For the past few days I have, as I imagine many people have, been glued to the TV.  This is not my natural state (in fact I don’t even own a TV) and have actually been glued to Don’s TV. The generosity of Don’s family has allowed me to be watching the Olympics every afternoon and evening, and they probably now think I am a large pillow stationed on their couch.  Hopefully they don’t really notice me any more, because I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance and you definitely notice a nuisance.

 

It’s been intriguing to see the effect that so much TV watching has on an active person.  I normally crave TV.  That’s why I don’t own one, I would never ever get anything done.  Movies are the ultimate reward, and as a kid my parents could get us to do anything if there would be a movie afterwards.  Hence I was really looking forward to watching a whole lot of TV that I could justify.  I mean, I can’t just miss the olympics, right?  However, all the time on my butt watching commercials seems to have driven me a little stir-crazy.  

 

Yesterday, on my off day, I had a random powerful urge to hike Flattop.  In the summer, that’s a fun short hike with a view.  In the winter, I was headed up in my Steger mukluks towards windblown snow and steep, slippery slopes, after a week when three people had died in avalanches in the general area.  Sounds like poor judgment I guess, but all of the TV must have begun to decompose my grey matter.  In fact, there were definitely crampon tracks on the hill that I was hiking, and it was getting dark.  I had brought ski poles, thinking that if you can ski without kick by hanging on your arms, you could hike without traction.  It turns out to be a little more complicated than that, though it works fairly well on the way up.  It was kind of lucky that it was getting dark out because I might have been tempted to go up something that would have been much harder to come down in my excellent mukluks.  I don’t think that a cross country ski pole would be quite the thing for a high-speed self arrest.

 

Other than the temporary (or permanent) removal of my common sense, the Olympics have been exciting to watch.  Of course I love the Olympics.  I am admittedly emotionally affected by every awards ceremony, and all of the commercials with their heroic music and stories about athletes are almost as bad.  It’s always been like that.  My take is a little different this time around though.  Yesterday I wanted so badly for the Chinese pair who had been skating together for 18 years to win the figure skating, and I was psyched when they did!  I think it is because I wanted their hard work and years of commitment to pay off.  Before I started training full time I loved it when the unproven under dog came up and won, but now I have a lot more respect for people who have really put everything into it for a very long time.  That’s a lot of sacrifice, and to have it whisked away by someone half your age with much less experience just sounds like a nightmare.  

 

When the people who have really put in the time are rewarded for it, it makes me feel better about committing to skiing and putting myself out on a limb like that.  People who really have had all their eggs in one basket for a long time, training hard and hoping, those are the real heroes.  Quite frankly, the prospect of putting yourself in a position where you have fully poured everything you have into one pursuit, is terrifying.  You have no way of knowing if a major injury is going to put all your hard work to waste, or if you even will be able to perform as you want to when the moment comes, but you are in it 100% anyway.  That’s real courage, and I think that’s kind of what the Olympics are all about.  Those people who commit to training hard day in and day out, this is the time when everyone supports them and shares their dream.  This is their time.