Well, I didn’t survive long enough last night to watch the men’s gymnastics finals. I was able to stick it out and catch the rest of the women event finals though. I don’t always agree with the results but I enjoy watching anyway.
Have I mentioned how in love with the Olympics I am this year though? Not since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer have I been so enraptured. Plus, back in ’94 I was really just fixated on the figure skating and watched almost nothing else. This time around I’m getting a taste for it all.
Gymnastics is great and I’ve always loved diving, but there is something about the non-subjective events that sparks a chord of pure ‘sport’ to me. You cross the finish line first, you get the gold. End of story. I like that.
Swimming definitely falls into this category but for some reason doesn’t strike the chord in me that the track and field events have. Maybe because in swimming, you don’t really see the athletes faces and can’t follow and get absorbed in the emotions of the event.
The first events I saw were the men’s and women’s 10,000m races. Not the time commitment of watching a marathon but the distance was great for watching the runners jostle and jockey for position! I tend to listen to the backstories of the athletes and then pick a runner to root for. In the women’s event, I picked Tirunesh Dibaba from Ethiopia because that was her only race. She was incredible and surged past the crowd in the final lap to win by almost 6 seconds. In a race, that seemed like an eternity.
I was rooting for the Americans in the men’s event (we got silver – hurray!) but you had to appreciate what Mo Farah was able to accomplish in front of the home country. I’m sure that was a moment he’ll never forget.
Sally Pearson – I watched her hurdle in the semifinals and it looked like she just effortlessly floated over the hurdles. Seriously, she didn’t look like anyone else on the track and I was pleased to see she won the final too. She really looked the best and USA or not, I like to see the best athletes win. Oh, and can I have her abs? (Or any of the track and field women’s abs???)
Lolo Jones – she just barely missed out on the medal podium but I just love her. She has such a positive attitude and I hope she feels redeemed after her disappointment in missing the finals at Beijing.
Meanwhile I’m rocking my 100 miles in August challenge. There’s a contractor who I’m doing a side bet with and I kicked it into a higher gear yeaterday with 8850 steps. He was ahead of me by over 5000 steps yesterday so I have ground to make up! My co-worker Angela is also doing the challenge and found out they are letting us count biking into the mileage. Wa-hoooo!!!
I chatted with a few hard-core biking buddies about the typical mile conversion for biking vs running effort. Typically, 3 miles of biking is the equivalent to a mile of walking. That makes sense too since the 13 miles I did on Sunday over the same time would have covered only 4 miles or so walking. Hopefully I can beef up my step total with some biking over the weekend. So far though, ahead of the daily step count and on track!
Ben is a HUGE fan of pasta and when we first started dating we’d buy ravioli from the grocery store. Once I got more aware and began eyeing up all my package labels, I told Ben the 50+ ingredients and 3 kinds (THREE!!) of MSG in the ravioli would not ever be purchased. So imagine my delight when I found some new ravioli to try. Plus, the ingredient list is blissfully short and I can identify all the ingredients.
Seirously, the ingredients are so short I could make these myself (maybe, or maybe not).
super-cute little ravioli pieces:
After cooking they plump up beautifully with just the right amount of filling in each piece.
I topped it with some pasta sauce combined with some ground beef. With all these extra steps I’m doing I want to make sure I’m getting adequate protein. Maybe it’s time to start logging a week of eats into the calculator to see where I generally am. Never hurts as a sanity check to keep me on track.
Not sure what will be on tonight but lov’in the Olympics. I wish it would never end!!
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