P r e pa r i n g
yourself for
racing
d u r i n g a pa n d e m i c
My mentors in life taught me long ago that when life gives you lemons, you make your best lemonade. Well, 2020 gave us all a big bag of poop, so let’s make some lemonade, shall we? Soon, the day will come when we can rejoin so many of our long time Dragon sailing friends and competitors on the water for true championship International Dragon racing once again. Let’s be sure to prepare our minds, our bodies, and our boats for that day. Let’s agree right now… today, to begin the journey to prepare ourselves for returning to race Dragons, and let’s make it fun. If I’m going to ask you to commit to something every day, it darned well better be fun! Remember: The feeling of progress is one of the best feelings of all. This is true even when progress is small. I’ll gladly share with you what I’ve been doing to prepare myself for the racing season, and then I’ll also share with you some fitness thoughts and suggestions that you can begin to easily incorporate into your life so you’re also ready to race when the time comes. No worries, we’ve got this. For my family, we require a minimum of just one hour of exercise every day. If we’re lucky, some days that might be sailing! Since the pandemic began, my wife and I have both been working remotely and my 14-year-old son has been online remote schooling. On most days, we get outside for at least 30 minutes each day, usually a hike or some other similarly enjoyable activity, and then we also spend 30 minutes focused on a Yoga activity. That’s right… turns out yoga is great for sailing! Nearly every brief yoga session includes core strengthening, balance, flexibility and yes, even stress reduction. All GREAT for sailing Dragons! In my family we watch this fit, smiling, competent young yoga instructor on the TV and she leads us through a 30-minute workout each day, complete with stretching! It’s fun to imagine that we’re executing the poses close to what she’s doing on TV,
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Dragon
and that we may actually look half as coordinated and flexible as she does! Of course, the environment is not usually as relaxed and focused in my house as we have two dogs that love this yoga family playtime. I even force my son to join us (completely against his will... All I had to do was promise I wouldn’t tell any of his friends). Seems like a win-win as I’m sure the dogs think this playtime is designed just for them. My son and I are always impressed how yoga can wring the gas right out of a man. Fun Fact: Did you know that a dog’s nose is 10,000 times more sensitive than a human’s nose? Second thought, perhaps not such a win-win for everyone after all. So that’s my secret to keeping in shape during the pandemic: • A minimum of 30 minutes of your favorite cardio outdoors – regardless of the weather. • Plus 30 minutes each day of family yoga/playtime as we laugh and make fun of ourselves while trying to emulate a yoga instructor :) The intensity of the yoga we choose to watch and emulate can vary day to day. If we’re feeling great, then we go for it and add in press ups, extra planks, burpees, and other more challenging activities and poses like headstands! If at the end of the week if we’re a bit worn out, we may prefer something closer to organised stretching rather than strengthening, and just end up rough-housing with the dogs until proper cocktail hour :) We change it up and have a lot of fun with this. I have plenty of sailing friends that have gone more upscale and have purchased some great exercise equipment for home use and many now have an internet-based component similar to “Mirror-Mirror” or “Peloton”. There are a wide variety of online workout routines you can simply follow along with the instructor of your choice for a monthly paid subscription, and many more are now offered for free.
