My classmates and I spend an hour learning the basics of the stroke on rowing machines, and then we tentatively climb into our tippy, narrow little sculling boats and make our way out onto the lake, which is empty except for the lines of buoys set up for next week's 1000-meter rowing race. Our teacher tells us to pick a lane and practice rowing straight. It's a lazy, sunny Saturday, with geese flying overhead and people jogging around the lake's perimeter.

I find my way into a lane and start rowing slowly, trying to get the hang of controlling my oars and crossing my hands over each other at the mid-point of the stroke. Going straight turns out to be harder than it sounds; you have to make both oars do the same thing at the same time and the oars have no such inclination.

After I've been rowing awhile, I look up to see where my classmates are. One of them is behind me and to the left, turning circles in her lane and muttering. Another one, the tall middle-aged guy, is rowing fairly well in the lane next to me. He happens to look over and catch my eye, and we exchange a nod. He quickly goes back to rowing and pulls away from me. Hmmm.

I start rowing with a little more pressure; no reason to get left behind. As I catch up to him he looks at me, and I swear he raises an eyebrow. Then he leans forward and starts pulling harder. Is he actually trying to get ahead of me? I don't think so, buddy. I kick it up a notch.

The two of us raggedly row our way down the course, side by side, with me surreptitiously checking his boat position every few strokes. I increase my power a bit more and pass him, but he comes right back. Then -- damn! Tall Middle-Aged Guy starts pulling away from me again. This is totally unacceptable. I give up all pretense of casual rowing and start pulling as hard as I can. It's not pretty.

I smack into a buoy on one side and frantically jam my oar into the water on the other side to turn the boat; it lurches around and heads towards another buoy across the lane. My wake looks like a big sine wave. I'm whacking my knuckles against each other every other stroke and I'm continuously getting my left oar badly rotated and stuck in the water, which causes the boat to dip precariously to one side -- but do I slow down and rebalance? No, I do not. I will flip this damn boat before I let TMAG get farther ahead of me.

I manage to catch up to him again, and some little reward center in my brain lights up like a pinball machine. You want a piece of me, big guy? Do ya? Do ya? I can't hear anything over the sounds of my own wheezing, but I can see that TMAG is gratifyingly sweaty.

We finally pass the last buoy together and I stop rowing. This has been the longest thousand meters of my life. I'm exhausted and shaky, but feeling smug. I have met this guy's challenge. I haven't felt this fierce since I played tag with the boys in third grade--and caught them.

I have, however, paid a price. In my desperate attempt to keep up with him I recruited a surprisingly wide range of muscles, including (apparently) some muscles around my eyeballs. I now have a nasty facial tic.

TMAG has stopped rowing, and now that I look at him closely, he doesn't actually seem to be winded. In fact, though he's a little sweaty, he has the demeanor of someone who just finished filing his nails. I begin to have a small kernel of doubt about what just happened here.

We awkwardly turn our boats around to head back to the dock. He pulls up close to me, gives me a friendly smile, and says, "It's so peaceful out here on the water, isn't it?" Damn!

I try to control my breathing enough to answer him.

"Yeah..." (pant) "Rowing seems like a..." (pant, pant, TWITCH) "...great way to relax and get away from it all."