Nemesis

Well, I may have given myself no excuse to lose on Saturday. But lose I did. The gorgeous silver ice bucket that is our club's Commodore's Cup was won by my flamboyant, trash-talking nemesis, Flash.

He kept up his banter before, during, and after the regatta. I don't think it affected me but perhaps it's what he needed to do to psych himself up.

Just before the first race he said to the race officer, "Have you ever heard so much hype for a regatta?"

The race officer, our commodore, beat me to the obvious punchline, "Yeah - every regatta that you sail in, Flash."

The winds were light, around 5 knots. Because it was a handicap regatta -- me in a Laser, him in a Force 5 -- I had to beat him by about one and a half minutes in each race. But I never had the boatspeed to achieve this. Flash deserved the win and we all congratulated him sincerely as he was awarded the cup.

My primer on the mind-body connection, Mental Edge by Kenneth Baum, counsels that you should turn a loss into a gain. "Use it as a motivation to change your way of training and thinking in order to enhance your chances of future success."

Hmmm. Need to think about that.

nem·e·sis (nem'i-sis) n., pl. -ses (-sez').
1. A source of harm or ruin.
2. Retributive justice in its execution or outcome.
3. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.
4. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.
Nemesis Greek Mythology. The goddess of retributive justice or vengeance