This weekend, dare I say, had been one full of mixed emotions. It had been a long time since I had felt such a push to achieve, a need to push myself to my limits. From disqualifications to beating the team who are the current British Champions, this weekend has been full of unexpected moments.
From facebook and other places you probably gathered that I was going to “Nationals”. Yup, so the sports I have been involved in since I stopped training swimming seriously in 2002 was lifesaving. Most people think that lifesaving is about getting awards, doing CPR, bandaging someone who has a bleeding finger. But I am talking about competitive lifesaving. According to the Royal Lifesaving Society, RLSS, “Lifesaving sport is possibly the most demanding multi-discipline sport that exists in the world today”. It involves physical strength, lifesaving skill, teamwork and speed. Its a great sport, and I have been involved since 2004 and apart from last year when I was in Japan, I have been training with University of London Union Lifesaving Club. In 2005, our A team was the National Champion. Today, being part of A-team, we have re-lived our days of glory. As results were read in reverse order starting from the 25th team, we were waiting for “London A” - and although we knew we did well, we would be happy to come top 10. We came 5th!! It was so close that I could smell the medals.
And this weekend, I have unleashed the competitive side of me in a positive way. Yesterday, we had many lifesaving speed events, such as manikan tow, obstacle race, medley relay (where you have to swim 50m and swim 17.5m inside water, pick up a manikan and tow the rest, line throw and super lifesaver. All in all, I will just summarise the day with a lot of stress, tears (coming from the girls…not me -_-) and teasing. I broke the club record. The record for the most disqualifications in 1 event. I was DQed for 3 different things within a distance of 5m. It was quite impressive.
Today we had the normal dry and wet incident, swim and tow and line throw. However on top of it, we have a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) incident. It was a beach simulation in an outdoor pool. I was shocked by the level of professionalism!! There was a jet ski and a proper lifeboat!! Although the water was freezing cold, it was just a blast! I don’t have any photos to show you guys since I was doing a competition and the area was barred off. In our line throw, we beat Southampton which has been the strongest lifesaving team in my memory as a lifesaver. I am beyond pleased.
I took my camera on Saturday, but it went out of battery half way. But we got some nice rope throw in action. There are a lot more photos on facebook.
All in all, it had been a great weekend. The most ironic thing is Cambridge and Oxford were tied…8th. We beat both