Katherine "Kat" Phillips wakes up at 5:20AM. She lets one or two minutes pass—something she calls "sleeping in"—before getting out of bed and turning off the alarm. She's competitive in absolutely everything. Her newest challenge? Waking up before her alarm. So far, it's going pretty well. To be fair, though, the alarm never really had a chance.

Please don't question her alarm clock game. It is strong. (Source)

Kat's rowed through every year of college. Her freshman year, she joined a rowing club to try out the sport before getting recruited for the varsity team. She wasn't necessarily the fastest on the crew, but she had a solid stroke rate and excellent endurance. As Coach Cortez said, "Being fast is nothing if you can't finish."

Kat mulls over these words as she gets ready to shower. In the bathroom mirror, her bulging biceps catch her eye and she flexes for herself proudly. Being able to beat her older brother in an arm wrestling match is one of her favorite parts about being a rower.

Another perk of being an NCAA rowing athlete is always being up before her housemates, which means getting all the hot water to herself in the shower. Kat breathes a sigh of deep relaxation as the scalding water cascades over her. She doesn't have much time to luxuriate, though, so she quickly gets clean and hops out.

She searches the floor of her room for a clean trou to wear to practice. Her non-crew friends are starting to wonder if she ever wears anything besides these ever-present mid-thigh compression tights. She does have other clothes…she just has little time to wash them and few occasions to wear them.

Kat silently promises herself that she will do laundry…some day.

She leaves the house and heads up to the dining hall for breakfast. It doesn't open for another twenty minutes, so she decides to call her mom. The conversation revolves around—what else?—rowing.

"How were your ergs this week?" her mom asks. The one-hour time difference between Kat's mom's house on the East Coast and Kat's school in the Midwest makes the early morning convo less brutal for the athlete's mom.

Kat groans. "Dismal. I was shooting for under 7:45 for my 2k time."

"What does your coach think?"

"He's happy with my time for the upcoming regattas, but he thinks that this winter, with some intensive strength training, we can shave off up to ten seconds."

"Well, sweetie, that's good news. Just don't push yourself too hard. The race season has barely started. Don't burn yourself out."

Kat makes a noise of begrudging acknowledgment. She can see the wisdom in her mother's words, but she wants to improve and she wants to do it fast. She knows better, though.

"I guess so," Kat replies.

It's as much of a concession as she was likely to offer, so her mother accepts it without pushing further. They talk for a little while longer about non-rowing subjects before Kat finally heads into the dining hall for breakfast.

Kat loads up on cereal with low-fat milk, a multi-grain bagel, and a fruit and vegetable smoothie that the kitchen makes special for her; the morning chef's a rower himself. She can see the other students greedily eyeing her smoothie. Their envious glares make it taste so much sweeter.

She considers grabbing an omelet, too…but there will be other meals. Her eyes have always been bigger than her stomach.

Kat heads out after breakfast to the training complex at the far end of campus. Kat likes the long walk; it means plenty of time to think.

In the training complex, all of Kat's external thoughts dissipate. She instantly falls into the easy, silly banter that characterizes her relationship with her teammates. It's the only way they can get through the arduous training that Coach Cortez has lined up for them. They spend some time warming up and then immediately go into a few rounds of explosive squat jumps and other body weight exercises.

And then? The erg.

Rower, meet your new best (worst) friend. (Source)

Kat dreaded the ergometer at first, but like Sisyphus and his rock, the erg wasn't going anywhere. Besides, Kat likes a good challenge.

Kat and her teammates finish out the rest of the hour on the erg. Kat comes away with a decent time and is quite pleased with herself. She stops to talk to Coach Cortez while her teammates drag themselves off to showers and classes.

He's friendly but firm as usual, and he stops her before she can let herself plunge into a spiral of self-doubt.

"You're doing well, Kat. I'm going to keep pushing you, but you can't keep expecting miracles from yourself. Keep on training as you have and you'll improve naturally. On water and on the erg. Rome…"

"…wasn't built in a day," Kat finishes. It's a favorite phrase of his—cliché, yes, but encouraging.

The coach laughs. "Go to class, Phillips."

Kat's early to her Spanish lecture and manages to catch a few minutes of sleep before the beginning of class. It's the last time she'll get to close her eyes until 9:00PM.

Coach was not pleased with the C+ on her last test and reminded her that academic excellence was just as important as athletics. So after Spanish class, she trudges off to tutoring.

Her tutor reminds her of Rowan Atkinson, but she tries her hardest to pay attention. Calculus. Derivations. Differential equations. But it's no use. Eventually, she succumbs to the hilarious imagery of Mr. Bean at the dentist. It's no use trying to escape.

Maybe next time.

After her failure of a tutoring session, Kat has two more classes—both a blur. At last, she's able to have an all-too-brief conversation with Paul, her boyfriend, who's a Div-II football player at a college in Texas. He usually has even less free time than she does, but they make it work.

Kat gets into bed to watch a few episodes of Scandal and realizes that she isn't going to get past the first few minutes. Tomorrow, she thinks. Tomorrow she will find time to do laundry, watch TV, and have a long chat with Paul. It could happen, she thinks as she falls asleep only to dream, naturally, about the erg.