Summer Days, Winter Nights, Spring Mornings

I woke-up and immediately started getting ready. I was already half-dressed, making sure that I’d be ready to go in the limited amount of time between waking-up and the time my ride was expected to swing by. In the room over, I heard the sounds of my dad watching some hockey game, team Canada was playing. “That’s weird,” I thought. “I guess the game’s somewhere over in Europe.” I felt like I slept for only a few hours, but that was to be expected waking-up for a 5:45 rowing practice. The lake was about a 15-minute drive with no traffic at that time of day. I would wake-up at 5:20 or so, eat a banana or something, and my ride would usually be there before I knew it. Or, if it was my dad’s turn to drive we’d have to leave a bit earlier. But he didn’t have to drive this first morning, and I didn’t have to wake-up earlier; but I did. I woke-up about three-and-a-half hours earlier. When I finally checked the clock after pulling-on my socks, I saw it was only 1:45. My instinct was to get dressed the moment I woke-up, regardless of the time. Oops, and back to bed for a few hours more.

Those mornings were always surreal, and I never got used to them. I only did them for one spring, and it was only three days a week, but I’ll never forget them. On clear days, I would literally wake-up with the sun, the golden dawn just making itself known over the tiny subdivision of Colby Village. We’d listen to the pop radio station, and the music would have much more of an impact, mostly because no one would talk, all of us too exhausted to say anything. I remember Sting’s “Desert Rose” being that much more powerful at that hour. One of my buddies, Parker, always took a shower before-hand (I always had one after, I never understood the idea of showering BEFORE exercising), and his deodorant would always quickly smell-up whoever’s car we were in. Parker’s dad usually drove, because he had to be up early for work anyway, but we’d still rotate the carpool driver, just like we did with the summer practices.

We’d get to the club, and the other guys there looked just like us, like we’d been woken-up by a fire alarm in our apartment, and were congregated outside waiting for what’s next. Only, what’s next was to go out and row, for some reason. We’d get sorted into our boats, and head-out onto the water, which we’d get on by about 6:00 or so. I always enjoyed being on the water, and I miss it to this day, especially being on the water at those hours. To sit in a boat not much wider than your hips, with nothing but the oars in your hands balancing you was particularly magical. The stillness of the water and the mist that swarmed its surface, the cold morning air warming with the sun’s growing presence. The boats sliced the water like a knife, creating a thin trail in their wake, with swirls on either side created by the strokes of the oars. As we headed under the bridge, cars on their groggy way to their early-morning jobs zoomed overhead. It was a privileged feeling to be up ahead of the world, zooming through the cool air on a boat across the water, while most people were still swimming in their subconscious on a mattress in their house. Going to school after was always a laugh, because me and the guys were all jacked-up from rowing, while most of the other kids only woke-up in time to grab a Pop-Tart and catch the bus.

This was in spring 2000, but I started rowing in the summer of ’99, the transition between Junior High and High School. My buddies Matt and Chris were the guys who got me involved, Matt being the rowing O.G., then Chris joining, then me, then Parker and Matt. I wasn’t a stranger to lumber-propelled water-vessel sports, having paddled a few summers before that. Nothing I took too seriously, but something I enjoyed doing. I thought it’d whip me into shape, walking 30 minutes up the hill to the club and paddling the afternoon away. I never really took to any sport I attempted, I didn’t like the running in soccer, and I got beaned twice and was bored by baseball. Like I said, I only paddled recreationally for the summer, so I thought I’d give rowing shot, at least I’d having some fun spending the summer at the lake with my buddies.

That summer was a blast. We’d goof-around a lot, both off and on the water. We’d usually row in a four or an eight, depending on how many people were there to row and to coach. In these boats we’d do what’s called “sweeping” when you’d have one big oar that you’d row either on the right or the left side. I always preferred rowing on the right side, because when I rowed on the left, my watch clasp would sometimes scrap against my left knee as I was sliding-up to the catch (the position when the rower’s seat is at the front of the tracks, their knees are the most bent, the arms are fully extended forward, and the oar is about to be placed in the water to take a stroke.) I also preferred being in the very back, because even though I’d get seriously splashed by the oars in front of me (which I usually didn’t mind, because it was hot out there), I was guaranteed to avoid the shock of an oar handle jabbed into my back when I pushed-through my stroke to the finish, which happened often if I had a rower behind me who out-of-sync (like Lance Bass. Get it?)

