Sunday, November 29, 2009

My first mile

I ran my very first mile in 1978. It was the fall of seventh grade, and my friend, Tracey Thomas (with her long, red pig tails, and generously freckled face), had cheerfully convinced me that we could run with the boys. Tracey believed that girls were as good as boys, she loved adventure, and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. So I followed her trustingly, and agreed to show up for our first Junior High School Cross Country team practice at 8am during the last week of summer vacation.


On this late August morning we gathered—the neophyte seventh-grade runner-wannabes. 20 boys and 2 girls. We wore our cotton T-shirts, short shorts, and formless tube socks. Our feet sported a myriad of shoes, basketball shoes, tennis shoes and even one pair of brown oxfords with smooth leather soles. I clearly remember my navy blue keds—which created a certain pattern of blisters on my feet which I still recall. But I am getting ahead of myself.


Coach Vallecorsa was a thin man with a runner’s build, in the style of Bill Rogers. He stood at the front of the Junior High School gym, with his horn-rimmed glasses, polyester running pants, and quiet demeanor, facing 22 excited 12 and 13 year olds ready for their first cross country practice. Yes, sir, we were going to be runners, we were going to win races, run marathons, surge into the lead, and join the new 1970s fitness generation.


Once Coach V had explained the rules of the road, and the need for us to stay together, he led us outside. Tracey and I grinned at each other. This would be fun! Coach V led us through some calisthenics to warm up our unwieldy adolescent bodies, and then he started out slowly at a jog, allowing us to fall into some kind of natural order behind him.


The "Natural Order" of Junior High School is very clear. There are those creatures at the top of the food chain and those on the bottom. This order is well-known to and rarely challenged by middle school society.

In this case, the "Natural Order" fell out as follows. There were two hot-shot “jocks” in our group—both named Jim. They were fast-growing adolescent males—choc full of testosterone and leggy beyond belief. They had excelled at Little League. They won informal sprints across the recess yard. They chased girls and caught them. And, most importantly, they were popular. In short, they were viewed as the most likely to get through this practice first. So naturally, they fell in right behind Coach V. And the rest of us let them. Next came the wrestlers, strong and underweight. Fighters. Rough boys. Willing to sweat off excess pounds. Next in line were the hockey players, currently unblemished, but known to wield bruises during their ice season. We knew they were fast on skates, and carried big sticks.

Finally came the farm kids. The irony of their low placement on the Junior High Food Chain while living closely to the food the Junior High kids actually ate was lost on all of us. They smelled too much of what we didn't want to know our food smelled of. This natural order of the playground put everyone in their assigned places as we began this run. Tracey and I, the lone females, took the place in athletics always relegated to girls (after all, this was only a few years after Title IX)—in the back of the pack. Girls played with dolls. Boys ran fast. Incontrovertible rules of the universe.


We set out at a slow jog. Tracey and I joked with each other, and pumped our arms in rhythm with our stride. It was warm and humid as August in upstate New York often is. As the distance passed, our breathing became harder, and our conversation stilled. We watched the pack of boys in front of us, and made mental vows that despite pain and blisters, we would not stop. We might be the first 12 year olds to die of heart attacks, but we would wait till the mile was over before succumbing. We would die heroes. We would complete an entire mile before falling to the pavement in full cardiac arrest. We were determined not to fail. We were fierce feminists and we had to show them that girls could run too.


And that’s how the magic began.


About 1/4 mile into the run, the farm kids started slowing down, gasping, and soon began to walk. It turns out that running after cows requires short bursts of speed, and a lot of plodding. Not sustained running. Tracey and I looked at each other, and in a tacitly agreed upon move, we increased our pace and pulled ahead of them.


Oh! That surge of adrenaline as we realized we had met with success! We were FASTER THAN SOMEONE! We were goddesses of speed! We were hermes with wings on our shoes! It was a feeling we loved! And we wanted more!



The wrestlers were next. They thought they were tough. So they held on longer than they wanted to. We dogged them for another block, close on their heels. They would sprint for 10 yards, and then slow, in an inefficient fartlek fashion. Tracey, a great fan of Aesop’s fables, grinned when I said “we are the tortoise, they are the hare”. She and I both knew how this would turn out. Because, in the end, athletes willing to wrap themselves in saran wrap to lose water weight just are not made for a mile run.



