DO NOT DNS

Overall win.

Age Group win.

Personal best.

Great effort.

Satisfied with performance.

Finished.

Major struggle.

Injury.

DNF.

DNS.

That is the RCVman ten point race scale. I have personal and intimate knowledge of each of the ten. One could also rate these on the sweet-sour scale. Ten being the sweetest and one being the most acidic. There is nothing like a win. No debate. However, from that pinnacle on back down the hill, the dialogue gets a touch heated. One can argue that the effort IS the goal. That we train for the life style with the results secondary. One can create the case that the only real win is a loss, where you learn the lessons, adapt them, and make quantum changes to incorporate them into your new largess. Sometimes just to finish is enough.

I truly believe that if you have done everything right in training (and I do mean EVERYTHING) all you can do is go out and do your best. That is, and should be reward enough. Was I disappointed two weeks ago when I gave 104.5% effort for 12K only to finish in second place? No. The guy who beat me (by four minutes) has given me a wonderful gift. He doesn't know it but he has made me faster. I will learn the lessons from the heat of battle, train them into my routine, and show up next year with my clock cleaning kit. Thank you whoever you are. Or.....

We can always quit. Go back to Sedentary, USA. Watch apathetically as we gradually lose the fitness we have worked so hard to own. Throw in the towel. Walk away. Please do not feel alone if this is your choice, millions have already waddled down that aisle. At the bottom of the list are the two DNs, did nots. A did not finish comes with a story. A did not start, doesn't.

Don't go there.

Do not even think about it.

You have achieved something few will ever experience. The challenge. The game. An opportunity to see the real you. To test. To compete. To triumph. To cry. To win.

Time is irrelevant. So is place. Where you finish is mere data. What really matters is what your heart and soul hold as high truth.

That success and victory are in the trying, the effort and the way you run your race.

I may never win another race. That will not keep me from training like it is the most important goal in my life.

Which, of course, it is.

Pix: (Click to enlarge) Today we leave the faces, machinery, drama and technology out to bring you a few samples of the backdrop to the weekend's racing in Washington and Oregon. Mts Hood and Adams, the White Salmon River. I am downloading video and should have something up in a few days. Hydrate.