Olympic sacrifice…one potato chip at a time

Now that the Olympics have begun, we hear a lot about all the sacrifice and hard work the athletes had to endure to get to the games.

Well, it hasn’t been so easy on the rest of us either.

Take the opening ceremonies, for example. By the time Li Ning finished air-running around the bird’s nest and lit the flame, I was already suffering muscle spasms fom sitting too long. Shifting helped, but the body just isn’t designed to tolerate such levels of non-activity for such a long period of time.

Television coverage of the Olympics is pretty much non-stop, with the best matches from the previous day being shown during daylight hours, followed by live action as evening settles in here.

Which caught me completely unprepared. Unable to take a break, I have depleted my in-house supplies, and the competition has just begun. I’ll need more potato chips for sure, and my soda supply is nearly gone. Try watching beach volleyball with nothing to munch on. It’s brutal.

And speaking of beach volleyball – and I’ll throw in swimming and gymnastics too – I think High Definition TV has spoiled the Olympics. Whatever happened to guys like Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev, who (according to Wikipedia), “…used to eat a 36-egg omelette for breakfast every day.”

(Wikipedia)

Instead, we get guys like Michael Phelps, with body-hugging athletic attire. It’s enough to make me contemplate working out, I tell you, if I didn’t have a bad back from sitting too long. And I can’t help but notice that my wife seems to be taking more of an interest in the games this time around. This worries me.

By the time the Olympics wrap up, I’ll be suffering from a bad back, indigestion, irritated eyes, and low self-esteem. The athletes aren’t the only ones who have to fight through pain.

My only hope is to take it all in moderation. Choose my events. Carb-load at the right times. Because when you think about it, the Olympics aren’t a sprint, they’re a marathon.