Tag Archives: athletics

Does It Matter It Does Not Matter?

There’s a baseball game tonight.

(By the time you read this, the game will be over. You will know what I don’t know as I write.)

The game? It doesn’t matter. Does that matter?

The Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox have each played 162 games this season. They have each won 88 and lost 74. One of them has to be the best team from their division, the American League Central. So while the rest of baseball starts the regular play-off series, these two teams play one game. A whole season comes down to one game.

I only know all this detail because I looked it up after hearing, in passing, that they were playing tonight.

It doesn’t matter.

Forty years ago, this game would have mattered mightily. Forty years ago, I was a ten-year old living in the western suburbs of Chicago. And I despised the White Sox. Unlike many people around me at the time, it wasn’t because I liked the Cubs. That came later. It was because a year earlier we had moved from Minneapolis.

I had gone to sleep summer nights listening to WCCO, the good neighbor to the great north [woods? west? memory doesn't work so well.] I had listened to Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Bert Blyleven. I had baseball cards, I had been to games. I was a Twins fan.

And then we moved. And I despised the Sox and loved the Twins. (And the Vikings. Until they lost the Superbowl for the fourth time and I cried and gave up.). But there was no internet to listen to the games. No coverage at all. And WGN carried the Cubs and they were safe because they weren’t the Sox, And day after day I met Fergie Jenkins and Don Kessinger and Randy Hundley and Ron Santo and Glenn Beckert and Ernie Banks and my affection waned. By the time the Twins won the World Series, finally, I was a Cubs fan. (I really know how to pick them, don’t I).

But I am intrigued by my lack of interest in the game tonight. It used to matter, this rivalry. It used to trigger great emotion and even some arguments with my best friend Chris. Now, all it triggers is a post.

I think that one lesson may be that childhood obsessions fade. That is both good and bad news to parents. You need to reinforce the things that you want to last. Another lesson may be that some kids just don’t care about some things. Some of us aren’t huge sports fans. Another lesson may be that some of us may take life too seriously. There probably is a place for the playfulness of sports rivalries. And maybe I need to think about not being so grown up.

Ah well.

My best to both teams. Play well tonight.

(Go Cubs.)

by Jon Swanson

Photo graciously provided by jon.swanson, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Summer Ends And The Treadmill Begins

a man on a treadmillThis past week I’ve read numerous posts describing bloggers’ feelings on fall.  Personally, I love it.  I love the cool crisp air.  I love wearing jeans and a fleece.  I love being able to run outside and not worry about the dreaded Runner’s Gut.  However, there are a couple of drawbacks.  The first is that it stays dark until later in the morning and gets dark earlier in the evening.  This means that unless I want to go running with a miner’s helmet or at the very least a flashlight, running outside early in the morning or after the kids are in bed is quickly coming to an end.  Daytime runs aren’t really an option either particularly when you consider that the only time that would really work would be when the high school kids are getting out of school.  After all my running path crosses the routes run by multiple schools buses, and the last thing I need is to have to listen to teenagers hollering snide comments out the window (which has happened before).  Plus, my jogging stroller is lost in the abyss of our basement since its last use when my five year old was two.

Of course there are other options like running on the track.  Armed with a good playlist, it’s actually not so bad.  Of course there is also the treadmill.  I’ll admit that I just don’t get the appeal of it.  Sure, I understand its function, and I do use it from time to time.  It’s just so boring.  My enthusiasm for the treadmill is not helped by the fact that I have yet to remember to bring a towel that I can place over the numbers so I don’t feel my eyes magnetically pulled to the time.

Last week a man set out to beat the world record for longest distance covered on a treadmill in 48 hours.  Ironically, I learned about this while watching the gym’s TV while I was on the treadmill.  He has my admiration but not my understanding.  There’s no change in scenery, no sudden burst of cool wind, and no teenagers honking at you!  Alright that last one is actually a good thing.

Cool weather and shorter days also mean my biking time is coming to a close.  However, there’s always spinning, and seeing as I don’t bike with my iPod, the music in spinning class is way better than what I’m otherwise listening to!

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by dead_squid, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Being Tired

someone resting while floating on a lakeOne of the nice things about doing triathlons,  is that they have kept me motivated.  It’s sort of like how many people use their wedding as a inducement to get fit.  My triathlons are similar to me, except that instead of picturing myself in a glamorous dress if I visit the gym regularly,  I picture myself crawling over the finish line in pain at my next triathlon if I do not visit the gym regularly.  This image usually gets me right to the gym.  However, in every sport in which I’ve participated, some kind of break or down time is needed.  With my last triathlon of the season last weekend, that time had simply come this week.

Monday was a day off for me.  Completely justified of course in my mind because I had done a triathlon the day before.  Then I wasn’t feeling into spinning class on Tuesday.  I decided to skip the early morning class and go the later one.  Surely the problem was that I was tired.  However, not even Green Day on my iPod could get my heart rate fully up.  I needed a break, so  I took Wednesday off.  Thursday I went in to the Y with the intention to run, but honestly I just didn’t feel like it.  I ran for 10 minutes and walked for 20.  Enough was enough, and I decided to take a break.  I’ve been training since October.  I’ve even worked in at least a couple of days of exercise on vacations since then.   Not surprisingly, my triathlon training buddy also felt the same way.

