I’ve delayed doing a post on the blog because I’ve been wanting to write about our loss at San Diego, but for a while it was actually painful to think about. It’s heartbreaking and only a couple of days ago did I finally start getting over it. Pretty ridiculous, huh.

I recall how bummed I was when UCONN got knocked out of the NCAA tournament after a thrilling overtime loss to USD.

I was bummed and angry when Tom Brady and my Patriots lost in the final minutes of the Super Bowl (damn that Eli Manning).

In these two cases, I assumed the best team would win. I was wrong.

For all you Giants and USD fans out there, quit yer whining. I don’t want to hear ANY reason why you think your team is better. They aren’t. Except that when it counted, when it really came down to it, my teams failed and your teams won.

That is heartache.

And so it was with the San Diego race. The Womens Master B (final only). Nevermind that actually, we beat five crews quite handily. We were .5 seconds away from first place. See the decimal there? That’s half-a-second. In the time it took me to type this comma, we lost the trophy, the gold medal, the rights to say that we are number one.

In the same vein that I believe Tom is a better quarterback than Eli, that UCONN was better than USD, so did I come to believe that we were the better crew. The fastest crew. The winning crew. What hurts is I was ready. We were ready. We were hungry and we wanted it.

One of the things that helped me get over it (other than friends and family looking at me funny wondering why I was so pissed off to place second in such a competitive event … which, personally, I don’t get. What, you think Derek Jeter WANTS to miss the World Series? Please.) was to watch the video. My mom purchased the DVD of the race and I finally got around to watching it as I was trying to figure out how to upload it to YouTube (which I still can’t figure out. I work where? I do what? And you want me to figure out video file conversion?). I thought I’d never want to watch that thing. Why should I … I know how it ends.

But I watched that finish and for a split-second I thought we won. I showed it to the husband, and he thought we won. The frikkin video editor, who, following the end of the race, showed only our boat and not the “winning” boat, must have thought we won as well.

It took the judges quite a while to determine a winner, 10 or more minutes, which to me sounds vaguely like those yahoos in Florida reviewing a hanging chad during the 2000 Presidential Election. In a sport where it is all about times and absolutes and yeses and nos, this very well could have been a maybe.

No, I don’t have a medal. This year. But I’m feeling better. Looking forward to cheering my teammates on Opening Day. Looking forward to new adventures and new races.

No guts, no glory.

No pain, no gain.