Dragon boat fest

They call me Vincent van Row — I'm the master of my craft

Craft. Boat. You get the point.

The eighth annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival takes place this weekend at Sloan's Lake. The two-day event is filled with food, crafts and a whole lot of racing.

This is my seventh year racing — I missed 2004 because we didn't have a team. Instead I spent six hours at the gym working out my frustrations of not being able to race.

I'm racing with the Vietnamese Professional Network team this year. If there's something I've learned from my years of racing, the ethnic teams are scary. (The Mongolians, Cambodians and Laotians are always among the favorites)

This year is nice, it's the first one since 2003 where I'm not the team captain. It's much less stressful to be just another rower.

Though, I've found it difficult to bite my tongue and not chime in my two cents. But I think I've been better as the weeks of practice have gone on.

I'm happy with my team this year. In my seven years of racing, this ranks toward the top in terms of overall strength and experience — the team we had in 2002 where we won the gold was the best one though.

But I truly feel we have a legitimate shot at taking the Novice trophy this year. This is the first year I've done months of on-water training (My left hand still has the scars from the cuts I received in practice). Plus we actually did conditioning during practice for once.

But most importantly, I have faith in my team and I hope they have faith in me.

I just hope they have faith in themselves because if they knew what they were capable of, they would be amazed.