Disappointing

Race day today and if I am honest I am a little disappointed.

As I have mentioned before, with this event we were hardly racing for sheep stations, so it isn't the result I am so much disappointed in. If I had paddled my heart out and got this result then I would have been happy. In the end you can only race to the best of your ability and if you can say that you have done that then you can be proud.

No, my frustration is more that I don't think I paddled to the best of my ability. A few silly mistakes here and there combined with a pretty strong field just added up to make the day less than I had been hoping for. I could make some excuses and say a few things didn't go in my favour, but in the end I just didn't execute as well as I could have and it bit me. When the margins are small then there isn't much room for error and mistakes can make big differences.

Still, I am not going to sit and cry into my cup of tea for too long. One of the realities of racing is that sometimes races go well and sometimes they don't. I am a big believer in people making their own luck, which means there are things you can do to try and make sure races go well more often than they don't. But even if you are diligent, plan well, train hard etc, sometimes races still don't fall your way. When that happens you have two choices, complain about it or dust yourself off and get on with things.

Getting on with things is certainly my plan. The next major race is in about 6 weeks time and so I plan to use that time to put in some solid strength and fitness work as well as work on some of my weaker areas (such as sprinting) to see if I can finish off the season strongly.

Frustrating, yes, end of the world, no. Regroup, refocus and reapply as a wise man used to say.