We built the rate. Twenty-four. Twenty-six. The strokes getting faster but not rushed—each one landing clean, the boat accelerating smoothly.
"Wind's picking up from starboard," Alex said. "I'm adjusting pressure."
"Got it."
I felt it—a slight shift in his drive, compensating for the crosswind. The boat held its line instead of drifting. Seamless.
"Okay," I said. "This feels—"
"Yeah," he said. "It does."
Hale's launch appeared at the starting mark. Engine idling. Eldridge beside him with the clipboard. Hale with the megaphone in one hand, stopwatch in the other.
We turned and headed back to meet them.
"Early start boys?" Hale said.
"Just getting warmed-up," I replied, as we aligned our boat at the starting mark.
"Full simulation," Hale's voice crackled across the water. "Three miles. Race pace. Buoy markers at the turn points. This is your Charles." A pause. "Make it count."
My heart rate spiked. Not from fear—from the specific, electric readiness that came before the best pieces. The feeling I'd had at the invitational. The feeling I'd had the first time Alex and I rowed together and the boat had come alive beneath us.
"You good?" I asked over my shoulder.
"I'm good."
Hale paused for a moment.
"Ready…? Go."
I drove.
The first stroke was clean. Hard. The kind of committed, full-body drive that came from knowing exactly what was at stake. Behind me, Alex matched it—not following, matching. His blade entering the water with that precise, technical catch that made Eldridge's coaching worthwhile. My instinct. His refinement. The combination that made us faster than anyone here.
The boat surged.
"That's it," Alex said. Under his breath. Not coaching—just confirming.That's the feeling.
We built through the first five hundred meters. The mist parting around the hull. The river opening up. Hale's launch keeping pace off our port quarter, the engine a low constant rumble.
"Rate's at twenty-eight," I called.
"Build to thirty at the bridge marker."
"Ready?"
"Go."
We kicked. The rating climbing. Two strokes. Four. The boat lifting—that thing it did when everything was right, when the hull seemed to rise out of the water and skim the surface insteadof cutting through it. The run between strokes lengthening. The speed building without effort.
"That's the run," I said. Jerry's word. The thing I'd been chasing since I was fourteen in a borrowed single.
"Hold it," Alex said. "Don't chase it. Let it come to us."
Us.
He was right. When the boat was singing you didn't push harder—you trusted it. Let the hull do the work. Stayed smooth.
