for all of you who are curious to see what a dragon boat festival or to see a real live dragon boat race, come down to Marine Stadium this Sunday, just next to Mother’s Beach! (see directions to our normal practice site here: http://killerguppies.org/blog/join-us#directions . Take the same route, but instead of turning right on Appian Way, make a left and head up towards Bay Shore Ave. You should see signs for festival parking).

And Guppies, what’s another week without another Fitness Challenge! It looks like the “Physical” points are really working out, since we surpassed our goal of 300 points last week by logging in a total of 330 points! Good job Guppies!! Keep up the STELLAR work! For this week’s challenge, here’s the break down:

“PHYSICAL” POINTS
————
Earn up to 2 points/day for cardio:
1 pt for 12-19 minutes
2 pts for 20+ minutes
Bonus: earn 3 points for attending Wednesday practiceEarn up to 1 point/day for strength by doing 20 reps or 1 min of any strength exercise (or any combination)
examples:
- 20 pushups
- 5 pullups, 5 pushups, 10 situps
- 1 min plank
- 30 sec plank, 30 sec wall sit
- 30 sec plank, 10 bicep curls
…”MENTAL” POINTS
———— ——— ———
Earn up to 1 point/day for race visualization
Earn up to 3 points (for the week) for listing “things I will work on in the race” (1 point each)

Since we have a race coming up this Sunday, we’re encouraging that you continue doing your cardio and workouts until Thursday. Also, don’t try new workout routines this week! We don’t want any Guppies injuring themselves before the big race! We’re also including some mental challenges to get us psyched up for the race. Remember, if you can do anything just so long as you put your mind to it!

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Teammates,
The official race results are available on the festival website:
http://www.azdba.com/Festival/festival_index.htm

We competed in the Mixed, Open and Womens division. For the gender races we combined with our new friends the L.A. Thunder Dragons and the local team Gila Dragons. The Mixed team advanced to the Comp A Semi-final where we placed third (only first place advanced). The Open (mens) team just missed advancing to the finals by .6 seconds. The womens team, however, advanced to the finals where they finished fourth against San Diego, Wasabi and B.A.D. Keep in mind this was a combined 3-team boat that had no practice time together. Way to go KG women! In the Collegiate division, USC finished third and has improved significantly over last year. Great job everyone!

As our first race of the season, Arizona was a valuable experience. The new team members got their first taste of racing, we had fun and made new friends and most importantly we saw how we measure up to our competition. Although the team did well, we still have work to do. Our competition has been training hard and it showed at Tempe.

We welcome the challenge that competition presents us. It will help push us to greater achievement. Already the team members who raced at Tempe want to get better and train more. I’m sure those who didn’t get to go to Tempe want to get in the game. Now is the time to get fired up and re-dedicate yourself to practice. Now begins the important training. We have the technique and we’ll develop the physical conditioning over the next four months. And we’ll race to gain experience and the confidence to achieve our goal: Comp A finals in San Francisco!

What can you do to help?

Attend as many practices as possible .

Participate in the team challenges and fitness tests .

Race, race, race! LB Spring May 11, Toronto June 21-22, Long Beach July 25-27, San Francisco October 4-5.

Recruit new members.

I hope this message gets you as excited about participating in KG as I am! The Killer Guppies are at the edge of something great this year. If we all do our best we will succeed. Anything less will give our competition the opportunity to pass us.

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