In this wise and thrilling book, Criag Lambert turns rowing--personal discipline, modern Olympic sport, grand collegiate tradition--into a metaphor for a vigorous and satisfying life. Lambert has finished the course well in Mind Over Water, which has the same attributes as the rowing he adores: precision, grace, and total immersion. Boston Globe "A staff writer and editor for Harvard Magazine tells how sculling became a path to personal growth and how 'lessons learned afloat carry over onto dry land.' The result is a 'thoughtful, lovingly drawn meditation,' Caroline Knapp wrote here last year. 'The river becomes a character in its own right, something to dip into for a time, something transporting.'" The New York Times Craig Lambert, a staff writer and editor at Harvard Magazine, has also written for Sports Illustrated and Town & Country. He trains and races in single sculls on the Charles River in Boston, and occasionally competes in major rowing events, such as the Head of the Charles Regatta. Mind Over Water Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing By Craig Lambert Mariner Books Copyright © 1999 Craig Lambert All right reserved. ISBN: 9780618001842 Chapter One In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. --THOREAU, Walden In the darkness, deep in silence, the lights -- green, red, afew of white -- surge ahead, in the rhythm of breathing. Theyseem, in fact, to breathe their way forward, gathering force on theinhale, then gliding forward on the outward stroke. Against thedark water and the shore, whatever propels these lights is indistinct,but their graceful flow suggests swans. Now one swan swims closer, and if this be waterfowl, it is ancient,prehistoric, fantastically long and narrow, a pterodactylafloat. Its beak juts out ten feet or more, and the wingspan sweepsa tremendous arc, fifteen or sixteen feet across. Two wings beattogether, a whoosh through the river water. As they emerge into airand recoil for another immense stroke, it becomes clear: these areno wings. They are oars. As waves of dread wash through my gut, I watch the coloredlights from the ramp that leads from the boathouse down to thedock. Soon, red and green beacons of my own, attached to the bowof my boat, will float beside these others, just inches above theriver surface. I am about to become the heart and muscle of one ofthese sleek water birds. How, I wonder, did I get myself into thispredicament? It is 5:45 A.M. on an October morning in Boston, and both airand water are chilly. Already my hands ache with cold and I haveyet to shove off from the dock; on the river, the frigid breeze willpenetrate skin, flesh, and bone. That much is familiar: nothingmore than intense, torturous pain. As a rower I am used to that.The terrifying thing is the athletic test confronting me: a doubleHead, something I have never attempted before and am not surethat I can even do, let alone do well. Performing well mattersdeeply, but today my first concern is staying alive out there. That,and the traffic. The phrase double Head first caught my attention several yearsearlier, in a snatch of overheard conversation that crystallized thevast gap between my rowing practices and those of the top athletesin the sport. Two members of my boat club, Kurt Somerville andTiff Wood, had been chatting after a row. Kurt, a downtown lawyer,is a tall, lanky oarsman who rowed at Dartmouth and then madethe 1980 U.S. Olympic team, those unlucky athletes Jimmy Cartermade into spectators. Kurt's nickname is "Wedge." He explains: "awedge is the simplest tool." Tiff Wood is another rowing tool; in college, his nickname was"the Hammer." Actually, many oarsmen have been called hammers,crew slang for rowers who lack finesse. Like ringer , the term hammer blends censure and praise: although hammers are crudeimplements, they can, of course, come in very handy. Tiff's untamedtechnique didn't stop him from becoming one of the greatoarsmen of his era. After a spectacular career at Harvard, where hiscrews never lost a race, Tiff made the 1976, 1980, and 1984 U.S.Olympic teams and became one of the most famous names inrowing. As the two Olympians talked, I listened in disbelief as Kurtuttered four innocent-sounding words: "Tiff: Saturday -- doubleHead?" This simple phrase stunned me. Kurt was casually proposingthat, on Saturday, he and Tiff go out in their single sculls and row adouble Head piece together. To my ears, he might as well have said,"Tiff: Saturday -- climb Mount Everest?" On the Charles River, torow "a Head piece" means to row the full three-mile course of theHead of the Charles Regatta, a demanding endeavor that can takeas little as fourteen minutes in an eight-oared boat or seventeenminutes in a single scull. It can also take well over twenty minutes.That doesn't sound so terribly long, but think of it as, say, runningfour or five consecutive four-mi