Liverpool Charity Race - July 2008
What a glorious sunny Sunday morning – a perfect day for racing!
The Liverpool Charity Regatta had six teams competing. They were:-
Dragon Behind, Wombats, Aktrion, Short Circuit, Flintshire Dragons, and, of course, Pool of Life!
We arrived at 9 o’clock to find, to our surprise, Gail hadn’t got lost and was waiting eagerly for the other half of the gazebo so she could set up camp! Fortunately, Gail was on home territory so “Tom Tom” was left at home!
Hilary (who paddles for Secklow 100) and Ted had come up from Milton Keynes to paddle with us and arrived with Wendy. They had travelled up on the Saturday and had been able to do a little sightseeing.
The gazebo was erected with military precision with Sergeant Tyrer (oops, I mean Gail) instructing her troops! All commands obeyed everything went like clockwork!
Three ladies from Worcester Busters (Sue, Deborah and Lorraine) also made the journey to paddle with us.
So we were delighted that the weather was kind to us!
In the cafe were Paula and Ali who had very kindly offered to man the cake stall, selling homemade cakes, tea and coffee. Aly also had donated cards and small gifts for the stall which also went like hot cakes!! Thank you Ali!
As everyone had arrived early, having set up base camp and cake stall manned, we took the opportunity to have a short training session before the racing began.
For the first time on drum we had Kate who normally paddles with her mum, Carolyn. She did a brilliant job for us and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Well done, Kate!!
Our training session over it was now time for the racing to start – the course was approximately 400m. In our first race we were against Aktrion. Down to the start line we paddled – the only ladies team to compete – we were certainly “paddlers in pink” wearing our pink tops! With paddles buried we waited for the command - we started well and soon pulled away leaving Aktrion behind. Their time was 2.00.87 and ours was 1.51.27.
After our first race we came up against stronger opposition, namely the Wombats and Short Circuit – we lost both races but we were pleased with our times as they were very consistent being 1.51.44 and 1.53.88.
Our last race of the day was the Tail Race and we were up against Short Circuit again. Strong opposition, I have to say, strong men and there being the odd Great Britain paddler!! We were now paddling with two paddlers less and two of our lefties had to paddle right. So we knew we had a fight on our hands. Thelma was “frisked” for Woodbines as she had been caught earlier having a “quick one”.
We got to the start line and thought we would show a little aggression, shouting, “Who are we?” “Pool of Life!”. “What are we?” “Wonderful!” Perhaps we were hoping to frighten them a little!! Paddles buried for the last time and off we went on the starter’s orders. We managed to keep with them for a short while with Kate encouraging us on the drum and shouting as hard as she could but with the strength of Short Circuit they soon pulled ahead to win the Tail Race. Our time was 1.52.92, so with two less paddlers and two lefties paddling right we put up a commendable time and I think we could certainly say that the Pool of Life did look pretty in pink!!!
As we paddled back we happily sang again, “Who are we?” “Pool of Life!” but this time we brought a smile to Dave’s face by shouting, “What are we?” “Dave’s babes!!”
I must say well done to everyone for putting up such a great performance and especially to Hilary and Joan for paddling on the right in our last race, although Joan did say, “Please don’t ask me to do it again!”
The event was won by the Wombats in a time of 1.39.44.
Back to the cafe to see how our two intrepid sales ladies had coped! A fantastic amount of over £200 was raised!! According to Aly the men were put under Paula’s spell and they just kept returning to buy more cakes, well that’s what I’m led to believe!!! A big thank you to both Paula and Aly for working so hard to raise that fantastic amount and, of course, well done to all the ladies who baked – thank you so much – we certainly couldn’t have had a stall without you! Perhaps one day Marion will have perfected her flapjacks and I won’t be subjected to the ordeal of having to eat them all up!!
We had a perfect day – the weather was lovely and, although we didn’t win a trophy to display in our new cabinet, we had a great time racing and showed the spectators what a team of breast cancer survivors can do!!
A big thank you to Hilary from Milton Keynes and Sue, Deborah and Lorraine from Worcester for taking the time to travel up to Liverpool to help make the day a very memorable one!
Also, thanks to Charlotte for paddling with us on the day.
Well done to everyone - hope you all enjoyed the day as much as I did!!
Big G!
