Fall Rainstorm

New England skies let loose pent-up summer grief that pours down in steady streams of finality. Green leaves give up their vibrancy as daylight loosens her grasp around the edges. Autumn rain cleans up uncertainty as she washes away the last of vacation and prepares the earth for the inexorable seasonal shift toward darkness and cold. 

Morning row after the equinox

The predawn black with its tight grasp on the world swallows me as I shove off the dock. My oars slice through a misty aloneness that is both calm and wary. 8 kilometers of silent rowing until the edge of night starts smudging with grey. I spin in the basin and face the city skyline edged in a scarlet aura of possibility. The red sky expands, stretching fingers of light into the fading ebony of night, then leaps down to the water around me and the world explodes in a wildfire of dawn.

Today I bought a phone in Ethiopia.

Today I bought a SIM card in Ethiopia.

The internet has been out in Addis Ababa since yesterday, and I decide it is time to buy a SIM card so I am not completely cut off from the world. The hotel reception sells these. I grab my wallet and head downstairs, phone in hand.

This should be the end of my story, and instead it is only the beginning. I must change the first sentence. 

Today I bought a phone in Ethiopia.

It should have been so simple--- a SIM card for my African Nokia. Instead, it becomes a 2 hour adventure, back and forth around my neighborhood (where the main dirt road has a 2 meter wide canyon running it’s length as a new sewer system is built. Area merchants have placed metal barrel lids nailed together, or 2x4s, to aid pedestrians, dogs and goats in the harrowing crossing, and the busy shopping district provides scores of observers eager to offer advice and delighted to witness my unusual odyssey.

With the help of a woman police officer, I am guided across an unstable 2x4 to the phone store (a 3-sided tin box), where they spend a lot of time figuring out that my phone (purchased in Malawi) won't accept an Ethiopian sim card, so I have to buy a new ETHIOPIAN NOKIA (buy stock in NOKIA. They have a brilliant business plan). I lack cash, and the Tin Box doesn’t take plastic. But the shop owner points down the road to an ATM. I proceed across the canyon (a middle-aged gentleman urges me “to run quickly to not fall in”) and find the ATM (doesn't take foreign cards), am directed to a second ATM back on the first side of the road (broken), and I return for further instruction to the Tin Box (in the process of this, I inadvertently pick a nice man's phone up from the counter and walk off with it). I follow their directions to the bank (across the road again) where they make copies of my passport, my Massachusetts driver's license, my ATM card, and an old Harvard ID. The nice man’s phone rings. I ignore it. It rings again. I ignore it again. It rings again and I answer it, (as I am filling out a third Byzantine form in triplicate) and say I will bring the phone back in 5 minutes.  I hang up. It rings again—and a voice speaks in Amharic. (I don't even know how to say "I don't understand" in Amharic--a professional oversight). A few minutes later, as I am standing in line in front of a teller behind iron bars, a young boy sporting a tattered "England" football jersey comes running in and taps me on the arm. "Phone! phone!" and he thrusts a striped plastic bag in my hand and grabs the nice man’s phone. I assume the kid’s legit and I let him have the phone (honestly, it happens so fast, I couldn't have stopped him), but now I am holding a bag containing an ETHIOPIAN NOKIA I haven't paid for. I can’t run after the kid, because the bank teller slides a HUGE pile of cash through the iron bars, which won’t fit in my wallet, and is (embarrassingly) too big for my bra. I stick it in my waistband and hurry back to the Tin Can, crossing the now familiar chasm that is my street. The kid is there, and so is the nice man with his phone. The shop owner holds out his hand for my cash. I reach into my pants (by now the money has slipped well down into my somewhat sweaty crotch) and pull out the damp bills. I peel off the requisite number and lay them on the board. The kid watches me with disbelief (Americans on TV carry purses). I shrug, stick the money back in my pants and walk proudly back to the hotel with my new ETHIOPIAN NOKIA, by this time quite nimbly crossing the Great Ethiopian Canyon. I arrive safely, and sit down and order a strong coffee. I relish the feeling of accomplishment I feel from buying a phone in Ethiopia.

8' @ daydream

I came off of the end of race season and headed into a hardcore winter training plan. 10-11 workouts/week. I was strong. I was getting faster. My legs were getting bigger. My splits were getting lower.

