No, I'm not referring to the American sprinter who fractured his foot while running a leg of the relay. I'm referring to the injuries I suffered while watching the Olympics.
Here's the thing: I've never been an athletic chick. The closest I ever came to lettering in high school was in show choir. I'm a decent runner, but I have some difficulty navigating curbs. Which has led to my established cycle of hand/knee road rash cases every five-to-eight weeks. When I play softball, I am always -- ALWAYS -- the catcher. (For those of you who haven't rocked a summer softball league in awhile, the catcher's only purpose is to keep the game moving along and has zero affect on the actual competitive outcome. Which I didn't find out until halfway through the season. Which made me instantly regret the incessant bragging to friends about how I was so good as catcher that our coach would not let me move to any other positions.)
Basically, I'm not Sporty Spice.
And I'm certainly not Scary Spice. Or Ginger Spice. I can't pull off bangs, so Posh is definitely out...
Dammit, I'm Baby Spice, aren't I? She's the worst one!
Whatever. The point being, for three years and fifty weeks I am completely aware of my physical incapabilities.
Then they light that stupid torch. And all imaginary hell breaks loose.
I am ADDICTED to the Olympics. The drama. The backstories. The gathering of cultural representations in simplified, easily digestible forms: flags, uniforms, Opening Ceremony attire, 30-second sound bytes courtesy of Matt Lauer's research team. Simple, straightforward, basic. It is the Paleo diet of cultural exploration.
This year was no different.
Once the artistic hijinx of the London 2012 Opening Ceremony was over and the competition started, I wound up watching sports I would never care about outside of those five Olympics rings. Riflery? Long jump? Handball? It didn't matter. Half the time I didn't even understand how any points/goals/rounds were scored. But there I sat, rapt, until some final result popped on the screen, the winner(s) cried in victory and the loser(s) cried in defeat. And I, in turn, cried. Especially if they showed any family members also crying. For being an event focused on physical competition, emotions got a fair share of air time.
And then, during one commercial break, I popped in my headphones. Cranked it to some faintly patriotic orchestral music with a kick-ass drum section. With the pounding thuds in my ears, I stood up straight. Focused. Took a deep breath. Mimed drawing an imaginary arrow, nocking it against the bowstring, drew it back until the fletching grazed my cheek ... paused ... then let it fly.
BULLSEYE!
If anyone had peered in my window during the last two weeks, they would have seen me sprinting down my hallway, flapping my arms around and around, only to slam my hand against the closet door and immediately spin and stare at the opposite wall with frantic eyes.
That's what I was doing in the real world. In my head? Those same actions translated to me swimming the final 50 meters of the butterfly stroke, courageously reaching for the wall without taking a final breath, and beating my fiercest competitor from [insert competitive swimming country name here] out by 1/1000 of a second. Like any seasoned competitor, I naturally ignored the cheers from the stands and knew not to celebrate until I saw the official results on the scoreboard.
I was decent in imaginary archery and faux swimming, but my best sport was (obviously) gymnastics. I ran at the vault with reckless abandon. I stuck every landing. I was a blur of ethereal motion on the uneven bars. And, in an unexpected twist, my song selection for my floor routine avoided the traditional classical compositions. Instead, I dared to blast Sleigh Bells' "A/B Machines", an aggressive mix of screaming guitars and sugary vocals that (as one person put it) makes you want to punch someone in the face. And I ROCKED the house.
Here's the catch: while some of my ideas worked out fantastically (plastic bag I tossed up then spiked down at my volleyball competition, I'm looking at you), others were ... well, less thought out. By the end of the first week my walls were stamped with dozens of handprints where I out-touched my swimming competition. Pretty hard to explain that away to friends who come over. ("What happened here?" "Okay, so, I was swimming the anchor leg of the relay...")
Another great idea that turned sour: I taped a ribbon to a ruler to compete in the rhythmic gymnastics all-around. Now I know why the gymnastics venue in London didn't boast any low-hanging chandeliers.