The only time I didn’t enjoy being at the back was when we didn’t have a coxswain, the person who sat facing the rest of the boat, usually a coach, whose job it was to steer the boat, call-out exercises, and be motivation to the team. Without a coxswain, it was the job of the person in the back to steer the boat, and command the team, keeping in mind that rowing requires you to be backward, meaning you’re headed away from where you’re looking. So the person in the back would not only have to concentrate on rowing, and keeping his/her team in check, but also be checking his/her back, making sure they don’t crash into anything or anyone. Banook was a crowded lake; we were constantly jostling for position with the swarms of canoes, war canoes, and kayaks from the three paddling clubs, as well as the wake from the motorboats of the coaches and the Water Patrol. The rowers needed some more open space, so to get to the larger Lake Micmac, we’d have to pass under the aforementioned bridge, which was barely wide enough to fit the long, heavy oars of the sweeping boats. Being at the back of a Cox-less boat was made much more difficult by this narrow passage, and more than once I’ve caused some oar-tips to scrape along the concrete walls. Oh, and the pigeons flying overhead ready to drop an anus-to-head missile didn’t make it any more fun, not to mention the filthy and smelly water created by the testing of their poopy technology.

That summer we’d get up early, not as early as we would in the next spring, but early enough for job-less teenagers during a summer school break. We’d have our row, and occasionally swim afterward to cool-off and flirt with the girls. I’d usually wear my swim trunks in the boat, which would inevitably get caught between the wheels under my seat, and the slide. This made the undersides all greasy, not to mention how it would screw-up my stroke and the rhythm of the boat when I’d literally get stopped in my tracks. I’d have to roll them up to prevent this from happening, which made for quite a sight, my stick-skinny ivory legs shimmering in the morning sunlight, which never ever tanned, (thanks to this I rarely wore sunscreen.) There were some regattas throughout the summer, including a road-trip or two to New Brunswick, where rowing was more popular than it was in Nova Scotia. I remember we stopped at a gas station to fuel the cars and our bodies, and I bought three chocolate bars a liter of Pepsi. The breakfast of champions. One of the guys, Nick, said he’d throw-up if he ate all of that, but my cast-iron 14-year-old belly could handle it. Bottom-line is, I was exercising a whole lot, but my teenaged eating habits were still atrocious, and I wouldn’t fix them until … well, still working on that.

That was pretty much the pattern of that summer, wake, row, swim, and the occasional hang-out or party, but outside of rowing I actually spent a good amount of that summer indoors. The next year we decided to try rowing competitively, which meant some evening practices to go along with the mornings. I spent even more time at the lake that summer, and this was the year we did those 5:45am practices. I was able to do more “sculling” (two oars, your left hand comes into contact over your right through the stroke, causing bloody knuckles if you’re doing it correctly. Combine this with the blisters and calluses from twisted and pulling the oars, and we were a manicurists nightmare. Or manicurists dream, I never really figured that out.) I don’t know if I enjoyed sculling or sweeping more, but I did enjoy the symmetry of sculling. It just felt more like rowing to me, and the chance to get out in a single was a joy, as well as experiencing the raw power of four people with eight oars in a quad.

Between the recreational and competitive summers on the lake, my friends decided on training for the 2001 Summer Canada Games in London, Ontario. I decided to join them.

Athletically, I’ve never achieved anything. I had (and still have) no natural athletic ability or inclination, and most sports teams I was ever a part of stank. I only remember getting “Participant” in Field Day in Elementary School, and I only got up to “Red” in swimming lessons, failing both “Maroon” and “Red Plus” (hey, that water was COLD, man.) So I would not let this Canada Games opportunity pass me by. My dad told it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but he knew I could do it. He said I would be considered an athlete, a distinction more associated with my younger brother, the soccer player. I was behind the eight-ball already, my friends were all stronger than I was, and the other guys at the club have been doing it for longer than I have. But I would work my hardest, finally be considered an athlete, and achieve something in my life. I had no idea how I would even afford the trip, but it didn’t matter; I was going to London, Ontario summer 2001.

To this day I have never set eyes on, or set foot in that city.

I rowed at a club called "North Star," a nice, white club on top of a hill, which meant you'd have to carry these heavy boats (the eights were especially taxing on the fingers) down to the water. Across the lake was the only other rowing club in Dartmouth which was also a paddling club, Micmac AAC. This provided better facilities for winter training (it was heated) so the rowers from both clubs, both men and women, shared the club that winter.

