Calm before the storm.
Then WHOOSH! and you're off at the start. The first few strokes require the most effort to get the boat moving; this is the part where the momentum gets started. At the beginning our trained bodies can't help but put too much power into each pull, yet our trained minds keep the temporary adrenaline rush on the leash. Blood rushing and all your mind has to think about is keeping in time, your sole enjoyment in hearing that audible thunk as all eight oars simultaneously dip in and out of the water. Soon that first beautiful and most exquisite tear of sweat beads off your skin. A few hundred hundred meters down the lane your body is reaching its physical limit but noone can remember the exact moment: it's all too fuzzy. By this time your mind's awareness has already begun slipping from the lack of blood and oxygen going to the brain. The best way to describe this feeling is that everything becomes a little more dull as all thoughts and emotions are left somewhere upriver. Back and forth we all go instinctively: reach, catch, pull, reach, catch, pull... it is impossible to be conscious of every little thing and there is nothing to do but leave it up to your muscles to remember all the hours of early morning practice. Just before that dullness envelopes you, leaving you with an off-balanced timing, some little thing enters the outskirts of your awareness and you latch on like a leech on blood. The coxswain calls for a "power 20." Everyone puts their backs into it and silently wonders if everyone's breathing is as auditory as theirs. Slow breath intake on the recovery then out your breath comes in girthful gusts as we all try to mimic Old Man North. Coxy calls the last stretch of the race and there is always that moment of doubt: Can I go on? My body has been drained of everything except for my straining muscles that have long since lost their easy efficiency. The same muscles that were once buoyed in my blood are now suspended in lactate and share too many similiar properties to hardening clay. The split second that question takes to form in your head is a fraction too long and the real answer dawns on me like it has so many time before: Pull. Pull. Pull. Be lost in the rhythym but wear your heart on your shoulder, giving all there is to give in every second. The puddles I leave behind me are the legacy I leave, shared with their seven brothers. The water will remember our passing here. Suddenly, the race is over. You can always tell because the coxswain says something and for a moment everyone forgets to keep rowing and the rhythym is lost in a crash. Oars lose their timing, people are pulling and recovering at individual paces, and she calls "Weigh Enough!!!!" with such a moving mix of anger, pity, pride and finality. We all share one waterbottle that must be filled with the ambrosia of the gods for it is hard to imagine anything else more satisfying. Before we know it the world catches up with us. Thoughts, worries, concerns, feelings all hit you at once. This feeling of rebirth to mortal life is missed among the memories of what was just accomplished. Did we win? lose? Could we have done better? You could have, I could have. Maybe we could have pulled harder, if it wasn't for that one crab... I would smile at it all but I'm too weak and I've forgotten the taste of oxygen. Sleep's sweet embrace tempts me with its promise of self and comfortability. "All eight, take her home."