Dragon Boat West

Hi all,

We're starting up our free run groups again on Sat Jan 26.  This is a great way to get ready for dragon boat season and meet some new people from a variety of teams at the same time.

Our target events: For the learn to run group, we're aiming for the Times Colonist 10K on April 28 (www.tc10k.ca (http://www.tc10k.ca)) and the half marathon group has 2 options, either the North Olympic Discovery Half Marathon in Port Angeles (www.nodm.com (http://www.nodm.com)) or the Goddess Run in Victoria  (http://victoriagoddess.com/ (http://victoriagoddess.com/)), both on June 2. 

This group provides an encouraging, non-competitive and supportive environment to help you meet your goals and become fitter and stronger.  It is made up mostly of dragonboat/outrigger paddlers along with various friends, family, coworkers and others.  All are welcome!  Don't think you're too slow, old, heavy, whatever the case is, this is not meant to be intimidating in any way.  My goal is to get as many people out as possible enjoying the healthy benefits of running while also meeting lots of other people.  We'll use loopbacks to keep the group of various speeds and abilities together until we start developing smaller pace groups.  I promise I won't leave anyone at the back of the pack by themselves!

We'll be starting Saturday January 26 at 9am at a location to be e-mailed before the start of the program (likely either Gorge-Esquimalt Park or Gorge Rowing and Paddling Centre, locations will start moving around Victoria as we get going).   

The Learn to Run 10K program has 3 runs a week for 13 weeks, you can join the group or run on your own for any sessions that you can't make.  The Half program is a 26 week program but we'll be starting part of the way in as we're assuming people participating in the program will already have some running experience.  We'll start off with Monday and Thurs at 6pm and Sat at 9am until the start of April, then it will be Mon and Wed at 6pm and Sat at 9am although I can set up smaller sub-groups if the days don't work well for everyone.  Locations will vary as we get underway.  All session info will be e-mailed out weekly so if you can't make the run group times, you'll still know what the plan is for that day and can run at home.

If you are interested or would like more information, please let me know ([email protected]) and I can add you to my e-mail list.  Remember you have nothing to lose in just coming out to try it but the benefits are enormous if you stick with it!