Choose rowing,
Choose a crew,
Choose a cox,
Choose early mornings, blood blisters and frozen extremities,
Choose novice regattas, broken equipment and random collisions,
Choose huge amounts of kit that you wouldn't normally be seen dead in,
Choose splash tops, lycra body suits and t-shirts in a range of unpleasant colours and 'amusing' logos.
Choose Oakleys, even if it's the middle of winter and it's raining,
Choose staggering to the river, still drunk from the night before, vomiting out of the boat, wondering who the fcuk you are, where the fcuk you are and what the fcuk you're doing there,
Choose a coach,
Choose random abuse, satanic training schedules and mass bollockings,
Choose weights, ergs and, most of all, pain,
Choose sitting on an erg, feeling sh1t, watching the bloke next to you doing twice the distance for half the effort because he actually knows how to row,
Choose failing your degree because you spend all your time at the river,
Choose breathing your last, cold and wet, sitting in a boat, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfless, heartless maniac in the cox's seat,
Choose life,
Choose anything but rowing ...