Today, I got in touch with an old friend, Leonord Diplock from my varsity rowing days at the University of Toronto through LinkedIn. Len and I had made it to the national team tryouts in 1995. We had trained with our crew to win the Royal Canadian Henley (Gold) and also had gone to the Royal Henley On Thames where we won some prestigious coins. Of course, rowing to me was all about fun. Training, camaraderie and winning. It is fun when you compete and win. When you lose, it is fun too-because losing makes you stronger, wiser and hopefully wanting to come back harder. For every race we won there were many we lost. We had even lost races by less than a second and came back the following year to win it with open water. This shows only one thing-intensity can be a good thing.
Today, through the wonder of technology Len and I picked up our conversation as if no time had passed. We spoke about the new campaign for U of T Department of Athletics featuring varsity and novice rowers that I have recently presented. Some of the images were based on our racing experiences at speedorders for the national team try outs, where we were invited after making the 2000 meters ergometer time requirements and although we were slower on paper than the celebrated national athletes, we posted the second fastest time of the day-on the water defeating many "sure things." What does this tell you? Ergometers don't float, boats do. And never underestimate your opposition.
Life is amazing. Distance of geography or time is nothing between friends.
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