the danger of the olympics

big d's random thoughts

the winter games in torino went according to my standard olympic habits. i look forward to the olympics every two years. for whatever reason, i don't actually start watching the games until a few days in. then i get into it, and don't want to watch much else. (the obvious exception was 2002 in salt lake. you can't help but be into it from start to finish when it's your olympics. it was fun seeing all the media coverage of things happening in your backyard!)

anyway, much of the coverage i have seen this year, is of the various speed skating and figure skating. last night was a neighborhood party at the local roller rink. you can probably guess what followed. that's right. me, on my backside!

now, i am no athlete. i'm not incredibly coordinated. i'm not even in great shape. but, you know how it goes. your kids are wanting to try it, and you remember having fun in younger years, so...

quick note. things are almost opposite what you'd think. roller skates are much worse than roller blades! you'd think four corners is better than a straight line. what you don't realize, is that you have two feet, so you can control your side to side tipping easier. unlike the long roller blades, the wheels are both well under your feet, so your front to back tipping is the concern. its like learning to stand on feet that are suddenly four sizes too small, and that are on wheels. long story short, roller blades, ice skates, (figure or hockey) banana peels, are all much easier to stay upright on than roller skates.

anyway, even after the kids are bored and off the rink, dad feels like he needs to make at least a few laps, just to feel like he can at least do something he used to do. (not well. ever.) i can usually ice skate without ever falling. i still don't turn really well, and i've never been able to stop quickly! but i want to be able to, so i keep practicing.

so as the story goes, my downfall isn't some great olympic attempt at speed, or some kind of trick. it came from not wanting to kill the little kid that blindly cut right in front of me. that's right, as you can imagine, in a rink full of kids of all ages, on every kind of wheeled device imaginable, the danger was inevitable. so a two or three year-old boy on a small three-wheeled scooter basically makes a wide u-turn right in front of me. (you recall my inability to turn sharp, or stop fast.) that's right, my awkward attempt resulted in the kid having no clue that anything had happened, me landing on by butt and right elbow. hard. after waving off the appologies of his mother, i made another lap, purely out of pride, and then returned my deathtrap skates to the counter.

so in the end, i didn't have protruding bone, or flowing blood, or any of the other things this kind of pain had me imagining. i had nice floor-burn slightly larger than a quarter. it had to be worse than that. didn't it?

well the day after is always worse. my elbow still hurts like crazy when i bump something, or flex it completely. the sad thing is the myriad of other muscles i am now keenly aware of. yes, i am out of shape, and i need to do something about that, but haven't i just proved that fat old men shouldn't exercise. therein lies my dilemma. i guess until i figure this out, i'll just add these pains to those of my sickness (see previous posts) like the pain in my back from coughing so much, and have myself a good old-fashioned pity party.