Winning doesn't always mean coming first. It sometimes means I make a personal gain or overcome a personal obstacle. A game well played is definitely a win.
In April I had the luck to race with some friends at a rowing regatta in Victoria. Dueling Over a Grand, lovingly known as the DOG, is a two boat race. You race and, if you win, you move on. There is a "back door" for crews who come second early in the regatta - you have to race more and beat more crews to make the final.
In March, my crew undertook a training camp to get in race shape. We all work out individually and stay quite fit for a bunch of middle agers, so the training camp was more about relearning how to row together and to establish our race plan. Racing is a pretty psychological pursuit. All the fitness in the world means nothing if you can't control the "can't" in your head. Our "coles notes training camp" was designed to help us with that.
The weekend of racing was super fun. I have a love/hate relationship with racing - mostly about how prepared I am for the race. I felt well prepared for the DOG this year. I know I'm ready when we sit on the start line and I'm thinking "yeah, we've got this" instead of "crap, why am I here?" Every time we locked into the start I was confident in our crew.
You're half way through your life journey. It might be time to take up a sport that you can compete in. It's an awesome feeling to push yourself and come up with your own kind of "win".
