Dragon Boat Practice - Thursday

My body was still pretty sore prior to Thursday's practice.  Nonetheless, I got on the subway and met the team at the park. We did lot's of sprints, push ups, and sit ups.  Needless to say, it was intense.  However, the backdrop of Central Park and the windows of buildings looming behind the trees, made for splendid scenery. 

With each push up, each sit up, each leap frog up the hill, I felt my body being literally ingrained into the soil of Manhattan.  After the workout, we huddled up and I immediately felt bonded with the team.  Their philosophy is simple - leave no man or woman behind.  Pick up their slack if they can't go further.  We do it together or we don't do it at all.  Saturday mroning at 9am, we get to train on the boat, which I am looking forward to. After the workout, we all dispersed, saying our goodbyes, and I walked by myself down a different path in the park, and it was a nice quiet walk, and nice time to just wind down and revel in the delight of wearing home spots and patches of mud and grass, courtesy of Central Park.

First Day of Dragon Boat Practice

Hut, two, three, four...hut, two, three, four....Don's body is soooo sore. 

Last night was my first practice with the Ma-Yi Dragon boat team. We met at Pro Fitness near Broadway and Columbus circle, did some stretches and then we all went over to Central Park to run.  There was about 20 of us.  We started off with a short sprint (which turned out to be the longest sprint I've ever down) and we ended up near Bethesda fountain. From there we did pushup, crunches, jumping jacks, more sprints, dips, everything that Zeke (our land trainer) could have thrown at us.  All of this with about two or three 10 second breaks. Vincent (our boat trainer) was good at checking in on the new people.  Saturday we get on the boat at 9am at Flushing Meadows.  I am aching all over, but loving it.  This has been the most intense workout I've ever had since my good old gymnastics days or even when I used to wrestle!  We finished at 9pm.  I was surprisingly able to keep up pretty well given the fact that everyone else have been training much longer than me.  I found out today that last night we had worked out harder than they ever did for last year's team.  I look forward to the boat race festival which will in August.  Here's a link to last year's festivities...

http://www.tinysandwichsweatshop.com/mayidb/gallery/index.html

Lunch at Grand Central

So today for lunch I decided to walk over to Grand Central Station to look for some new places to eat.  It's so strange to be able to walk through this humongous building, seeing all the heavy marble and mortar and the soaring ceilings and watch the people walk through it without even noticing. My reaction is, why are you taking this for granted. Maybe it's because of my architecture and design background that I find myself gawking at these amazing spaces.  To think that man is capable to building these things is just awe inspiring.  The lower level concourse of GC is full of dining - lot's of restaurants and an Oyster Bar!  I find myself feeling very lucky to be able to go to GC whenever I want, or look up at the Chrysler Building whenever I want.  Tonight I start my first practice with the Ma-Yi theatre dragon boat team. We are practicing in Central Park tonight!  I will keep you posted on how that goes!