When you are rowing well and hard, the rhythm of the stroke takes over. It drives your days and restores your nights. It imparts cadence and direction. You feel like you and the boats are one, you feel that no obstacle will put up any more resistance than the water does to your oars, you feel that hard work and grit and mental toughness will always win it for you in the end.

Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty (ed. Simon and Schuster, 2001) - ISBN: 9780684863306