Spills & Thrills

In order to understand the catchy title, a spill can be taken literally or figuratively as a negative experience. A thrill is obviously positive.

Yesterday, competed in the series finale of the Dreher park summer race series held in West Palm Beach. I trained hard because I was determined not to get swept (spill) in the series. Thus far, Dale Rudy owned me for the first & second race, even though only by seconds. I came prepared to take him down & apparently he may been aware of that. Rather than allow me to get him, he forfeited his place in the series by failing to appear for the finale. That move did fulfill the thrill of not getting swept by him but was the last thing I calculated on actually happening. Unfortunately for me, someone else filled his spot & gave me a run for the money regarding the masters title. Brian Keno, former title sponsor of the classic Keno Bros. duathlon series, decided to run. He helped pull me to my best time all year by forcing me to perform to his level to get a shot at the master title. Although I lost by only 2 seconds (spill), I still came up short & in that case, I have been swept from the master title. However, that title was picked up by different winners in each race, which is somewhat consoling. Each of those persons won a battle (individual race) but guess who won the war (series)- yours truly. While I may have lost those battles, I got the ultimate prize of being the series Master champion (thrill) because of all my efforts. There were many entrants that qualified to make a run at the title but I was the only one dedicated enough to meet the requirements to earn the title; I did all 3 as fast as I could!

Today, I rode the rick! I did a long ride in preparation for the series finale of the Key Biscayne trilogy series, next week's main event. Since cycling is secondary to me, I had to do this ride, using a large part of the actual race course to be better prepared & hopefully, ride faster, even though the ground was wet from all the rain. On the way back, upon making a turn in the grove, the bike slipped from under me & I took a spill. Witnesses saw this, riders included, & my only comment is that it goes with the territory. I will chalk that up with various other experiences of mine.

Tomorrow will be a thrill if I can cap off the weekend with a good training roll (inline skate). If it rains as forecasted &/or I don't feel or do well, it'll be classified as spill!