Mental Toughness: A Rower's Dream.

I rowed on the Cam this morning in the snow. In small drops, water splashed on to my oar and froze instantly. The ice creeped up my blade until everything save the neoprene handle was encased.

Snow is an event in Cambs - in fact, Cambridge is one of the driest spots in the UK. Despite the lack of measurable precipitation, the air always seems to be a bit damp; which is especially evident now that cold season is in full swing on campus. My teammate, Aoife, who rows in front of me in our boat hails from Ireland. She told me this morning that "the damp" in the British Isles is something that even tough old "Grannies are afraid of", sometimes leaving rooms in the house closed up during the winter because of it.

Despite the adverse conditions, the snow, the damp, the cold, and rowing on a hard wooden plank that somehow resembles a seat at 6:30 am, elicited not frustration from me and the women that I row with, but laughter.  As soon as the snow started coming down in huge mushroom-sized flakes, we all giggled. Snow? Really? 

It hit me then: mental toughness is both a sufficient and necessary condition and a catalyst for anyone who gets up at an ungodly hour in the cold, folds yourself into a seat that is far too small for your ass (the other girls and I have affectionately deemed the parts of your ass that fold over the seat "spillover"), locks your hands to a blade and gets shouted at from the bank of the river whilst attempting to repeat the same stroke motion perfectly over and over again.

Penn State University's Sport Psychology Services, from an article by one of the U.S.'s leading sports psychologists, defines mental toughness as an athlete's "natural or developed psychological edge that enables [one] to: Generally cope better than your opponents with the many demands that are placed on [an athlete] as a performer," and is the ability "to be more consistent and better than [an athlete's] opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, resilient, and in control under pressure." 

Indeed. 

This past Friday in the Robinson Head Race on the River Cam, my boat finished 2.2 kilometers upstream in 11 minutes flat, beating such heavyweight Cambridge colleges as St. John's College, who rows as Lady Margaret Boat Club - they have more money than God, and their corporate sponsors pay them to go on team training camps in exotic locales during the Christmas break; Emmanuel College - the women's first boat that we slaughtered is currently the Head of the River for Lent Bumps, the second largest Cambridge college race during the school year next to May Bumps (Note: Head of the River means that they finished first last year, so they will be starting at first this year, so they are a pretty big deal); and Robinson College, a team who was deemed to be "tough" by our coach. We tied with Peterhouse Boat Club, the oldest college in Cambridge, which means they have one of the largest alumni bases at the University; they too have more money than the Holy Trinity.

This, however, is the best part: we beat our Men's boat by 47 seconds. That's right, 47. If you round up, that's a whole minute. Not only did we beat the boys who row with our college, but we beat a third of the men's boats entered in the race. 

Mental toughness = Us.

Money, It's A Gas....

President Obama said yesterday that America's financial situation is still "unacceptable," reports the New York Times. The President went on to comment: "[j]ust as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century."  

Yet - how do we determine the path to "economic success?" How will we know the "areas" to "invest in" and what does "investment" entail? How will we know when we are finally on a sound financial path in the United States? Is it akin to how the Supreme Court described pornography: that one will "know it when they see it?"  Such a thought is slightly unnerving.

I recently started listening to a NPR program called This American Life - an excellent radio hour from Chicago Public Radio that highlights unique American stories paralleling a different theme each week. The first program of the year was attempting to predict what 2010 would bring for the United States. Given the economic climate, the worsening situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the looming problem of climate change, there was plenty of prediction to be had - good or bad. 

One of the segments was on predicting the economic health of America, and whether it was a science, an art, or something that only a few minds in the world could understand. In the end, it was decided that, like most things we attempt to surmise about the future, economic prediction is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Astonishing.

When will America come to terms with the fact that being fiscally responsible is essential in order to maintain our relevance in the world? Yes - running a developed world power and managing the needs of millions of Americans is insanely expensive. However, the President is on point: the U.S.'s financial position is utterly unacceptable.

The band The Tallest Man on Earth's "Pistol Dreams": "Throw me in the fire now, come on/Throw me in the fire now, come on" 

We are in the fire; and the way we are throwing money away is only feeding it. The steps from realizing that a situation is less than ideal and changing it are many, but at least we are taking the first one.