Dream a little dream...

Two things have kept me awake these days.

One of them is paddling technique. o_o Yeah, you've heard it here, I am thinking about how I should paddle, whether I sit correctly, push my arms forward enough, turn my shoulders fast enough. I've never thought so much about my own body (I spent my university years being totally amorphic). It's to be noted that we had our hardest practice on Monday, which included two (or three?) 1000m, three or four 500m, including a race with elite teams, and a 4x20secs, 4x40secs and 2x90secs somewhere before the race. I know I've claimed it's "the hardest practice evar"many times, but I think we can't go (much) further than this.

Overall, I felt really good. For the first time, I ran around the olympic basin (4.5km), with a few stops in the first 2km, and only once to tie my shoelaces in the last straight. It's not a question of breath, but more of energy. After paddling so much, you just can't feel your arms, even if your heart still wants to pump more blood into them. I think the key will be a good nutrition, and for that, I'm already planning a congee-based diet for Thursday and Friday, and I bought myself a bag of sultana raisins for snacking ($2.45 for two big scoops at the Arabic grocery store on Ste-Cath near Guy). Tomato pizzas at Italian-owned Boulangerie Clarke on St-Viateur/Clark are a pretty good, filling and cheap high-carb lunch. It's around a buck fifty for the ones with tomato sauce/oil and rosemary + other herbs, or tomato pieces; $2.25 for the cheapest and heartiest rectangular cold pizzas I've ever seen in my life - twice as thick as the ones at Pino and Matteo's around the McGill campus!