Holy chariots of fire, Batman! It's the Olympics!

I realize that it has been nearly 3 weeks since the last time I posted...well...anything. A big reason is that I have been semi-religiously watching the Olympics. As I type, men's 10M platform diving is on. Semifinals. The US boys are doing well. But seriously, Speedo bathing suits on men freak. me. out. Another thing that freaks me out: 10 M diving platforms. One of the semesters that I took swimming, we had a chance to go up on the 10 M platform. I could barely handle the 3 M springboard, so I watched (anxiously) from the pool deck as friends braved potentially bruised backsides and insane heights and jumped.

The Olympics have been fantastic, aside from some questionable judging. Our athletes are doing well - I mean, the first medals of the entire games were won by the US when our team won the first gold (and silver and bronze) medal in women's sabre. Forget total medal count, that's something to be proud of! And then we kicked butt and took names in my favorite sport....SWIMMING! I mean, look at how Jason Lezak really won that 4 X 100 free relay for the US team. Yeah, yeah, I love Michael Phelps too and he has done amazing things, but he led off that relay. The anchor (Lezak) has the hard work to do! Especially in that race. The one thing that has driven me bananas (or "to the movies!" wink Sonic commercial lovers) is how much people are talking about the number of calories and types of foods that Michael Phelps ingests on a daily basis. Seriously, if you swam for hours upon hours a day, you would need to eat like a small army, too. Let's not all act surprised that Olympic level athletes need to eat like....well...Olympic level athletes. Side note: Twenty minutes of swimming kills me right now, but that's because I'm two years out of practice in the pool (even though I can do a good butterfly now wahoo!).

The thing that I find most interesting about the Olympics is how it inspires the coach potato Olympian that I, and many others I know, am to get off my keister and exercise. I had been going to the gym pretty solidly at least once a week before this to a killer cardio class, but after watching a few days of competition I dusted off my swim cap and goggles and got in the pool. The thing I forget is that I am not an Olympic athlete, therefore I shold not exercise like one. I spent nearly 4 hours at the gym two days into the Olympics and was in so much pain the next day. I've scaled back since then. Only spend about 1 1/2 hours at the gym at a time for now, and only 3 days a week. Sadly, in a couple of days, the Olympics will be all over.

Other highlights of the games for me:

US Women's Gymnastic winning a whole lot of medals (team silver, individual all around gold and silver, silver and bronze on floor, silver on bars, gold and silver on beam - go Nastia and Shawn!!). Related low-light here was Cheng Fei getting silver on vault when SHE LANDED ON HER KNEES, while Alicia Sacramone, who stood up both of her vault landings, did not medal. GRRR.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh taking a repeat gold medal in beach volleyball. I liked the video of them playing volleyball with G-dub (or the President of the US), and the funny footage of a legion of Chinese men scouring the sand for Kerri Walsh's engagement ring.

Human interest stories....all of them

The Italy-France love triangle involving Manadou and those scrappy Italians. I would get mad at the Italians, but that would be like indulging in cannibalism or something. Can't get mad at your own kind, right?

Hearing the National Anthem play and seeing ALL the gold medalists from the US tear up - or valiantly fight the tears back through lots of lip clenching- around "o'er the laaaaand of the free....and the home of the brave!"

Michael Phelps .01 second win in the 100 M fly. CRAZY! That race stopped my Bunco group from playing our game...stopped! You have no idea what a big deal that is.

What can I say? I love the Olympics!