As most of you readers know, there was once a time when I could call myself a rower. When being on the water was my drug of choice and I considered the man calluses on my hands as my precious, and hard fought battle scars. When I seized any opportunity to show off my biceps and jumped at the chance to arm wrestle. When my body was firm, and taught, a well oiled machine.
I first fell in love with the sport at 13. My parents had always been adamant that we participate in one sport and I had always detested that rule. I was a miserable soccer, softball, volleyball and basketball player and instead preferred spending my recesses and lunch hours pouring over books in the school library. Yes, I was that kid. Books were my thing. And then one day my middle school threw together a ramshackle group of kids and put them on the water. And I fell in love.
So in love that I chased the sport around the world. Wherever I lived, I rowed. From the age of 14 I was practicing at a minimum of 2 hours a day, six days a week, and I loved it. There was, and still is no magic that compares with flying fluidly on water under the power of your own steam. I trained and raced and learned and worked until by some miracle of happenstance, and work, and sweat, and prayers, I had a full-ride scholarship offer to the University of Washington in Seattle. Where hard work took on a whole new meaning.
Which leads me to the reason for making this post. Today I came across a video from one of my favorite races. When I was in University it was our season opener and it heralded the end of hellish winter training. And watching it, a flood of memories came back to me.
Since graduating, rowing and I have taken a break. After 9 years of intensive training to make it to the next level...there stopped being a next level. After being the last one cut from the u-23 national team I had to face the facts that my body couldn't get any taller, and losing ~25 lbs to make myself into a lightweight rower wasn't worth it to me. My passion for the sport remains fierce. But my will to wake up at 5:00 am to work my body to it's maximum conditioning with no real goal in sight had waned. Given our new location in Northern Alberta (where the sport isn't practiced at all) my hiatus has been extended.
But watching that video my mind and body ached to be on the water again. I yearned for that rush of adrenanline at the starting line. To feel that panic, wondering if the work you put in was enough to edge your bow ball ahead of your competitor's. To feel the rush of water under the boat as you and your teammates work and move in complete and total synchronization as you start high, settle into your base race pace, convince yourself that you are actually NOT dying through the third 500 m even though all signs point to imminent death, and then kick it into high gear for the last 500 m sprint to overtake your opponents and end the pain. To feel that lock on the water as you sit at the catch, prepped to put all of your body weight on the blade at the end of the oar. To hunt the finish line with precision and guts. And then to collapse at the end knowing that you had left it all on the water. I miss the family that is created by 8 women who give everything they have, and more to the cause of winning. Even know, 4 years after finishing when I smell cherry blossoms or the lake in the morning all I can think of is morning workouts and race days.
I miss feeling like my body is on the top of it's game and often I feel like a washed-up has been. I've traded my blisters, my quads, my biceps and my boat for a beautiful boy, diapers (cloth, no less!), late night feedings and warm sticky kisses. There are so many days where I ache to be that athlete again. But in the end, I wouldn't change a thing, and the lessons of athleticism have prepared me for motherhood better than anything else ever could have. I delivered an 8 lb 5 oz baby boy with virtually no drugs (ok I did use the gas for the last 3 contractions. And it was pointless) because I knew my body and I knew I was strong. The initial discomfort of nursing paled when compared to the extreme discomfort of rowing on raw and bloodied hands. And waking up at 5:20 6 days a week for a 6:00 am workout was a good warm up for the midnight feedings. Bonus is I actually get to go back to bed now.
Once, I was an elite athlete. Now, I'm a mother. And one day, I will look back and be nostalgic for this season of my life. But today, I miss making magic on water.