My job was getting more stressful.

And I broke.

I am not a 20 year old collegiate rower. I am a 45 year old professional, working a 55 hour/week job and raising two young adult children. I fit my workouts in at 4:30 am and 7 pm, around work, around my day, around my family and around my stress.

Despite a healthy lifestyle, good diet, lots of exercise, and a good family health history, my blood pressure shot up. My resting heart rate soared as well.

I was barely surviving.

I land in my coach's office, feeling like death, thinking that death might be closer than I am comfortable with. I confess that I have to cut back. Training will have to go. I quit.

I stand up to walk out of the office.

"Wait, Robyn." My coach is not done with me. I sit back down.

After months of "8'@ 22" type workouts, my coach tells me I need to meditate.

MEDITATE?!?!?!? Hell no! I row to push harder, to get stronger, to beat people, to win, to avoid the thought that I am aging. To avoid all thoughts of life outside of the boathouse. To escape.

Meditation is for zen types. People who relax. People who are easy-going. Who don't need medals. People who can sit still. Who can just BE with themselves. Not for competitive athletes. Not for me.

I resist. I refuse. I rebel. My coach smiles quietly.

I leave his office.

The next morning, my emailed workout is waiting in my inbox:

"8' @ daydream. Get off the erg, walk around for a couple of minutes. Do it three times."

WTF!?!?!?

I don't even know how to begin. "8 minutes" is familiar. I set the monitor for an 8 minute piece.


Then what?

"@Daydream"

I am in the front corner of the erg room, windows all around me. The sky is still dark. I stare out at the darkness, and swear at my coach under my breath. "Daydream?!?! How am I supposed to daydream? What Stroke Rate is Daydream????"

I close my eyes. I breathe in. And I try to daydream.

I listen to the whirr of the ergs behind me. I hear the staggered breathing of hard work being done. I feel my own breathing, and sink in there. I smell the accumulated stench of sweat, bengay and tired bodies. I feel my own muscles contracting and relaxing. I ease back up to the catch.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, press with the legs. Slow up the slide, press and hang. Breathe. Breathe.

It gets easier. I know I am not pulling as hard as I usually do. But I also sense that is not the point.

I feel the swing and the rhythm. Familiar after so many months of doing this twice a day. Breathing, breathing.  I don't have to think about this motion. Swing out of bow. What I should daydream about? Slow up the slide. delivering babies in Africa. Catch and press. biking across the US. Alone. Breathe. climbing Kilimanjaro...Mt McKinley...Mt Washington in winter. Swing. I remember last winter, snowy paths, and clear skies. An idyllic hike. Press with the legs. My kids, may they grow up to be happy. Breathe. The smooth balance of a crew completely in sync.  Swing. I imagine the crisp fall air and my oars slicing through the icy  water. Press. I feel the run of the boat beneath me. Breathe. Swing. Press.

Breathe. Swing. Press.

Breathe. Swing. Press.

Breathe. Swing. Press.

Breathe. Swing. Press.

8 minutes

@daydream

Seat Racing

In the Annals of Psychopathology, there are many articles about serious dementia, mental disorders or brain dysfunction. If you dig deep enough, you will see find the article entitled: Seat Racing Enjoyment as a Clinical Correlate to Axis I Disorder: Deliberate self-harm.

This disorder (a borderline personality disorder) is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue, frequently done on wheeled seats, facing backward, pressing with the quads until the serum oxygen saturation nadirs in the negative numbers and the pain centers of the brain explode.

This is a common pathology among those who enjoy rowing.

More specifically: it predominantly affects those rowers who enjoy seat racing.

Most specifically: this is seen frequently in those rowers who enjoy seat racing at 5:30 AM.

In general, I steer clear of the Annals of Psychopathology, as the topics explored therein seems far more personal than clinical.

This morning, we are put out on the water in undiagnosable line-ups of 4+s. We are told to race the other 4+ at a 26 SR. For 80 strokes (what a funny measurement. But then again, as a rower, counting strokes is easier than counting minutes. Or meters. Or breaths.)

We head downstream to warm up and find our swing. We press on the footboards. We take a few high tens. The adrenaline starts mounting. The perspiration collects on the brow...and the back...and the front...and the oar handles...

