My Beef with Swimming

There’s something that bothers me about Olympic swimming. It’s not that I doubt the ability and athleticism of swimmers; they are clearly incredible athletes. It’s more that with all the recent buzz over American swimmer Michael Phelps and his bazillion gold medals, it seems a bit unfair. Here’s my beef: it doesn’t seem fair that swimmers can compete in like 15 medal events in the same Olympics. Let me explain. In running, for example, one trains for one or MAYBE two races (100m and 200m, 1500m and 5k). My problem with swimming is that swimmers can compete in all of these races, while a runner has to train specifically for each distance. If you want to run the marathon, you train for the marathon and you put all of yourself into it. You can’t run the marathon and the 100m and the steeplechase in the same Olympics.

I have a related beef with Michael Phelps, himself, which is actually more a beef with the media and how they refer to him as “the greatest Olympian of all time.” This cannot be claimed of anyone. Yes, Phelps does have the most gold medals of any Olympian, but does this make him the greatest? No. It may make him the best Olympic swimmer of all time, but the best Olympian? I think not. Think about decathletes, pentathletes, people who compete in multiple events but only get one medal for their abilities. What would make somebody the greatest Olympian? Is it about how many medals they win? How many records they set? How fast they run, swim, bike? Or maybe the span of their Olympic careers?

Anyways, enough of that. Today was a little stressful. I had a lot of pain in my left hip this morning, which was pretty worrisome. Needless to say, I did not run today. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on my feet and luckily, I’m feeling a lot better now. Hopefully I’ll still feel ok tomorrow. I believe that Annie and I are running together in the afternoon sometime. It should be fun.

I enjoyed a lazy morning. I woke up relatively early but spent most of the time just sitting around. I played some music, cleaned my room a bit, and just enjoyed not doing anything. I picked up Annie from work and we spent some time at her house babysitting her little cousins and then taking them home. I did a little more painting in the office and she went out with Liz Bedell. Addy called me from her hippy camp in Vermont. It was good to hear from her. I also heard from Max and Colin today; I’m hoping to be able to see them in the next few weeks before I leave.

Ok, so I have the rest of this week, next week, and then the week after that. I’m going to try and break it down a bit and see if I can actually get all of this stuff done. So, tomorrow I’m hoping to see Fitz with Annie in the evening and hopefully spend most of the afternoon with her. Friday, Annie heads up to Maine in the late afternoon. Hopefully, we’ll get some time in the afternoon. Also, I think I’m running with Jon Waldron in the morning or some time. Then, this weekend I might go to Martha’s Vineyard to chill with Duncan. Then it’s next week, Annie’s last week here. I’m hoping to spend most of the week with her. Some things I want to do: go rock climbing, swim across Walden Pond, go for a day hike, camp out together, go to Kennedy’s Pond. Well, that’s five things and there are five days…Oh my.

My last week here I’m hoping won’t be too tainted with the fact that Annie is gone. I want to try and get to Six Flags with Addy. I also want to see a bunch of people before I leave. Also, one more thing I want to do in the next 2½ weeks is run a 9:42 3000m. We’ll see.