Faster Than Me and almost the Rest of the World!

Imagine playing your favorite sport. How much time would you put into it? An average high school soccer player probably practices 7 hours a week, give or take, with a few games in there it might be more. Now imagine being a professional and playing soccer and training full-time, that’s 40 hours a week. And guess how many really good professional players there are in the world, and what they have to do to make the Olympic team? Another way I try to get perspective is by putting together my time in comparison to an Olympian’s time. So let’s take swimming for instance, not my favorite sport. A good high schooler can swim a 100 YD freestyle in 54 seconds or so. It takes me, who can swim, but not very efficiently and skipping flip turns, about 2 minutes. Then an Olympic swimmer will swim a 100 METER freestyle (longer than yards remember!) in 54 seconds. Can you imagine? And marathon times! Records linger around the 2 hour 5 minute mark for men, 2:15 for women. And my time, twice as slow. My best finish was 4:14. That’s perspective enough for me. When I watch these athletes in August, I will be in awe of their abilities, their dedication and their presence in the WORLD of sports! Check out www.nbcolympics.com to follow the games and to join in with the whole world this August!