Water. It seems like such a simple word. Add freezing and training to that and you get my training for my summer job. This past summer I worked at North Woods Rafting as a white water raft guide. Before I could officially call myself a guide I had to go through training, but this wasn’t the ordinary show up watch a video and then attend a CPR class type of training. Well, we did watch a video and take a CPR certification class, but there was much more to it. On the first day of training I arrived at 7 am on a cold May morning. Now for most people May is a month where the weather is usually nice and warm, but I live in northern New Hampshire. Here that May day was barely 36 degrees and the water temperature wasn’t any different. We were shown a video and sized to receive our guide gear. After struggling into a wetsuit and layering on as much fleece as possible we were read; albeit slight reluctant to begin training. The first bit of training was rafts themselves. We were taught how to open and close valve and the terminology that goes with the rafts. We were shown how to blow up the boats and how to tell when they were done. A few facts were thrown into the mix also. For example did you know that most river rafts alone weigh around 200 pounds? Also if you leave a fully inflated raft in the sun the heat would cause the chambers to expand and eventually explode! Next we loaded up the trailer and headed to the Pontook Dam on the Androscoggin River. The senior guides showed us how to properly give a safety talk while making it fun and then the training really began! The water was running at record highs and the waves were amazing. It was too bad no trainees noticed because of how cold we were! The wetsuits, helmets, life savers (PFD’s) and splash jackets we wore provided little protection the freezing water. If it wasn’t enough just being cold were trying our hardest to remember the information being yelled out as we crashed into waves and sailed down the river. Everything seemed exciting and your adrenaline was rushing, but soon we got the command that made everyone stare in disbelief. The lead guide (better known as river boss) wanted everyone to swim! It took a minute of us trainees staring in disbelief, but eventually one by one we slowly submerged our bodies into the frigid Androscoggin River. As soon as my body was submerged it felt like the air was knocked out of me. Every tendon and bone felt like they were being pierced repeatedly by white hot needles. Believe it or not it had been snowing, raining, and hailing intermittingly throughout the day The first few seconds in the water felt like several long minutes. Thankfully the swim was short and all we had to do to get back into the raft was pull ourselves in. Easy right? Wrong. When you are not in peak physical fitness pulling yourself into a boat that has a tube about 3 feet high is like asking an asthmatic to run up to the ten flights of stairs, possible, but extremely difficult and tiring. Eventually we were able to get back into the boat and much to my delight our river boss took pity on our nearly hypothermic selves and ended training. Clambering into the van we munched on chocolate and thought of our nice warm beds at home. So what is the point of this? Why torture yourself for eight hours for no pay? It was purely the experience. Who else can say that they swam in water around 32 degrees with hail, snow and rain? I can say that. My rafting job was an amazing experience; I met many people and worked hard for my pay. That first day of training may have been brutal, but it showed that hard work, dedication, and the will to win paid off.