We chose our moment, made our move and never looked back.


And this is when I learned the warped logic of the athlete's brain that has been a part of my competitive strategy for the past 30 plus years. Once you pass that first person, you start believing you can pass more people. That first experience of success leads the brain into a universe of delusional thinking. Tracey and I were fast falling down into that rabbit hole of world championship delusions. WE COULD BEAT EVERYONE!!! And we set off to try.



Our next victims came in the form of the hockey players. They were already panting by the 1/2 mile mark, and we could hear them talking about taking a short walk break. They were already losing. That defeatist mentality was all we needed to hear. It was only a matter of time! When they complained about their blistered feet and searing lungs, Tracey and I each took the outside and pushed right past them. Victory number three in less than a mile!


There we were, Tracey and I, ¾ of a mile into this run, ahead of everyone but the fast Jims and Coach V. I was a winner. I felt great!

And I had my first moment of doubt. I allowed my brain to veer off course and noticed a searing pain on my right heel. And another alongside my left toe. My calves felt like knives were cutting up and down the muscle, and my quads had a flaming burn I had never before experienced. A sharp pain sliced through my right side, and my shoulders ached from all the arm pumping. I glanced at Tracey’s flushed face, and heard her raspy breathing, and: I doubted. Her face squinched up in pain every time she put her left foot down. She glanced back over at me—I hated to think what pathetic image I provided—but she looked away quickly and started to slow down. I was ready to stop. I no longer needed that adrenaline. I just needed to lie down on the ground to die.

This is the mindset of a loser. A slippery slope. A quick one-way trip to the back of the pack. I was not going to make it.

But, in each of us, there is a secret source of resurgent power. For me, one of my worst faults became a source of strength. I am stubborn and proud. I wanted to stop, but only if Tracey stopped first. I would not be the one to give up first. I would not be the weak link. I just hoped she would be, so I could blame her for our joint failure. And here is Tracey's secret: she is stubborn and proud too. So, rather than back down, Tracey stared ahead, refocused and driven. Neither of us would be the first to give up. Neither would allow the other to finish the run alone. So I repressed my own feelings of defeat, and pushed on, pretty pissed off at her for not stopping when we had the chance, but stuck with the knowledge that my only face-saving option was to pick up the pace and run by Tracey's side until this miserable run was over.


Three blocks from the end, the Jims started to walk. They pushed to that pain and just gave up and hung their heads as we passed them by. I thought briefly about those three long remaining blocks, and imagined walking alongside the cute Jims to the end. It would be my only chance to be that close to the popular boys. But one look at Tracey, who was focused on the back of Coach V’s head in front of me, and I knew that my destiny lay not with the popular boys, but with Tracey and the victory of finishing first. I surged ahead.



Tracey glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, and the slightest of grins found her lips. We were going to do this mile and we were going to live to talk about it! We would NOT end up in the ICU. We would NOT succomb to heat stroke. We would finish first! We would be champions! We would own the title of the “Fastest Junior High School Runners” in our school--male or female. We were taking girl power into the next generation!


Those last three blocks were the longest I have ever run. In 32 years of running, nothing—not even the last 200 meters of a marathon—has ever been as long as those final blocks. My aching shoulders kept moving in time to my arms, that dagger like pain in my side threatened to slice me open, my feet burned with fire at every step. There remained not one molecule of oxygen to fuel my muscles—my lungs were filled with toxic sludge anyway—it was like breathing through peanut butter. My vision blurred. I pressed forward. We stayed with Coach V. Was he speeding up? Why was this so hard? When would it end?


And finally, we crossed the street to the school yard and picked up the pace.



Coach V had a grin on his face and said “great run, girls! Let’s take it in!” and he took off.



Tracey and I, not knowing what else to do, stayed with him. Pushing the pace to a moderate sprint, we forged ahead. Past the school's entry gate, through the field, across the parking lot, and finally! To the back door of the school!


And there we stopped. The first to finish. Survivors. I fell onto the pavement, heaving and shaking. Tracey leaned against me, sobbing silently. The layers of pain began to sort themselves out. Arms, lungs, quads, calves, feet. All excruciating, and all slightly different types of pain. My brain told me I should feel awful. My body sent angry accusing impulses to my head--"what have you forced us to do!?!?!" I deserved to feel nothing but misery.