By the second week of Olympic competition, my house was not the only one sporting wounds. Apparently I didn't stretch enough before the semi-final round in beach volleyball because my shoulder was killing me and I could barely lift my arm to the side. Also, during a daring dash to stop a soccer ball from going out-of-bounds, I lost my footing on the hardwood floor and fell, narrowly cracking my head on the coffee table. Who had the crazy thought that hardwood laminate was regulation turf?! And then put a coffee table with sharp corners on the pitch?! Crazy Brits.
By far, the lowest point came the night of the 100m sprint. I sat there, watching each finalist announced, munching on Sun Chips and icing my rotater cuff with a bag of frozen broccoli florets. (Yes, I recognize the nutritious dichotomy of the food I chose to eat and the food I chose to ice with. Those two weeks I ate more crap than I had in the last two months.) All attention was on Usain Bolt to see if he could repeat his record-breaking performance four years ago in Beijing. After bouncing a bit, fist-bumping the attendant in his lane, and playing up to the cameras, the announcer chimed out, "On your marks." Bolt strode forward, knelt on the track, and placed his feet on the starting blocks.
The result from the actual Olympic race isn't important. Set, starting gun, 10 seconds later Bolt won. Whatever.
The key thing is this: Faux Olympic lightning struck.
Starting blocks.
In all my years of running, I had never tried starting blocks! With those, I bet I could shave off a few seconds from my hallway sprinting time. Genius! Thanks, Bolt.
Shrugging off the melting broccoli and dusting off remnant chip dust, I ran down to the basement and grabbed two empty paper boxes left over from my move. Double-stepping it up the stairs, I headed into the dining room and knelt down by the furthest wall directly across from my track lane (hallway). Flipping one box on end, I propped my make-believe starting blocks against the wall. After thinking things through for a second, I decided to fill each box with books to provide a more stable base. I wouldn't want my foot to go through a starting block and thwart my brilliant idea. I mean, how embarrassing would that be?
After popping in my headphones to play some appropriate sprinting music (Radiohead's "Bodysnatchers") I bounced some final hamstring stretches and waved to the adoring crowd.
ON YOUR MARKS.
You know, putting your whole foot on those starting blocks is actually really difficult to do and not lose balance? Especially when said blocks aren't actually angled but rather completely perpendicular to the ground. Eh, just something I'll have to compensate for during my first few strides.
I raise up. Now all of my weight is balanced between my hands on the ground and my feet planted on the starting blocks. What was it that I heard in the behind-the-scenes piece about Bolt? Oh yeah, drive your knee to the ground to really get a good stride. Got it.
Let's do this.
*BANG*
I lift up my hands and drive as hard as I can off my starting blocks ...
... and slam face first onto the floor, skidding half a body length across the ground. My knees, hands, and right cheek immediately throb with rug burn. My headphones pop out of my iPod, instantaneously replacing Radiohead's pulsating guitar riff with ringing, harshly realistic, silence.
This is, by far, one of the stupidest things I have ever done.
I laid there for a second and think about what this must look like: sprawled out on my dining room floor, two feet away from paper boxes leaning against the wall, the Olympic telecast blaring from the other room. If things had gone worse and I had died in this attempt, my only hope would be that the CSI investigators wouldn't have been able to parse out what I had actually been attempting and just marked it down as a cold case.
In the background, I heard Usain Bolt talking with a sideline interviewer. I'm pretty certain Bolt hasn't ever had a start like this.
After a minute, I peeled myself off the floor and assessed the damage. No actual bleeding, just angry-looking red flushes on my hands and legs which throbbed as if to say, "SERIOUSLY?" The carpet took the biggest hit: I spied a skid mark of my make-up on my crash site.
Here's the odd thing about unexpectedly having something slam into your head (like the ground): you start to cry. I did, anyways. I think that type of physical threat must wire up with some survival instinct laying dormant since our primal days. It doesn't happen right away, probably because the first moments are supposed to be devoted to fight or flight. But it creeps up after a moment.
Baby Spice Status: Confirmed. At least my mother wasn't there to witness my defeat.
Aaaaand back to the couch I go.
