Middle

An excerpt from Anne's Triathlon Training:

What I treasure most from my first season of triathlon training is during the last race of the season in Culpeper, at the start of the open water swim for my age group, I positioned myself front and center. 

Not carefully on the periphery of the group--as cautious veterans had warned me and I had obediently done in my previous races--to avoid being jostled or kicked or hit.  I moved to the front, joining the other women as we lifted our arms full of weeds and laughed at our slimy adornments, but still to the front, one half-step ahead of every other swimmer.

I did this knowing that seven-eighths of them would pass me.

When the horn sounded, I stroked straight for the buoy.  I didn’t spot because from all those workouts and previous edge-swimmings, I know I swim straight.

I got my breathing set, cupped my hands firmly to keep my fingers together so they wouldn’t get jammed, and waited for the experience.

And it came.  All those strong bodies, elemental, wet and suspended, slicking on, against, and by me.  It felt how a school of sharks looks. 

If I got hit or kicked, it would be because I was in the middle of living, not on the edge of it.

What I treasure most from my first season of triathlon training is during the last race of the season in Culpeper, at the start of the open water swim for my age group, I positioned myself front and center. 

Not carefully on the periphery of the group--as cautious veterans had warned me and I had obediently done in my previous races--to avoid being jostled or kicked or hit.  I moved to the front, joining the other women as we lifted our arms full of weeds and laughed at our slimy adornments, but still to the front, one half-step ahead of every other swimmer.

I did this knowing that seven-eighths of them would pass me.

When the horn sounded, I stroked straight for the buoy.  I didn’t spot because from all those workouts and previous edge-swimmings, I know I swim straight.

I got my breathing set, cupped my hands firmly to keep my fingers together so they wouldn’t get jammed, and waited for the experience.

And it came.  All those strong bodies, elemental, wet and suspended, slicking on, against, and by me.  It felt how a school of sharks looks. 

If I got hit or kicked, it would be because I was in the middle of living, not on the edge of it.