Instead, I felt absolutely wonderful. I was elated. My brain sent reassuring waves of happiness to my body. I couldn't stop smiling! I was a world champion. I was an athelete. I was a winner! Yes sir, this was a sport for me!


Tracey looked equally as happy, and Coach V said “you girls ran well! Good job. I think we have the makings of an excellent girls’ team.”


Slowly, the other boys trickled in, looking defeated, not making eye contact. Coach V congratulated them as well, and promised we would build up to this long distance over the course of the fall. He made us all feel good about our accomplishments, and invited us all back tomorrow. I looked around our group and saw most faces crumpled in defeat, pain, and surrender. There were also about 8 radiant smiles, mirroring my own. (Those 8, plus Tracey and me, became the core of our Junior High School Cross Country team. Two years later, we won our league championship.)


After we recovered and stretched, Coach V said “see you tomorrow!”, and we staggered off in the evening light to our homes. I wasn’t sure how many would return, but I knew that I was hooked. I was a cross-country runner ready for torture, willing to suffer pain, wanting that endorphin high. I knew I would come back for more tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

the Pair-really a love story

Today I rowed twice. My first row was an excellent double with my regular and wonderful rowing partner. I was happy, a bit wet from the backsplash, but feeling good after a good workout.

I felt some excitement, and trepidation about my second row, though. I had a new date to try the pair.

Quick explanation for the non-rowers here. A double is a boat with two people, four oars. It is putting two rowers, each with with a port and starboard oar, in one boat. The rowers are independent, yet connected. Either of them can row the whole boat alone. They go faster together.

A pair is two people, two brains, two oars. Lots of possibility for error. Small margin before you spill into the water. A perfect combination of adrenaline, trepidation, and challenge. One rower has a port oar. The other has a starboard. They must be connected, and never independent, or the boat will flip. If one rows without the other, the boat goes in circles.

Finding two people who can row together, communicate effectively, and exert the same power on every stroke is important in a double. It is essential in a pair.

The quest for your pair partner can be frustrating. It is like looking for two twin snowflakes.

My prior experiences in a pair were absolute fun, and I saw the potential in this sweet little boat, but I hadn't found my snowflake-twin, and I wasn't sure there was one out there to find. I am too competitive (one rowing partner calls me an "intimidating tough chick"), I really like speed and I am a rowing junkie. I would row 8 hours a day if I could. I dream about rowing. I think rowing is fun, even when it isn't. I have found people who like speed. I found one or two who are as in love with rowing as I am and who even think rowing is fun when it isn't. But it is a rare person with those characteristics who are as determined as I am to pound their quads to a lactic-acid-laden molten mass, pull till their arms fall off, and row till they vomit, just so they can dominate all the other boats out there. It is like the Good Ship Lollipop captained by Edward Teach.

Then along came Alice....

And this begins my true love story with the pair today. What I had before was mere puppy-love. Rowing the 2- with Alice was the real deal. I might never row a 2- with anyone else. She is to me what Paul Enquist was to Brad Lewis. And I believe we can learn to move our boat fast. I am sure of it.

Alice and I are a good match athletically and in personality. Her marathon PR is within minutes of mine. She is one of 3 people in the entire world who can equal my enthusiasm! :) She loves rowing. She likes to win. She emotes like I do. She smiles and grins and laughs when we talk about rowing. She loves to row hard, and she is really competitive. She is my snowflake twin.

When we did the three-and-glides, we got our first taste of how we could move the boat together. It was like getting to lick a tiny bit of really good chocolate, and you know that there is more just out of reach on the shelf over your head.

So then when we did the 5 strokes on/10 strokes off, it was a bite of a whole little square of that chocolate. All melty, and yummy, but not really quite enough.

And then we did the power tens--ahh. I wanted more. Lots more. And that is when I realized that Alice and I were growing, and with a little bit of time, we would soon be tall enough to get the ENTIRE bar of chocolate down, and it would be OURS to gobble up!

We took our last power strokes, and then paddled down. I could almost taste that chocolate. I turned to look at Alice, and saw that grin on her face. And I knew Alice could taste that chocolate too.

