San Francisco (Lake Merced) | Sept 25-26

Hey LARDfolk!

Hope all of you had a safe trek home last night, and were able to celebrate in one way or another with other teammates and family on the drive down. (Carl's Jr never tasted so good!) I just wanted to congratulate EVERY ONE of you for such an amazing weekend of paddling. What a GREAT tournament to top off our '04 race season!

It's unfortunate we couldn't all stick around for the closing award ceremonies as a team (we brought up 42 paddlers this year!), but for the invaluable commitment and effort that you guys have put in throughout the training and race seasons, especially in the past several months, THANK YOU!! Our team continues to expand and improve every year because of YOUR dedication and willingness to not only try new things at practice, but to successfully integrate them for competition (ie: KILLER start!) To those of you who were new to the Northern California Championships this year and were unable to make the June Alcan Festival in Vancouver, I hope this race weekend also showed you a bigger picture of the intimate dragonboating community that you guys have become part of.

In addition, the coaches would like to personally thank our race SUPERmanagers Diane and Ev Yang, John McCabe for picking me up from SFO (then driving back to OAK to pick up paddles from the flight I missed), Vi (for calling our Mixed Red crew all the way to victory), Greg (our guest paddler from NY, who our team is sure to come across again--likely in Toronto next season), all of the Space Dragons who helped us out (Emily, Pearl, Megan), all of our Mixed Crew captains (Anthony, Gene, Oliver, Andrea) and Will for their energy, Tiffany for such an EXCELLENT job as a first-time caller, Susan for hauling half of our paddles back home, Scott for hauling half of our paddles and the canopy up-and-down, and of course, both Leon and Scott as fellow coaches.

"So what's next?" you might all be asking....Well, practices will resume on the weekends as we officially head in to our *training season*, so feel free to bring out your friends, any co-workers whom you'd like to soak, or just friends who you think would enjoy trying something new. Perhaps another family member or relative as well. It is really the perfect time to bring out some newbies.

Recruiting is always a year-round priority for the team, and in addition to building paddling stamina and improving technique for return paddlers, the training season really gives us that much needed opportunity to experiment with different race elements (ie: start/finish sequences), as well as to progressively train strokes, mid-strokes, callers, and race STEERSPERSONS :-)

Be on the lookout for other team activities, including the annual 55mi bike ride from Upland to Huntington Beach, as well as the end-of-the-year celebratory hurrah! Both are still in the works.

Most of the paddles will be available for distribution this coming weekend, so come hang out for a relaxing paddle with your teammates. Please bring any photos you took from the weekend to share with the team over some good eats after practice as well. I look forward to seeing you guys soon!

Motrin anyone?

GO LARD!

Jason

Hi all!

Just wanted to chime in with my thanks for the weekend. I had a great time and it was a lot of fun to get back in the swing of things.

Special thanks to the Red Team. You guys let a virtual stranger on the boat as your caller and you guys really came through. I am so proud of how you well you performed! Major props to Anthony. Red would not have performed nearly as well as we did without your support and leadership.

Diane and Evelyn - you guys are phenomenal. period.

Also, I had a couple of queries about Achilles' LARD shirt. If you'd like to see where I got it from, you can go to http://www.cafepress.com/lard I make no representations as to the quality of their products. I just wanted to see what the LARD logo looked like slapped on a bunch of different products. Keep in mind, the pictures are all outdated.

I've also gotten requests to revive the LARD calendar. Unfortunately, I have zero pictures from this last year. If I can gather enough for a calendar (hint, hint), I can put something together.

Thanks for the free ride(s) this weekend team!

Vi

Now that the "Great Job" and "i love you guys" emails have come to a halt, it's time to get down to business...I have come up with some cheers let me know what you guys think.

1.
Whos up to fight? LARD
Whos down for more?? LARD
We paddle hard! GO TEAM LARD

2. Dust settles down! YEAH
Who won this round?! LARD
We got them beat! YEAH
What spells defeat?! LARD
all -----> L-A-R-D L-A-R-D L-A-R-D GO TEAM LARD!!!

3. What is a must?! WIN
Teams eat who's dust?! LARD
We came to what?! WIN
Still on your butt!! LARD
all -----> L-A-R-D L-A-R-D L-A-R-D GO TEAM LARD!!!

4. What's fast as light? LARD
We're light as what? LARD
Who's got the lead? LARD
What do we bleed? LARD
all -----> L-A-R-D L-A-R-D L-A-R-D GO TEAM LARD!!!

your options are to like them or hate me...and since im so irresistable...im guessing the former moreso than the latter will prevail. = )...have a great day everyone and by the way...GREAT JOB! and I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

like totally,

Will the Cheerleader