It has been an exciting weekend, full of emotions, surprises and disappointments.
A weekend that has created a team that I hope will be more intrigued and motivated that they can do more for the upcoming season in time to come.
However, let me go through some thought processes that has been on my mind ever since training the NUS dragon boat team building up a team from scratch.
It was simply surprising to even imagine how far the boys have come even after paddling for a little more than 11 months together. They have proven to me that the order of the day when it comes to winning begins in the mind. The actual fire, desire and belief that they are willing to put their hearts and minds to try to match up against competitors who far outweigh them in terms of experience. I have begun to believe how much more this team has with how I may have judged them initially and it has nothing to do with experience.
Bouncing back from defeat after an unsuccessful run for MR500, the boys pulled themselves together to push through a torrid start of the season to see themselves finish second for all the categories that they have competed in. I would believe there is more to be done in the basics, but I would think it as an achievement by itself. It would be difficult to judge whether the training was enough but that I would have to go back to the drawing board to eke out some solutions.
Drawing out some conclusions after the race, the following would be what I will look into in future to emphasise in future trainings.
1) Basics - the catch and pull phase.
Much has to be done in this department as the basic skills are still lacking. Alot of attention has to be spent in this area to create more awareness of how they understand the water and how they would learn to react to differing conditions to execute the above mentioned skills more thoroughly
2) Basic Strength and eventually strength endurance.
Although we would believe that the whole is always bigger than the sum of its parts, but there must be thought and consideration in the conditioning that the boys are in before proceeding to manage intense loads and stresses involved in racing in a typical 1km race. Alot more emphasis has to be directed towards hypertrophy in the initial phases of training to maximise possible strength endurance capabilities. Bigger muscles will create higher capacities of strength endurance if the process is done correctly. Definitely something that I have to look back at the drawing board.
3) Utilisation of starts to mentally get ahead.
An area of improvement that has to be tackled from the start to make sure the boys understand that having a good start creates a better solution than trying to chase the competitor. We must be able to deliberately train for higher targets to build confidence to get ahead of the pack so as to gain mental confidence.
4) Running through the last charge.
The boys definitely lack the advantage at this point where muscle glycogen stores are severely depleted and the lack of drive at the end of the race. Little training was done to facilitate speed intensity at high stress levels which cause lack of form and structure to remain intact by the end of the race set. Much to do to work on this, something that can be easily rectified but difficult to attain without leaving the "comfort zone".
Well, it has been a good weekend, and a wonderful learning opportunity for myself. I hope to gain more from next season and see to a better training regimen for the team.