I use the term "facilities" lightly here. The place was clearly not designed for people with increased respiratory rates from physically exerting themselves and required oxygenated blood to power their muscles. We trained in the boat garage, surrounded by the protruding riggings (the metal "arms" that hold the oars out) of the slim giants that were waiting for the ice to melt for their chance to slice that water again. Being in an old boat garage, the place smelled like, well, an old garage, all oily and such, with an overall musty smell, and air that felt like poison to breathe-in. The bathrooms were even worse, stinking to high heaven of stale vomit from when the paddlers would party-all-too-hearty. Damn paddlers.

The place felt, smelt and looked like a dungeon, which I kind of liked. Old rusty weights, cracked leather medicine balls, and a floor you'd dare not lie on without a very thick mat between you and it. It kind of felt like Rocky's style of training, or where the Harts trained; nothing fancy, likely detrimental to your health, but you knew if you could pay your dues there, you could make it anywhere.

The Ergometers, or "Ergs" as we'd grow to know and love them as, were the most modern thing about the place, and were (still are) the most torturous exercise devices I've ever used. They were simply a seat on a rail with straps for your feet, to simulate rowing in a real boat. To simulate the oar, a wooden rod roughly a foot wide was chained to a wheel, like a bicycle. All you had to do was pull this chain, and the wheel would act as a fan, using wind resistance through the stroke. And "stroke" was a very appropriate word here. My buddy Matt (who coaches rowing now) even bought one of these to use at home. Why anyone on earth would willingly do that to themselves, I’ll never know.

Rowing is a sport of focus and endurance, extremely repetitive and taxing to the body, especially the legs which give you the most power and push through the stroke. We ain't rowin' dories here, the arms simply to control the oars, the real pull through the stroke is done through pushing with the legs. You really need to experience it yourself to get what I mean, but it’s really not that complicated. The Ergs were the best machines to simulate the exercise of rowing on a lake, without the joy of being on the water, feeling the air and speed, and breathing the fresh air. I felt like a hamster, only instead of running inside the wheel, I was cranking it with this stick on a chain. I'd sometimes fantasize that were slaves, all of us with the Ergs lined-up in a row, pulling the sticks to create power in the wheels, like they were some sort of turbine. Not one of my best fantasies, mind you, but I had to make it interesting somehow.

The training was mostly erging, but we’d mix-it-up with some weight circuits, with the ancient, tetanus-inducing equipment. We had max-lift tests every few weeks, which my legs would not let me forget days after. My buddy Parker was a beast, easily the strongest guy in the club, and he'd press over a thousand pounds on the leg press as I wondered (and I'm sure they did too) just how the spotters would get that weight off of poor Parker if he maxed-out.

For cardio and endurance, we'd have a jog around the lake. Only thing was, I thought "jogging" meant "jog until you're tired, walk a bit, jog some more," until my coach, Catherine, ran-up beside me when I was slowing down to take a breather.
"What are you doing? You can't stop!" she said, "keep going, Will!"
"I c-can't," I wheezed, "I'm too fat, *pant* I can't do it."
"Yes you can!" she said.
God bless the coaches for taking my sarcastic, slack ass and trying to make something of it. I think of all the times we did those 5-6 km lake jogs, I made the distance non-stop maybe once or twice, and that was at a snail's pace. One day we did a 12 km jog, and you could imagine how much I loved that.

The Ergs were grueling enough when used in our nightly training regimen, but what was really killer was the 2000 meter and 20-minute tests that came up on Friday night every few weeks. When all the other kids at school were looking forward to a Friday night party, or just an easy-going weekend of school-less, responsibilities-devoid bliss, we would dread the night to come.

For rowing races, 2000 meters is the standard distance, and it never felt longer than when you sit on the Erg and watch the distance melt down to zero as you took yourself to the very limit of your physical ability. I am serious when I say I completely doubt I'll feel any pain like it again, and I never want to. In these test, you would get off the Erg and be completely unable to walk, the muscles in your legs having given their complete worth. I equate the unbearable burning in your legs from the lactic acid build-up with the pain of childbirth (ladies, you can stop laughing. OK, th- you're still laughing ... aren't you.) When you weren't being tested, you'd be up cheering for your teammates, and praying for their mortal souls. Some guys would throw-up after, sometimes even during, and one time a guy even dyed ... his hair blue, in some kind of Nova Scotia pride thing (and yes, I realize that last joke would have come across better had it been spoken.)

