What I didn’t win…
By rights I shouldn’t really be smiling. At the end of two hard races, I came home empty-handed from yesterday’s British Masters’ Champs (better known as Nat Vets), and that’s something that would normally have me sobbing gently as I licked my wounds.
We’d gone there with high hopes. After a frustrating season when we hadn’t quite got the chemistry right in the novice squad no matter how we rejigged the crew, we finally, with just five days to go, settled on a crew that just somehow worked. Admittedly, we didn’t have much time to get to know each other – before the actual race we’d spent a grand total of 20 minutes on the water together (one warm-up, one four-minute seat race, to be precise). And admittedly, one of our crew had only been rowing for six months and never raced before. But still, when we got in the boat together it just felt right. Something, at last, had clicked. For a novice crew we felt our rowing was, well, not too shabby at all.
If that wasn’t enough, our stroke and I had been blessed in training with a lucky omen in the form of bird droppings all down our backs. What more did we need to make us feel confident?
And yet it wasn’t to be. Up rocked Ardingly, with some impressively fine novice rowers who were, quite simply, a length faster than us. We dug deep, and deeper still, but they outrowed us and I liked their style.
Later that day saw our novice 8 rowing up in the IM3 eights event. I won’t go into the gory details of the four-and-a-half minutes that it took us to get down the course, but let’s just say it wasn’t our finest hour and is best forgotten. The only consolation was that I had quite a few friends in the winning crew. If I couldn’t win, I was glad it was them.
So why am I not distraught? Why did I not take up my usual spot in the ladies’ for a silent weep after the race? Well, for one thing, I guess I’m finally learning a bit of perspective. I’m slowly discovering that it’s not always about the ba-bling, ba-bling – that a good race, hard fought, against worthy opponents, can be truly satisfying even if it doesn’t result in a win (who knew?)
The real reason, though, that I’m smiling today is that I did get one win over the weekend – one that has made me exceptionally proud. I discovered this morning that thanks to the lovely, kind people who voted for me (heartfelt thanks!) Girl on the River has won Rowperfect’s Rowing Blogger of the Year in the athlete category. That, I think you’ll agree, is most definitely reason to grin.