I’m feeling better about going to the gym tomorrow.  I think excercise is just like anything else in life; sometimes you just need a break, no matter how great it is.  Plus, I have a duathlon next month!  Also, did I mention that I just bought some new fall clothes?

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by davidanthonyporter, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

My New Triathlon Motto

empty running shoes in the sunlightWhen I competed in my first triathlon in May, I was so nervous that after finishing the swim, I put on my running shoes instead of my biking shoes. So what’s the big deal about that? I have clipless bike pedals meaning that my pedals are only about an inch wide on either side and my biking shoes clip into them. It was pretty hard to pedal with running shoes, but fortunately the course was relatively flat.

I’m now about to do my final triathlon for the season. This one looks to be the best by far. The company hosting this one is been wonderful about providing pre-race information. They also offer a couple of free clinics to ensure everyone is fully prepared and to ease any nerves. How cool is that?

They had one such clinic this past week which was for open water swimming. Because I swam competitively throughout college, the swimming is my strength, but since I have never specifically trained for open water I thought it would be good to attend. It was very well run, and I did pick up a couple of pointers. I also learned an important motto.

For a while now, I have been reassuring friends that I “compete” with or as my training buddy says “complete not compete” with, that although I’ll probably finish the swimming ahead of them, they can expect to whiz by me on their bikes. At one of the competitions I swear that someone who floated on his back through the entire swimming part zoomed past me on his bike.  Same thing with the lady who swam in a suit with a skirt and her glasses. No, she wasn’t worried about her glass falling in the water because she never puts her face in the water.  Each triathlete’s age is written on the back of their right calf, so by far my worst moment was seeing the number 79 on a passing triathlete’s leg.

The woman who ran the swim workshop also swam for her college. She’s been doing triathlons for the past 9 years and talked about the very same phenomenon as me!  She advised the nervous swimmers that they had no reason to fear competing in the open water, because they could swim from rescue kayak to rescue kayak, holding on for a few minutes at each one. She explained that for them, their race starts when they hit the beach after the swim, while for her, her race ends when she hits the beach after her swim. I could hear scattered laughter when she said that. That’s right, all of the strong swimmers were laughing.  Ahhh… cameraderie is a nice thing.

In addition to teaching those less comfortable in the water how to break their swims into shorter segments, the workshop gave other tips, such as encouraging those struggling to flip onto their backs to center themselves.  There is a workshop this week about the cycling leg of the triathlon.  I hope they provide comparable tips for people like me.  I certainly don’t want to flip onto my back while on the road, but a fellow swimmer suggested there might be ideas like pull into a slide street, grab a sip of water, catch your breath and then continue!

by Alex Elliot

Photo from the Adidas Marathon 2007 graciously provided by infomatique, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Trying to Reach New Levels

empty running shoes in the sunlightOne more triathlon to go and then the season is over for me.  It definitely has been fun, and I look forward to doing them next year.  I’m not quite as excited to start the training all over again this fall, but then again I don’t get cool prizes or free cowbells to give to family (I’m not kidding about that one) just for showing up at the gym.

Because I was reflecting on how quickly time had gone by or more accurately how I had better not slack off with the last tri around the corner, I started to think back to what this almost a year now of preparation and competing in triathlons has been like.  While I’ve had some amazing moments, I’ve also had some embarrassing moments. To distort  Nietzsche’s words, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”  I now present to you some of my experiences that suggest how much strength I must now have:

  • Having to parade through the lobby of the Y in only a swimsuit and swimcap because the childwatch center interrupted my swim to tell me I needed to immediately change my younger son’s diaper

  • Having to walk back through said lobby to get dressed because my son decided he couldn’t be left alone any longer
  • Showing up for my first time lifting weights in years wearing a Sock Puppet t-shirt (from the dot com era internet pet food company commercials)
  • Realizng that my Sock Puppet t-shirt was not only uncool, but also… a little too tight
  • Performing jumping jacks with a postpartum body in the free weight area while weight lifters looked on
  • The first day of spin class when I couldn’t figure out why the seat was so uncomfortable because I didn’t know I was supposed to wear biking pants with a giant pad in the crotch
  • Wearing said pants with giant pad in the crotch inside out.  Alright, that was my training buddy but it was a pretty funny story!
  • Thinking I was cooler than the hardcore spinners in my spinning class because they were decked out in biking gear and then realizing that they were in fact showing better judgment than I
  • Asking the group trainer when I would stop having that heavy feeling in my chest when running through which I had suffered my whole life, including when swimming competitively, only to be diagnosed a few days later with excercise induced asthma that I had never been aware of
  • Falling off my bike while my shoes were still clipped while standing still in the high school parking lot while a carload of teenagers drove by me

Boy do I feel strong!  In fact it’s because of this strength, I’ve decided to investigate another sport when starting my fall training:  Tae Kwon Doe.  I’ve always wanted to do it, and in fact my older son is about to start lessons.  If I could survive last year’s adventures, I should be all set for martial arts, right?  Or perhaps next year, I’ll have more anecdotes and be even “stronger.”

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by Stewart Leiwakabessy, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved