Stadiums

4:45AM. I pull on my running tights, shirt, vest, jacket in the early morning darkness. I don the hat and mittens demanded by the winter cold and head out the front door toward Harvard. The 2 mile warm up to the stadium is peaceful--through the empty streets of Cambridge and across the snow-blown intersections of Harvard Square. I continue over the river and into the sports complex, where the monstrous Stadium looms large in front of me.

The sky is completely dark as I head into the dark entryway under the seats. For this brief moment, I am sheltered from the wind. This is when I feel the nudge in my belly--do you really want to do this? Wouldn't a nice easy run be better? Why go up and down all those steps--30 minutes of torture with little noticeable mileage?

I stop for a moment, contemplating my options. The stairs leer at me--the faintest light coming through the entry at the top. They threaten pain, and seem to shoo me away. Outside is the flat Charles River running path. No pain there. Just an easy pace for a few miles and then back home. Which shall I take?

I sigh. I know that I have no options. At some point, options may have existed. But once I enter the stadium, the choice has been made. I have only one direction to go, and it is a whole lot of up.

So I head up the stairs, out into the nose-biting cold, where the full stadium opens up around me. I jog down the few steps to the bottom, turn, and look up at the height of seats above. The number "37" is painted at the top--this is section 37--the last seats by the goal line. Or in my case, the first.

I start my heart-rate monitor (the only worthwhile measurement to take in this workout), and start running up the seats.

The Harvard Stadium Workout is a thing of beauty. It invokes terror or glee in the hearts of its victims. You run (or plod) up the seats--each step requiring you to lift your leg thigh high--all the way to the top. 28 steps by my count. By the last step or two, you fight the urge to push on your quads with your hands to keep the momentum up. The searing pain starts half-way up, and continues to grow until you can't imagine taking another step. Your lungs are ready to explode from the lack of oxygen, and you want nothing more than to get to the top. To stop going up.

At last, you get to the final step, gratefully turning around, and you stare at the closely-spaced little stairs heading down. These, you will run down as fast as you can, carefully to avoid tripping and falling on your head. This part takes immense concentration, and it diverts your attention from the pain in your quads, which you swore, only seconds before, you would never forget.

At the bottom, you smile. You have made it down 56 steps and you are breathing less like a fish out of water. But you haven't finished. You have barely begun.

This sequence is repeated 36 more times as you run up each section on one side of the stadium, around the curved end, and back up the sets on the other side. In the cold, your lungs alternate between burning pain of gasping breaths and the icy pain of the sub-freezing air you have gulped in too quickly. There is no happy middle. Your quads feel fine for the first step or two, and then they immediately revert back to the searing lactic acid burn for the remainder of the climb. By the half-way mark, your legs tremble on the way down--just one more factor to overcome on the perilous descent.

This is a Harvard Stadium workout.

I am heading down to the middle stretch of the stadiums when the black sky starts to fade into grey. The stars lose their brightness, and I feel the first glimmer of hope. Despite the shaking in my legs, I feel my growing belief that this workout will end. Even if I cannot breathe in enough air, the sun will rise. This day will begin soon. My pain will stop at the end of the last stadium section.

I continue on, past section 19, where I begin to count down rather than up. At the top of each set, I glance at the faint line in the eastern sky. The line becomes progressively lighter--slowly changing from grey to a washed-out blue, and then to a faint beige--moving ever closer to day as the earth spins on its axis. I push up another set, and the sky is no longer black. The stars are too faint to see.

I head up the last flight of seats, and come to a complete stop at the top, facing North, into the cold wind. Here I pause, appreciating the hard work I have accomplished. I feel the burn in my quads, the tightness in my hamstrings, the smoldering in my lungs. And I smile. This pain is a good feeling. The day has not yet begun, but I have finished this daunting task of running up and down (and up and down, and up and down...) these 37 sets of cement seats. I imagine the crowds cheering on the Crimson at the Harvard-Yale game. I all but hear the cheers of excitement and the roar of victory. But I imagine they are for me.

My easy jog home takes me back through the slowly filling streets of Cambridge. My quads register their unhappiness, but the rest of me feels victorious. I will not have to face the stadiums again.

Until next week.

A Row in the Snow

It snowed last night. Crusty white ice covered the docks. The boathouse doors were locked down tight. The rowing community was tucked inside, working out on their ergs. The fall season had finally come to a belated close.

For everyone else.

There are three crazy people I know who would avoid an inside row at almost all costs. I am one of them. Severine is another. And the third is John--crazy, sadistic John Sisk.

Severine and I arrived at the boathouse first--both dressed to row, both toting a bag of clothes to erg inside, if that were the decision of our coach. When John arrived, grinning broadly, he asked "what boats would you like to take out?"

Severine and I smiled happily and settled on two singles.

We opened the boathouse, took out our oars, and crunched through two inches of snow down to the slippery docks. We helped each other with the shells, stablizing the boat while the other person slid down the incline to the dock. The wind picked up, and the geese scattered. Cars on the road slowed to gawk at this strange group of water people--no doubt thinking it was a summer sport gone bad.

