Long live the elite rower's motto:'early to bed, early to rise, never meet the regular guys.'

Immediately upon entering the weighing-in zone, I sensed an oppressive tension in the air, the lightweights staring and glaring at each other, snarling like lean, frenzied dogs. Extreme hunger has a way of creating these emotions in even the most mil-mannered people.

You need flawless balance on the recovery. You need white hot focus and the concentration to row square blades cleanly for seven miles. Smooth water doesn't hurt either.

If anyone here is secretly dreaming of making the Olympics, I can tell you exactly how to do it, two words: Sustained Obsession. The obsession isn't so hard. But keeping it sustained is a tough nut to crack. A heart-felt enemy can go a long way to sustaining your obsession. Love your enemy.

A man goes through many changes in 2000 meters. Some are not very pretty. Some make you hate yourself. Some make you wonder if you've been rowing for only three or four days. To avoid that fate, we prepared for all possibilities. If a meteor landed 10 feet off our stern, we would not blink. [We] Would be aware, yet impassive, to the outside world. Every ounce of energy would be funneled into the water, and not wasted by looking around, worrying about opponents, wondering about things that didn't concern our primary goal-to be the first across the finish line.

I felt okay for the first 45 seconds, and then my vision grew fussy. My lungs felt like deflated balloons. I would have sucked oxygen through my ears, if that were possible. I was experiencing oxygen debt, or perhaps better stated, oxygen death.

I never realized how many holidays encroached on the collegiate training schedule. When I was training for the Olympics, only one holiday interested me, the Day After the Games.