As terrifying as facing the 2 km tests were, at least you could get it over with quickly, if you were fast. That was motivation enough to get a good time. This wasn't so with the 20-minute tests. No matter how fast you go, you're still strapped in to that machine for 1200 seconds, and trust me, you watched every one of them tick-off. These tests were all about endurance, and just as you go for a short time on the 2 km tests, you went for the long distance on the 20-min. tests. So, throughout the winter, we would track our test scores, and the Nova Scotia team would be chosen from the rowers with the best times - although it seemed more to be weeding-out the rowers with the worst times.

Y'see, rowing isn't as popular as, say, running, so there weren’t too many guys trying to get on the team (this was actually a big reason for me doing it; I really thought I could make the team.) I would post some terrible, terrible time and distance scores. I sat pretty-much second-to-last among the men, and I was also being handily beaten by a lot of the women. Yep. So for me, I started behind, and remained behind, willing to put the work in, but it wasn't enough. It was mind over matter, and I could make it matter enough to conquer my under-achieving mind. I couldn't reach-down and produce what I needed when it counted. I'd tax myself to my physical limits - or did I? Could I have done more? Could I power-through the pain and achieve something in my life, erasing all my past athletic failures? Well, I probably could, but what happened next made all the training completely irrelevant.

March 2000. Friday morning, and it's a slushy, lousy day, and I'm hoping the buses aren't running, and I'd have a glorious day off from school. Well, the buses were still running, but I did get my day off. Just not the way I wanted.

Fresh out of the shower, and my left leg is itchin' like crazy. Son-of-a-Birch canoe. There I am gellin' (my hair, quite unlike Magellan, really) so with my hands occupied I do a dainty standing figure-four, using my right ankle to alleviate my itchy spot, right above my left knee. All of a sudden, my knee buckles from under me, and I fall over. This sort of sprain has happened to me before, I twisted it a year or so ago playing hockey against my dad. Back then it hurt, and I limped for a few days, but got over it with minimal swelling and long-term damage. No so this time. Within about ten minutes this thing had swollen-up to the size of a grapefruit. When my mom took me to see the family doctor, he was literally taken aback when he saw me in his office. There was nothing he could do about it, so we went to the Emergency Room at Dartmouth General Hospital where a kindly young Irish nurse wrapped my left leg from groin to ankle in what was called a Robert Jones bandage. I'm hoping Mr. Jones was the man who invented it, not the man it was first used on. The nurse gave me a cheery "Yuh've just bean Robert Jonesed," and we were on our way.

I was 15 at the time, and I was considered a child by hospital standards, so for surgery I'd have to go to the IWK, the children's hospital in Halifax (for those not from there, IWK stands for Izaak Walton Killam, the man whose money helped fund the hospital. There’s an old local joke about the hospital being named after a guy called Killam.)

This would be the first surgical procedure I’ve ever had, and only the second time I had to go to the hospital for a procedure (the first time was for three stitches to the head after it collided with a rock under the arm of a fellow Cub at camp.) God bless my mom for being there with me the entire time. There are many things in life I will never understand, and until I have children myself the love and sacrifices a parent makes for their child will baffle me. My dad was with me when I got my stitches (I remember asking him how actors cried in soap operas) and me dear, sweet muddah slept on a cot next to my hospital bed while I recovered from the procedure. I don’t know how I would have made it without her.

The x-rays determined that a small piece of bone was actually chipped off of my femur (thigh bone) so that would have to be removed. Before surgery, the fella that was-a operatin’ on me axed if I wanted the mask or the shot. He told me if I got the mask, I’d still get the shot later, so I might as well just go with the shot. Hey, he’s the expert.

Lying on the operating table, a needle was injected into my hand, and I could feel the milky-white substance being pushed into my blood stream. I thought, “how’s this gonna make fall aslee-” and I was out.

It felt like I blinked and woke-up in the ICU. At the time, there was some shortage of beds in the recovery room, so the ICU was being used for the overflow. Like I said, it felt like a blink, only between the time my eyes closed and subsequently opened, someone removed a piece of bone from my knee, stitched me up and slapped a plaster cast that went Robert Jones-style from my groin to my ankle. I went back to my room, where I couldn’t keep anything down (a side-effect of the anesthetic) and an orange Popsicle that went down ice-cold came up acid-hot. The only highlight from the hospital stay was when a nurse took my pulse and asked if I was an athlete. I finally felt like I made it.