I pushed off the icy dock with very little traction, but once in the water, it was calm, crisp and clear. The sky was cloudless, the sun bright. We headed downstream, along the shoreline--laced in snow-covered branches, and crystaline leaves. The sun sparkled on the ice and leant an air of magic to the scene.

It goes without saying that there was nobody else on the water--except for two lone kayakers at the beginning of our row. They waved at us--fellow water people pushing back at winter's threats to our boats.

The geese swam in front of us. They moved only at the last moment, when they were sure we would hit them if they didn't get out of the way. I looked at the frost on their backs, and wondered at the warmth of their down. They were proof that the water was a fine place to be on a sunny winter morning.

The wind was strong and always in the wrong direction. I struggled to keep my hands soft. I constantly pulled to port. And yet...

And yet.

And yet it was a most beautiful row. I peeled off the layers as my body warmed up. I pulled hard and moved the boat as well as I could. I took power tens. I reveled in this experience of leaving winter on shore, and rowing as though I could row twelve months of the year. The season was trying to push me indoors, but I was pushing right back. The sun glinted on the tree tops, and sprayed across the small waves. I passed under a bridge and snow blew down and covered my stern. I laughed. How often does a rower get covered in snow?

As we finished the row, I tried to dock, landing perfectly, but when I put my hand out, it slid, with no place to stop, across the icy crust. The wind picked up and blew me more quickly along the dock. I had no handhold, no break in the ice to grab.

I laughed out loud, spun the boat, and circled around to try again. I felt like calling out"Ha, Mother Nature! You can't stop me!" I pulled a few hard strokes and then slowed a second time. This time I found a small notch in the ice, and gripped it tightly with my fingers, stopping the boat, this time successful in coming back to shore.

We carried our boats back up, slipping a little on the ice, looking at our lonely footprints in the snow.

The three of us smirked secretively together, wondering that nobody else had ventured out in the bright magical winter world. We were part of an elite society of rowers, willing to forgo the ergs, witnessing this magical wonderland, and taking our bets on the weather, in order to get just one last row in the snow.

Rowing on the square--lessons from a sadist coach

My coach, John, is a sadist. I work with him because he pushes me to improve. He makes me suffer through hard workouts. His highest form of praise is "that isn't horrible." His idea of coaching is to push me past my limits--and he pushes hard--and to let me suffer until I figure it out.

But I don't think he should enjoy it quite so much.

Yesterday was Dec 5th. Boston, Massachusetts. Winter.

Ok, so it was 40 degrees, and no snow predicted until the afternoon. But still, it was dreary, cold, and starting to rain. There were waves on the water, and a strong enough wind to blow a small boat off course. I was a little worried as I carried the lightweight single down to the dock. I put my oars in the oarlocks and John strode purposefully down the dock toward me. He was zipping up his survival suit, and had a stern look on his face. "Robyn, we're going to row on the square today." He smiled briefly, and looked out at the water. "Hmm. It's kind of windy here, let's try downstream between the bridges." And he turned and marched back up to his launch.

I tried not to cry. I have not been able to row on the square in a single yet. It is as much fun as running intervals with 50 pound cement blocks dragging from your ankles. It is like doing ballet in heavy ski boots. It is like shifting gears without using the clutch.

Rowing on the square in an 8+ is not too bad. You never try it with all 8 oarsmen rowing at once. You leave 2 or 4 of them out to set the boat up--keep it level. That way, when the oars are squared, or perpendicular to the water, you have clearance from the top of the water, and can learn the perfect catch, and perfect finish, without your oar dragging through the water. As the Beatles put it "you get by with a little help from your friends."

The problem with rowing on the square in a single is that you have no friends. There is nobody else to set the boat up while you row with squared oars. In fact, the problem with the single is that everything that is wrong is completely your own fault. You can not blame the starboards whose high handles on the recovery keep the boat down to port. Nor can you fault the bow pair who are slow at the catch. Or the stroke who is rushing the slide. If the boat is down to port, it is you. If the catch is slow, it is you. If the slide is rushed, it is you. And if the boat isn't set, and your square oars can't clear the surface of the river....it is you.

Knowing this, and knowing that even in a perfectly set boat (an experience I have never had), the 20 inch waves were going to make it difficult for my squared oars to clear the surface, I couldn't understand why John wanted to do square-oar rowing today. Most coaches would wait for a calm day and flat water to do this exercise. Not mine. My Coach wants to make sure I get as much rowing into these last few weeks of liquid water as possible. He wants to prolong my pain, and, yes, to make me improve.

And in truth, so do I. I make this his fault, though, because he chooses what I will do. I just follow orders. And he sits in the launch and looks gleeful while I suffer.

We set off through the first bridge, and discover that the water is slightly flatter, but not by much. I warm up, thinking John will have me row on the square for ten strokes a few times, and then we will work on something else.

