Yeah, Olympics!

I really enjoy watching inspirational things on TV.  I enjoy inspirational books as well, but right now I'm just overwhelmed with inspiration by watching constant coverage of the Olympics.  I swear, there is a real shortage of inspiring television these days.  For some reason it has become much more likely for us to "celebrate" idiots like people on Jersey Shore or Real Housewives.  I really don't understand why everyone is so fascinated by watching people who do virtually nothing with their lives aside from basking in their moronic past times.  Too harsh?  Sorry, sometimes I get a bit worked up that reality show stars are filthy rich just because they agree to share their idiotic lives on TV.  I mean, didn't Snooki even "write" a book?  Who are these people who care in the slightest what she has to say?  To be fair, most of my Snooki knowledge comes from the guy who plays her on Saturday Night Live, but I'm guessing based on that I know everything I need to know.

Anyway, that got a bit off track.  The point is that it's awesome to just have days on end of amazing athletic accomplishments available pretty much whenever we want it.  I've been watching a lot of swimming of course, as though hoping I can somehow absorb their fish-like abilities through some form of osmosis.  Based on recent workouts, it hasn't worked as of yet.  It's especially frustrating when watching the distance events.  I swear some of the people in the 1500 kick as little as I do while looking like they're barely working hard and I still probably wouldn't be able to beat them if I tried to swim half the distance in the same time.  And it's not like I'm the worst swimmer ever, they're just inhumanly fast. 

Another fun race today was the women's 10,000 meters on the track.  The woman who won took off on the last lap like she'd hardly been running the previous 24.  62 seconds.  Again, I couldn't run 50 meters at that pace.  I've seen a decent amount of water polo, both men and women.  I think from a swimming standpoint I might be decent at it, but not so much on the trying-to-drown-each-other-under-water side of things.  Perhaps this is the kind of training we all need for triathlon mass swim starts. 

Did anyone get to watch white water kayaking?  They actually built rapids for the games.  My question becomes, what do they do with that course once the Olympics are over?  I somehow doubt there will be a line of people waiting to take their kayaks down for fun.  But then again, they might do things differently in England. 

And who doesn't love a good badminton scandal?  But seriously, if it is to anyone's advantage to lose matches on purpose in order to gain better placing later on, then I think that the system is flawed and it needs to be set up in a way that ensures that they will always want to win. 

Handball is kind of weird and I don't quite get it. 

A woman on the US volleyball team is named Destiny Hooker.  That seems kind of unfortunate but at the same time she has obviously risen above it given the fact that she is an Olympic athlete. 

Speaking of indoor volleyball, why does one player on each team wear a different colored jersey?

In spite of the fact that I did not absorb any swim skills by watching swimming, I'm still sort of hoping for the same when I watch the track events. 

That's all for now.  But it's just a lot of fun to be able to watch so many inspiring athletes and it's sort of incredible how many different sports there are and how many different things you can specialize in.  I'll try and remember to be inspired on my long ride tomorrow.