I actually worked hard in the pair today. As in, I took off my winter hat because I was getting warm! As in, I had to breathe with my strokes because my muscles were off-loading a bunch of CO2 and my lungs needed to up-shift to keep up with the metabolic demands. As in, I bet Alice and I can learn to row the pair hard enough to get the pull-till-my-quads-burn-my lungs-scream-and-I-get-that-bile-in-the-back-of-my-throat-thing.

We docked, and got out of the boat in unison. Alice turned to me, and we gave each other an ecstatic hug. "That was so much fun! We can be fast!" She was equally convinced that we could conquer this thing called a pair.

So chocolate is my strategic rowing plan for our pair. I will learn and grow with Alice, and we will master this 2-woman boat, and we will kick some ass out there and win some races. In Alice's words we will attain "total dominance on land and sea".

I think I found my snowflake-twin.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Injury Woes

Being sidelined by an injury, even a minor one, forces me to a screeching halt. I suddenly want to do what I should not do. My brain, anticipating my predictable absence of reason, sends out urgent pleas for sanity--"You need to rest!!!", while every molecule in my body tries to brush those messages away.

There is something inside me--an uncontrollable yearning for sweat, pain, work, endorphins. I feel like a junkie, seeking out the natural opiates, needing that fix: one more row, one more run, 20 minutes on an erg. I argue with my brain, claiming that a run is "cross training" and is ok. I point out that 20 minutes on the erg is nothing compared to 2 hours in a boat. I claim sculling is different than sweeping. I make excuses like an alcoholic. "I can take a day off if I want."

But when it comes down to it, a day off is hell.

Today I did no exercise. None. I woke up at 5:30am before the alarm. My body jumped up on its own, ready for its morning fix of adrenaline. But I am injured. I drank coffee instead. I read the paper cover to cover. I showered. I dressed and headed to work. I was an hour earlier than usual.

Work was slow. I felt lethargic and tired. My body craved that fix it was not getting. Yet my appetite never slowed. I ate my first breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. I wasn't full despite a day without exercise.

The smartest thing I did was to visit my massage therapist. He pried his hands deep into the pain and tightness, working his magic on my muscles. I will be sore tomorrow, but I know that he is my best hope for recovery.

By the end of today, I am bouncing off the walls. I am proud of myself for taking a day off, but I am ready to row or run tomorrow. Just how long a rest do I need? How much pain is pathologic? Is this pain just passing?

At 43 years old, after 12 marathons, after 30 years of athletic performance--pepper with minor injuries, I should know my body. And I do. But I should also be wary of my brain, trying to cut corners, trying to skip out on recovery time, ignoring the obvious. But I do not pay attention. I know the price, but I also know the endorphin high. How long can I hold out?

Today was a successful rest day. I made it through one 24 hour period with no exercise. I will not sleep well tonight. And tomorrow will dawn. I will wake before my alarm. My body will jump up, ready for its morning fix of adrenaline.

Will I be good, make coffee, read the paper, and allow my body to fully recover? Or will I succumb and go for that forbidden run?

Friday, November 6, 2009

Confessions of a Port Oarswoman

The rower I admire most is the one who can row either port or starboard. I aspire to be that person. But my hands and body do not. In truth, I am a port oarswoman who can row starboard if pressed.

Rowing portside works with my body's natural flexibility. The beauty of being a rower is that we learn just how flexible we are, as we sit at full compression at the catch. We pivot around our rigger with a twist of our core, our arms between our knees, and we know that pull along the lats, the low back, and the stretch of our quads.

And because we can reach that full compression, we kid ourselves that we are flexible.

However, when asked to row on the opposite side, we learn that the mirror image of that "flexibility" perfectly illustrates that for every stretch in one direction, there is an equal and opposite rigidity in the other.

I reach forward in the body angle, and I feel fine. I come up the slide (always too quickly) and begin that twist of the torso, and I feel every taut muscle resist. The body memory urges me to twist to the right, and I push through that to the left. My outside hand tries to feather, but my brain sends urgent commands to my recalcitrant left hand "FEATHER THE OAR, STUPID!!", so it catches up, but not before the coach notices the subtle flick of the right (or in this case, wrong) wrist. I brace myself for the well-deserved critique. "You feather like a port--get over that and row like a starboard!!"

