NEVER GIVE UP

It’s a pretty well worn true tale about Winston Churchill’s shortest, most famous speech. Addressing a high school audience he repeated the words over and over again, “never give up..... never, never, ever give up, etc. etc.” Indeed, his own political career really didn’t blossom until he was almost 70.

I should have heeded those words last Saturday at the Nelson Roam skimo rally race. I was doing ok, not great, but ok. Top 10 for sure, maybe running 7th , then I skied off course. The last time I came to Nelson same thing happened. That time I was running a strong 3rd on my way to a possible podium. So I was really, really trying to be careful at the approximate same location that I blew it once before. It wasn’t meant to be. While screaming down a fast, crowded cat track I lost site of the very small red pin flags that were supposed to be marking the descent. I paused, looked around, then knew that it’d happened again. This time though I had an approximate idea where I was supposed to go. So I descended an easier mogul run, but knew I was going to miss the checkpoint, usually a dq for the day.

When I finally caught site of the up track and got back on course I saw a couple guys I knew were well behind me. Instead of chasing them down (I did catch one of them 50m from the finish), I kind of cruised my way home back up the long ascent to the mountain top. I’d figured I would be disqualified, so why put myself in the hurt locker.

Little did I know that almost EVERYONE missed the same corner. The results ended up totally being bunged up. If you’d stayed on course you had a huge advantage in the results. In fact, the checkpoint person failed to get to her station on time so there was no way they even could dq anyone. Wow! Talk about a highly efficient, professionally run event (sic.).

So the point of this blog is to heed the old words of Churchill, never give up! Never, ever give up. You just never know what could happen or maybe even what is happening that you’re unaware of.