I get down to the second bridge and he has me spin. I look at him expectantly, waiting for orders. "Ok, pick it up," John says. I hesitate, and ask "pick it up, and then what?" I need to plan the next step. I want to know what we are going to do. "Just pick it up on the paddle." is all I get. That stern look is still there, but there is a little sadistic smile at the corners of his mouth. A chill runs down my spine.

John is an ex-navy guy. He bicycles to work all year long. He thinks nothing of working 14 hour days. He isn't fazed by much, and he doesn't play games. He pushes me hard. He scares me just a little. And that smile on his face isn't warm and fuzzy. I am in for a hard lesson.

I swallow down the fear in my throat and begin to row. About 10 strokes into it, John yells out "10 strokes on, 10 strokes off." I look quizzically at him. "On the square for ten, then on the feather. Then repeat. Start on the square." He backs the launch off.

I grip the oars tighter--which I am not supposed to do--and keep the oars squared on the next stroke.

kkkk-kkkk-kkkk-kkk-kkkkkkkk pull......kkkkk-kkkkk-kkkkk-kkkk-kkkk-pull---lurch--wobble--swear----release.

The oars drag along the top of the water, and catch early and separately. I lurch to port. I fall to starboard. I press only lightly with my legs because my oars are nowhere near even and I would go into shore, or into the river with a real stroke. I swear under my breath.

"What was that?" barks John.

"nothing...." I mumble.

"that was one!" he reminds me. Nine more strokes to go on the square.

kkkk-kkkk-kkkk-kkk-kkkkkkkk pull......kkkkk-kkkkk-kkkkk-kkkk-kkkk-pull---lurch--wobble--swear----release. Swear again.

"two!" from the launch.

I try again, lowering my hands on the release to help the oars clear the water. This stroke is better. The next is worse. I stop and regroup.

"KEEP ROWING!!!!" John yells.

I try again. This is not fun. This calls up nothing good about rowing. In truth, I want to be a runner again--running is natural. Rowing on the square is not. Why am I in this boat? It is 40 degrees out, and raining, early on a Saturday morning, and my friends are still in bed, or drinking coffee and reading the paper with slippers on their feet. What sick force pulled me out here to go through the pain and humiliation of rowing on the square? Am I a masochist?

No. I love rowing. I didn't choose this square-oar lesson. John did. He is the problem. He is a sadist.

The evil thoughts propel me through the next six strokes. Then I row on the feather--half a blade more clearance. A chance to regain my point. A chance to row.

Too quickly, we are done with those ten strokes. "ON THE SQUARE. NOW!" from the launch. And I begin the torturous squares again. Lurching, premature catching, I grip the oars too tightly and take uneven strokes. Ten more on the feather. I look expectantly at the launch for the next drill, but none is forthcoming. John is sucking down his hot coffee, and I am freezing my butt off with this ridiculous exercise. I take ten more on the square.

About 30 minutes into this painful row, John stops me. "What are you supposed to be learning from this?" he asks. I stare at him blankly. "That you are a sadist?" I reply.

He snorts coffee through his nose. And his old, familiar grin breaks over his face. The nice grin. The "you can do this, Robyn" grin. And I breathe again. My brain thaws and I start to think.

"Ummm. I am supposed to keep my hands low through the recovery."

"yes, and..."

"get a clean release."

"what else?"

And the Socratic questioning continues for a few minutes. Followed by 40 more minutes of ten on, ten off. I gradually increase the number of good strokes on the square. When we come to more open water, with bigger waves, John cuts me some slack and has me row on the feather "but DON'T hit the waves with your oars!" he barks.

We continue this lesson for over an hour. By the end it isn't so horrible. And John's smile seems less snarky and more supportive with every stroke. He finally lets me stay on the feather, and pull some power tens.

I love power tens. I love feeling the boat move as I press harder into the stern. I stay smooth up the slide to disrupt the run of the boat as little as possible. And now my catches are quicker, and my finishes cleaner. The boat moves better. This is fun!

My sadistic coach smiles a proud smile. "Take it in!" he calls, and turns the launch back to the boathouse.

I spin the boat one final time and take some hard strokes back to the dock. I love this feeling of power. I love rowing. I don't notice the sheets of rain coming down. I just feel the sheer joy of having conquered square oar rowing. Not that there isn't a long future of squared oars ahead. But now I know I can do it.

As I pull into the dock, John comes striding purposefully down, holding my jacket out toward me. "Put this on, you don't want to get cold." He carries my oars as I lift my boat up over my head.

We take the boat into the boathouse and I ruminate on the row, about my frustrations, and about my improvement. I can't wait for the next row. I look forward to getting better. To the next challenge. To my next proud accomplishment.

I turn toward John with a happy smile on my face. He grins back at me, "That wasn't terrible."

Maybe he isn't a sadist after all. I give him a hug. "Thanks, Coach."

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.

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.

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?

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.