I love the feel of another crew by our side. That peripheral vision of the competition creates a surge of energy and with every stroke, I just press harder. I squeeze extra centimeters out of my drive. I breathe a few more molecules of oxygen into my anoxic muscles. The seering fire of agony ignites my quads. The bile surges up in the back of the throat. My lungs rasp in hunger for air. My heart races out of control. Every molecule in my being screams for this to STOP!!!!!

And I. DO. NOT. GIVE. IN.

Pain may come and pain may go, but winning is forever...or at least until we spin and head back for another seat race.

Living in my Granny Gear

 

Just like many of you, I have a bucket list. I don't pay it active attention--it doesn't really fuel my adventures. But in the back of my head there are things I think "wow. I should do that someday." Hike in the Arctic tundra, see the Taj Majal, run a marathon or two, learn to row. 

Some of these I have done. Others are still in the "to do" list.

Last week, I knocked one more off the list: a solo bicycle trip.

I had exactly 5 days to do this. I chose to head north from Boston up through New Hampshire, across the Green Mountains, to northern Vermont, and end at my Aunt's lake house in the Northeast Kingdom. Then, Bill could come pick me up and drive me home, thus avoiding the anticlimactic "I'm going home" feeling that comes with any return trip.

It seemed reasonable when I set out, but like all things reasonable, there were some oversights in the planning:

I forgot to factor in the "across the Green Mountains" part.
I also forgot to factor in the saddle sores.
And the sunburns.
And the fact that dirt roads in Vermont do not always show up on GPS as dirt roads.

I learned a lot on that bike trip.

There is no gear lower than the granny gear.
If you are in your granny gear and the hill gets steeper, pedal harder.
If it gets steeper again, don't look up. (This is REALLY IMPORTANT)

If it keeps going and you think you might die, count 8 revolutions of your pedals.
If you haven't reached the top, count another 8 revolutions.
Repeat as necessary.
If you think you cannot count to 8 for 6 hours straight, you are wrong.

Watches and other time keeping devices mean nothing. You may as well turn them off.
Vermont roads with names like "Mountain Road" aren't kidding.
GPS reception is not infallable.
Getting lost in the mountains sometimes adds both mileage and elevation to a planned ride.
"Mountain Road" is probably not the best short cut to take.

When it is too hot, and you are too tired to eat anything, but you need to consume 4000 calories, chocolate milk is your friend.
If you are still thirsty after the chocolate milk, Gatorade is great.
If you spend days on end biking alone, you start thinking that chocolate milk and Gatorade is the liquor of the gods.
Do not make the mistake of saying this outloud. You will get strange looks as mothers pull their children to the other side of the street.

It turns out that 6 to 8 hours a day, alone, on a bike, is enough time to get lost in your head. And that is a hell of a place to get lost. If you don't like the company you are in, you have a problem.

Getting up every day, sore and achey from the day before requires no effort. Turn off your brain and do it. Habits are born of this.

The best moment:
There was nothing like biking down that final dirt road leading to Aunt Kathy's, and knowing that the lake was right in front of me, and my butt would be saddle free in only moments. I felt strong. Invincible. Incredible. Smelly.

Seriously, though? I learned I can do anything. At that moment when I really thought I could not keep going, I reached inside and found a molecule of hope which allowed me to do just a little bit more.

It is that same molecule that allows athletes to break previous best times, to beat other teams, to set world records.

And it is the same molecule of hope that a midwife reminds the laboring mother she has inside of herself. And it is that molecule of hope that brings babies into this world.

Anatomy lessons through pain

When I defined myself as a runner, it was hip pain. Isolated moments of excruciating, deep-in-the-pelvis bone-stopping pain. Obturator externus, Tensor fasciae latae. Piriformis.

Physical therapy, ice, rest, and holding back from over training. Striving for that self-control which will lead to eventual recovery.

After 35 years, I moved on to rowing.

Now, running is play. Hip pain went the way of the 3 hour long runs. 90 minutes of running is pure joy.

Rowing in the new challenge.

I began to define myself as a rower, and have moved on to back pain. At the moment it is chronic tightness with shooting pain down the right lower back, and around the pelvis. The Erector Spinea, the quadratus lumborum. and a dash of psoas major.

Once again, physical therapy, ice, rest, holding back from over training. Self-control is hard when the water is flat and the pre-dawn hour beckons.