My inside shoulder is too high, my outside arm too bent. My body leans to the wrong side, and my neurons are all firing in a chaos of confusion. It is the ultimate in anarchy.

But slowly, with a few hundred strokes, the signals begin to sort themselves out. My body surrenders, and my brain stops fighting and actively rethinks every part of the stroke. Press, release, tap down, feather, hands away, pivot, up the slide, twist to the left, catch. Step by meticulous step. A rewiring, a revisiting of the details. A reminder of what I should be focusing on. I start to feel that solid connection from the water up through the right arm and lat. The pull of the oar with the press of the legs. Every muscle alert and engaged. The breeze blowing my hair across my cheek, the sweat building across my back, my breathing syncing up with the rhythm of the boat.

By the end of the row, I feel like a starboard rower. Until I flex my hands, with their new blisters and sores. Hands do not lie. They hold the evidence that my brain denies: I am a port oarswoman who rowed starboard today.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

assuming risk

Women in pregnancy are beautiful--strong and vulnerable. They are also worried, feel responsible for things that are beyond their control, and beg for guarantees that everything will be fine.

H1N1 is the question of the month--should I get the vaccine? Does it contain mercury? Will that harm the baby? Will it cause long term effects? Should I drink milk? Should I eat fish? How much omega-3 supplements do I need?

The list goes on. And on.

I can give quick answers to all these questions. The expert imparting advice to the patient. But that will not help her move on. She cannot trust her body to give birth, or her instincts to parent if she cannot trust now.

So rather than prescribe doses and impart CDC guidelines (which I will do later), I start talking about risk, decision-making, and doing the best we can in an imperfect world.

I once read somewhere (and I no longer have any idea of where) that seventy thousand Americans die each year from breathing polluted air. These are not people who died of emphysema or asthma, or other underlying conditions. Their lungs just clogged up with the sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and nitrogen oxides produced by fossil fuels, and their pulmonary oxygen transport ceased.

And yet we don't think of breathing as dangerous.

I wish I could help women breathe, assume risk, let go of an excessive sense of responsibility, and just enjoy their pregnancies.

Life does not carry a money-back guarantee. You do not have to parent perfectly. Your child will not be perfect. You can just hope for a lifetime full of fleeting moments when you look into your child's eyes and believe they are perfect.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Lessons from Rowing


It all started on a dark and stormy Saturday afternoon. The day before our very first regatta, and the training plan was to row together for the first time in a four+. As a runner, I can tell you that a training plan is sacred--like a religious document--and any major deviation will kill all hopes of reaching your goals, it can destroy any confidence you have going into a race, and failure to follow it precisely, usually dooms you to a runners hell.

Rowing, well, not so much.

I am learning so much from rowing, and this weekend I have learned many lessons:

Lesson number One: Flexibility In Training and How wet is too wet.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we ended up in an 8+ with four VERY TALL PEOPLE (you all know who you are--and the rest of you can just look around in GS1, and when you see a belly button at eye level, you will know too). So as John Keh tried to mimic our four by putting us in the same line-up in the stern, the VERY TALL PEOPLE in the bow had to row at quarter-slide to keep their stroke lengths with ours....ok, I'll own this one. As stroke seat, it was my short stroke they were keeping down with. sigh.

We started our pick drills by fours and sixes in the drenching rain. I started out with a rain coat on---novice naivte--we moved on to pause drills, the rain soaking through my hat. By the time we reached half-slide, rivulets were running down the back of my neck and dripping into my shorts. We were doing some outside arm strokes, and the water dripped down the sleeve of my inside arm. I started to sweat, and the perspiration mixed with the rain and salt to form a gelatinous mess across my shoulders. We finally took a break to shed some layers, and my coat was plastered to my back. Emily, in 7 seat, kindly took a putty knife to it, and pried it off. I was down to a single, damp, dripping layer. We spun the boat, and headed back up for the longer piece. I am sorry, but I have no memory of that row.

