On the verge of losing consciousness, I asked myself: "Why am I doing this?" Why was I punishing my body? I had no answer; my mind blanked out from exhaustion and terror. I had no time to second guess myself with a terrifying man leaning over my shoulder yelling: "You can break six minutes!" As flecks of spit flew from his mouth landing on the handle bar of the ergometer, I longed to be finished with my first Saturday rowing practice and my first fifteen hundred meter "erg test."

"Get that split under two minutes, now!" the coach screamed, but his voice lost its savage intensity as my brain clouded from exhaustion and pain. While my body begged me to stop, I watched through tears of pain as the five hundred meter split on the ergometer was moving the wrong way: two minutes four seconds… two minutes five… . I was never going to get it under two minutes. Finishing the test in an unspectacular six minutes and five seconds, I stumbled off the erg more exhausted than I had ever been. That night, I went home and caught a cold.

That was three seasons ago. Had I followed my survivalist and rationalist instincts, I would have quit rowing then and there; I didn’ t need that kind of punishment. Many of my former teammates quit following this test, and I seriously considered joining them. However, day after day I postponed my decision to quit, and now three years later, after having rowed hundreds of practices and millions of meters, the question remains: "Why am I doing this?"

I gave this question a lot of thought over the last few years. I don’ t only row to survive practice, be on the varsity boat, or win championships; I row to test and push myself, to force myself to realize my full potential, both as an oarsman and as a human being. If someone had told me my freshman year that I would have the fastest time on the varsity lightweight eight, I would never have believed him. In freshman year, I even had a slower time than people who were smaller than I was, so it seemed unlikely that I could ever be the best, even with hard work and complete devotion. After that first erg test and other disappointing races, I really did not want to go back to practice the next day; I wished the sport would just give me a break.

Still, I never missed a practice. Crew is a lesson in commitment and constancy; I would never have been successful without a strong work ethic. Crew, more than academics, has helped me to realize how much potential I have. As a natural student, academics comes somewhat easy for me, and thus I did not find school challenging until I began crew. After having practiced through pain, nausea, and numbness, I know exactly what dedication and hard work is. I now set my goals higher academically and in all aspects of life, refusing to settle for anything less than my best effort.

In this my fourth year of rowing, I can truly say that I am a good rower. More importantly, I can say that no goal lies beyond my reach, so long as I show the same hard work and perseverance as I do in crew. Everyday, from late February to early June, I practice, fully aware that I will probably feel more pain than I have ever felt in my life. Without much natural talent or skill, I have come unimaginably far both athletically and personally through just hard work. With the ability to persevere through pain, I believe I am limited by nothing and can achieve anything I am willing to work for.