I wasn’t allowed to get-up, so I had to pee in the bed; in a jug (what you thought I’d just let my river flow like I did in the pee-anywhere days of my toddler-hood?) I had major trouble doing this, years of controlling my pee conditioned me with the mentality that peeing in a bed is wrong, no matter what receptacle was used. The nurses let me break the rules and get up to shuffle to the toilet, because I was having such a problem with my bed-unwetting. I finally got over it, and when I did I almost filled that blue jug to the brim. I’m just thankful I didn’t need a bed pan.

To transport me home, I sat along the width of the backseat, with my log-solid leg stretched out before me. This is how I’d have to be driven to school for the next month or so. I got to swing around school on crutches and be the token “injured kid,” sitting in the classes with my leg propped-up on a chair. The kids who had to run laps in gym envied me sitting on the stage, unable to participate because I was unable to bend my leg. I would have sooner run a thousand laps with a fat guy on my back than be shelved for weeks with a lame-ass injury. I also had the worst injury story ever, which is really the only upshot of any injury, having a cool story to tell. I wished that I could have told people I hurt it from going into a controlled slide on my hog, but alas. My friends joked that I should make-up a story about facing 99 ninjas, defeating them all, and then getting injured by the last one standing. Anything was better than the truth.

After weeks of log-legged-ness, I finally got the blessed thing removed. The autographed and bloodied (the blood from the surgical incision soaked-through the cast, creating a small dark spot over the knee) plaster tube protruded out of the waste bin by about two feet. I thought I’d throw-down some squat-thrusts right then and there, but my knee could only bend about 15 degrees from being immobile for so long; it wasn’t over. In fact, it was going to get worse before it got better. At least with the cast on I could peg-leggedly walk a short distance, but now I couldn’t put any weight on it without causing immense pain, not to mention the fear of it giving-out on me and setting-back my recovery even further.

Weeks later I gained enough confidence to get around without crutches, and I went back to training. It was spring now, and with the water melted, the guys and gals got in the boats again. I spent a good amount of practices watching from the coach’s motorboat, but eventually I got to get on the water again. The thing was, the guys were already separated into the boats they wanted them in for the Canada Games. Two guesses as to who didn’t have a boat. So most of the time, they let me get into a single (sculling) which I didn’t get to use much previously. So while the guys would get coached and ready for London, I puttered-around in my single, as a coach would periodically come by to check on me to let me know I wasn’t forgotten about; or to make sure I haven’t drowned, not really sure which.

One Friday morning in May Bob, the head of the North Star Rowing club, and one of the head coaches for Team Nova Scotia basically told me that there wasn’t a spot for me, but they still wanted me to stick with it, to train for the next games (2005 in Regina, SK.) I’d be just under the cut-off age that year, but my friends would all be too old to go to that one. Without my friends, I wasn’t interested. My heart just wasn’t in it enough to say “y’know what, I had a bad go this year, but with four years of training, I’ll be good to go.” For me, it was London or nothing.

I could use the injury as the excuse for not making the team in 2001, but who would I be kidding; I just wasn’t good enough to make the team, plain and simple. I didn’t train as hard as the other guys and my times and distances were below the team requirements. The guys ordered some hoodies, and I wanted one without “CANADA GAMES” on the back, which they said could be arranged. When Matt brought my hoodie to me, I discovered that my request wasn’t heeded, and I said I couldn’t take it. Matt made me take it, like it didn’t matter if I was on the team or not, I still trained for it. That gesture meant a lot to me. I was pretty much done with rowing after that, and the guys went to London, and I think Team Nova Scotia's rowing team won one bronze medal, but that was it. They still got the experience of the trip, and some kickin’ rad blue and white tracksuits, so it was all good.

I have no hard feelings towards rowing, or the people associated with it. I still consider it “my sport,” having pursued it harder than any sport previous. I enjoy the fact that it isn't mainstream, it makes it feel more personal to me (when I told a Casting Director that I rowed, she heard “rode,” as in equestrian.) I usually think of things as easy once I do them, be it school or a job or whatever. If I can do it, anyone can do it, it's easy. This wasn't. At all. My dad said going into it that this would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and he was right.

Today, my legs are still strong from training, although my left leg is a bit weaker, and my knee still sports a heinous pink scar. I'd love to get in a boat again, putter-around in a single, just for fun. That's how it started for me. When Matt visited Vancouver in October, he visited the local rowing club, saying it was pretty costly to join. Maybe someday I'll join as a recreational member, if I get the time and the money to do so.

I have different goals now. Between failing to make Team Nova Scotia, my academic dismissal at University, and countless other fruit-less endeavours, I am pursuing those goals with relentless zeal.

I’m finished failing.