So, that essentially sums up the day before the race. It is always important to go into a race with a good sense of what you know. Here are the lessons I learned from our last training row in the rain:

1-Raincoats are worthless for rowing-gortex or not. If you see a boat full of raincoats, they are either fishermen, or coaches on their launches.
2-Water makes a nice swish sound around your legs when the boat is really moving. When you are asked to "listen to the rhythm of the boat" this swishing water may be a helpful aid.
3-there are many degrees of wetness, and none of those degrees we knew as non-rowers compare to those we now know as rowers
4-there are no kayakers out in the rain. there are no singles out in the rain. There are no swans out in the rain. In fact, there is nobody out in the rain. Not even those sculpted Riverside A-boat guys. I am pretty sure they were having a beer down at the Asgard. A dry beer.
5-The terror of your first Head race will motivate you to do stupid things your mother warned you never to do---like row in the rain.
6-Rain+rowing=blisters
7-I still like rowing. I think there is a psychiatric diagnosis for me.

Sunday came, and we arrived at the course in Lowell. We had bought, borrowed, and stolen a random assortment of CRI hats, tanks and unis, and we completed our uniform with a rash last-minute purchase of matching black and red checkered knee socks. Rag-tag, but proud, we rigged the Alacrity (someone asked "What does Alacrity mean?"--but never mind that. It is completely irrelevant to our experience in that boat). However, when we asked for oars, we got blank looks from everyone. And then, when we went to find our cox'n, she said "Oh, I thought you started two hours earlier--I can't cox you. Sorry."

So who ya gonna call???? "Coach" John Keh! Who was racing an 8+ and had had the temerity to turn his cell phone off during the race!!!

So there we were--four terrified, excited, abandoned novice women with a boat but no oars, no cox'n, and no coach. (But at least we had matching red-checkered socks.)

Suffice it to say there were some uncomfortable, panicky moments in there, but I will sum it up with this: Coach Bode generously provided an excellent novice coxswain, Coach Isaac (from GS2) saved us by offering us COMPOSITE oars! (woooo--ooooh! they were nice!). And Coach Keh found us after his race and calmed us down before we had to launch. I think he had us sing "Kumbaya" a couple of times... It also helped that as we were carrying the boat down to the water, we heard a multitude of compliments on our checkered knee socks. If we were not going to be fast, we were at least going to be fashionable!

Our race was pretty ok---except when it wasn't. I stayed reasonably dry, but I showered everyone with my completely squared oars (dare I confess to flip-catches here?). We were the most set I have been yet in a four--which maybe doesn't say much, but going faster really does help. My shoes came unvelcro-ed halfway through, and I still kept rowing. And that is the sum and substance of a Head Race. You just keep rowing.

We kept our stroke rate at a 28-32 the entire distance. Even through a myocardial infarction, an emphysema attack, and an aneurysm. That novice coxswain didn't let us slow down for anything.

About that coxswain: She made us do ratio shifts, power tens, focus tens, "tens for form", tens for our bow pair who would cross the finish line first, ten for the stern pair who would follow right behind. We did tens for the boat that passed us, and tens for slowing the slide. I think we did a power ten to the ten power lines 1000 meters into the race. And ten for the bridge we didn't hit. That coxswain had us do a ten for breathing--had we forgotten to breathe??? I don't even know what some of those tens were for. But there were an awful damn lot of tens that we rowed. and rowed. and rowed. (I confess to a few negative thoughts about our perky little coxswain, with her perky little pony-tail, who kept blithely asking us for another power ten. I think I may write about coxswains sometime.)

So we did our final sprint (ha ha) and our final power ten, and crossed that invisible line between those two floating pumpkin-like bouys, and that familiar bile-in-the-back-of-the-throat feeling arose out of my gut. My rubbery legs were past burning, and my raspy chest was heaving, and we somehow managed to maneuver ourselves between the thousands of launching boats (ok, maybe there were 4 or 5) and landed on the floating pile of rubber that they call a dock. I put my one foot up on the coxswain's call, worried I wasn't going to be able to push myself up, when it dawned on me--we still had to heave that hulking shell up out of the water, over our heads, and carry it all the many many many steps (was it a mile?) back to the trailer. I trembled in terror. In my head I prayed, I beseeched, I begged, I cried. I promised my firstborn. I promised my second born. I even promised to have a thirdborn and sacrifice it as well. And you know, my beseechings were answered in the form of Isaac Karasin. Yes, folks, GS2 is coached by an angel.

