The road that lies ahead

It's been a bit, and I have digested and processed and let everything crystalize.  In short, I can tell you a few things.

Let's start with went wrong.

So far, you have picked up on a few things which lead to a DNF (those three insidious letters no racer wants to see).  I didn't leave enough time.  I wasted time in training before the build was done.  I never tested the rig.  I guessed too much.  I didn't pay enough attention to the hull and that is ultimately what went wrong.

We could go on, and all of them would be correct in one way or another.  But I can distill this down to one solid lesson: I'm a bad manager of time.  Carnahan used to call me "psychotically optimistic," and I think he was right.  I tend to think things will go fine and I don't allow for problems.  I don't allow for anything.  I have always been strong, and I can muscle through about anything to get it done.  But that isn't racing, and it has made me sloppy.

Think of it like this:

A father talking to his son.  The boy has brought home average grades again, and his father is sitting across the table from him.
"I know you are better than average.  Why do you keep getting these grades?"
"I was late on some assignments..."
"If you don't learn to do the work it's going to bite you."

I'm that boy.  I never learned to do things the right way.  I let talent or will take me through, and I have always gotten by.  And that is the problem: I get by, but I don't really excel.  I'm a procrastinator with a really good work ethic and talent: I don't try and end up scraping by when I could win.  I only ever cared about the challenge, but not the victory.  And that has finally taken a bite out of me.

What went wrong is that I was trying to get by on my looks when I should have been winning.  I did this, and I take the blame.  But if I can take that, I can own it.  I can decide not to do that again.  Steinbeck hit it best in East of Eden with: you may (he was talking about man's ability to beat his own inner evil, but this is just that).

So, where does that leave us?

Well, dear reader, if you are sticking around we have got a story to tell.  You see, I believe our lives are stories we write.  Some people chose to let things flow and they are spectators when they could be the main characters.  Some people make their lives tragic and never realize that as the author they could turn it around into a comeback story.  I like the idea that my story is an adventure.  The hero suffers his own choices, but rises from the ash to achieve glory. [NOTE: there is more to this, where I also believe people don't change and that they only come to realize who they really are, which seems like a contradiction but it isn't and I will only tell you that part if you ask- AVB]

There are next steps.
Taking stock of what we have is easy: a working mechanical set, and some really great insight into what we need to do.  Also: a year to work it out.  Don't discount the value of failure, it teaches us where we need to improve and helps us find what we don't know.

So, I got a canoe.  It's fourteen feet of flat-bottomed, wide-beamed, broken fiberglass ugly... and it is in my living room.  But it was free (I will tell that story next).  Here is the plan.

I will fix the cracks and holes.  Then, I will outfit it with the drive mechanisms.  This will involve some adaptation, but it will also allow for some innovation.  With that done, I can run and train with the mechanism.  The process and the practice will tell me things, and those lessons will inform my next hull.
While that goes on, I will be learning to be an engineer where hulls are concerned.  I want to know the math which I have never needed to know.  Since I am not going to be the procrastinator anymore, I will have to learn the details.  With that knowledge, and with what I know and can learn from the new canoe (Fenrir Mark Two), I will spend the winter developing a faster hull.  In the spring, FM4 will be in the water (Mark 3 will be the refined mechanics in the salvaged hull).  From there, I will have a few months to train, learn, and refine the two parts together.

So what do you say?  Are you going to follow the story?  This is the part in a bad eighties movie where there would be a montage, so you know I win at the end.  But isn't watching part of the fun.

We've got some time, let's not waste it.