Olympic Agony

I am a huge fan of the Olympics.  For a couple of weeks every two years, I am engrossed in everything that is the Olympics.  I love the excitement, the national pride, and the pomp and circumstance.  It’s amazing to see what these athletes are capable of and the stories of their training sacrifice always seem to tug at my emotions.

One of the things that is difficult about the Olympics is the absolute agony of those athletes whose Olympic dreams are crushed.  For some, they truly mean it when they say that it’s an honor just to be there.  But for others, the dream of an Olympic medal is not just a dream–but a graspable reality.  For those athletes, the failure to medal often looks as though it’s crushed the athlete’s soul.

There are some times when the athlete has done his or her best and it just wasn’t good enough.  For these athletes, at least they can walk away knowing they did all that they could and it wasn’t enough.  There are some athletes though who have some incident occur that doesn’t allow them to do what they do best.

There was a heartbreaking example of this for a U.S. runner in the Women’s 1500m run.  Morgan Uceny was running a strong race.  She was in a good position to move forward to the front pack heading into the last lap around the track.  Then, one of her feet got tangled up by another runner’s leg and she hit the ground.  Just like that, her Olympic dreams were over.  Watching her huddled over on the ground, she slapped her hands on the track, and sobbed; it was painful to see.  Would she have won the gold? Maybe not.  Would she have won any medal at all?  Maybe.  The hardest part to bear is that she will never know whether she would have had she been able to finish that run–and she’ll have work and wait for four more years to see if that dream can ever be realized.

Running but Still Not Running

Many of you know that I am training to complete an Ironman in November (yikes–that’s coming up fast–in case your interested in my training progress check out ironmoms2012.blogspot.com).  As part of my training, I need to do some major running.  However, as of late, I have not been motivated to get much running in.  With temperatures in the 115 degree range during the day and low temps in the 90’s, the weather is doing its part to discourage me.

The other factor that has contributed to my lack of motivation is that I feel like I run all day long–so I don’t feel like slipping on my running shoes and doing more running.  It’s amazing how many different places and tasks we “need” to do each day.  There are things to pick up and things to drop off.  There are children who need to be places, who need to get things.  There are pets that need extra attention and more supplies.  Then, there are the responsibilities we can’t shirk–like work and buying groceries.  By the end of the day, I feel as exhausted as if I had run a marathon.

It’s too bad all that running around doesn’t burn calories and boost cardio conditioning!