Isaac came onto the dock and said "we are going to hot seat your boat". Before I could wonder if that was a cure for arthritic glutes, he pulled us out of the boat, and pushed four GS2 rowers in. They were off for their race, in our Alacrity! All we had to do was stagger off the floating dock, across the sand, and then go hunt for our shoes (our coxswain had also been "hot seated" elsewhere for her next race). As we dug our shoes out from under a pile of oars, we laughed with glee. We were happy. Our raw finish time was NOT the slowest. (another topic to explore is handicaps in rowing, but that is for another time...) We felt Good Enough to want to do it again.

So we ate, and ate and ate. And smiled. And gingerly held things in our sore hands. And clapped each other on the backs. And proudly showed off our new blisters. And promised to do it again soon. The human capacity for selective memory and self-flagellation knows no bounds.

So, in closing, this is the final lesson from rowing: What I Learned from my First Head Race:

1-5k is a VERY VERY VERY LONG WAY (even when they've shortened the course to 4400 meters)
2-composite oars are very easy to handle and allow excellent oar control
3-composite oars rip your hands to shreds
4-Rigging a boat is not that hard to do. Except when you drop the washer into a pile of beautiful, fall leaves.
5-When you are over 40 years old, a washer in a pile of leaves is very hard to see.
6-A"wet launch" is sometimes preferable to a floating dock. As long as you are not afraid of leeches.
7-You can NOT "toe the edge" of a floating dock without falling in
8-You can come in last (or almost last) and still feel like you rowed a terrific race.
9-Wearing spandex in certain venues makes you feel like an insider.
10 The Rite-Aid in downtown Lowell is not one of those venues.
11-Matching Red and black checkered knee socks are more important for team-building than being fast.
12-Matching Red and black checkered knee socks are also not well received in the Rite-Aid in downtown Lowell


Stay slow up the slide, friends...

A near perfect row

The perfect row is not, in fact, perfect. This is something I am learning. To be pleased with improved mediocrity. Technique evolves toward, but never attains perfection.

This morning, I had a row that was perfect in its imperfection.

The set was good. Not great, but good. And most importantly, responsive. This means when the cox'n said "we are down to port" we made subtle shifts, and then went down to starboard. This is a good set, with a responsive crew.

Fall, with the crisp, nose-biting air, kodachrome colors, and soft mist rising off of still waters, is the sweet last taste of a season. Ergs loom threateningly ahead, and sweaty t-shirts are a distant memory. Every cold morning is the promise of one more day on the water. The ice on the dock is a reminder that tomorrow's row might be the last.

The river is quiet--most crews have already retired to their tanks and weight rooms. Only the hardy brave the cold, wet splashes of the stern pair's oars. We are the bow pair. We follow our stroke pair in the 4+. We rush the top quarter of the slide, we are slow at the catch. We rock. We rock the boat.

And yet, today, with the cox'n's precise calls, we stop checking the boat at the catch. We let the boat run underneath us. We press with our legs. We breathe in sync. We are one unit of massive boat-moving power.

As we catch up to the die-hard Harvard crew in their slick little pairs, I call out a challenge in jest. In good humor, they laugh, and put their paddles in motion, taking the bet from the grey-haired masters women's boat. We have twice the oars and half their power. Their advantage is that they are burdened by neither coxswain nor age.

Three strokes into this spontaneous scrimmage, they pull ahead. Never rude. Never patronizing. Only good-natured. We press harder and increase our rate. Our breathing quickens, our heart rates surge. An adrenaline rush shared between perimenopause and youthful strength. They leave us in their wake.

We pull our stroke rate to 32 without losing our form. They cross the finish line far ahead. Our cox'n calls a power ten, and we finish strong, smooth, together. This near-perfect row is our victory.

We paddle down, and smile, congratulating ourselves on a really good row. We thank the coxswain. We thank the stroke pair. (We never thank the bow pair, but the bow and I share our own quiet moment of congratulations...we kept up with the stroke.)

We dock and talk about our next practice--in which we will attempt to attain the imperfect perfection of today's row.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Ode to my Pogies

My hands are cold, and you are not.
With your "heat pack" pockets, you are hot.
My fingers were frozen, too stiff to bend.
And now they are warm, and this poem must end.

[good grief. Time to go row.]