I joined an international Dragon boat team in Beijing. Every Saturday we peddle on lake HouHai, unless it’s frozen that is. Sometimes we are invited for a Dragon boat race somewhere in China and that’s really cool. Usually we are treated as famous international athletes and almost all expenses are covered by some Chinese sports organization, which is highly appreciated.The most important technique in dragon boating is timing. There are up to 24 people peddling in a boat and all their peddles must hit the water at the same time. The longest race in which I participated was 10 kilometer which took about 55 minutes and the fastest race was 500 meter in 2:41 minutes (traveled a 1000 kilometer for that one). Our team consist of local Chinese, oversees Chinese and a couple of foreigners living in Beijing.

Recently I joined an international Dragon boat team in Shanghai.

We did 2.28 for the 500 meter and little over two hours for the 35 km on the Yangtze River. Although I volunteered for an all farmer girls local team instead of our Shanghai team since we had one to many peddlers on the boat.

35 km on the Yangtze River

Early start with local pancakes

Getting ready for a peddle

Close to perfect timing

Now we got it!

A well deserved BBQ after the peddling

Shanglong Dragon Boat Club, Shanghai

dragonboatsh@yahoo.com