For the Love of Sport
There’s a few things that really define me. My love of the past, my love of travel and living in new places, and athletic endeavors. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love all three. I’ll be traveling again in a few weeks, and I’ve always got my head stuck in the past, but right now it’s just the best time for sport.
It’s an Olympic year, there are all kinds of championships and trials happening — including the track and field trials that just wrapped in my home state of Oregon — and July in my house means only one thing: the Tour de France. It’s an annual tradition I look forward to every year and have been doing so for longer than I dare to admit. Let’s just put it this way, I watched Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds live. Yeah, that long ago.
Sometimes I’ve even combined travel with sports. I’m an avid Seahawks fan, so I’ve been to Seattle for games. I went to the Track and Field World Championships in Eugene a couple years ago. I was at the top of Alpe d’Huez in France 100 meters from the finish line to see Lance Armstrong beat Jan Ullrich after giving him “The Look” at the bottom of the hill. I went to Belgium three years later to catch the prologue stage of the Tour de France, and I went to Madrid a couple years after that for the final stage of the Vuelta a España, riding in a team car nonetheless — a bucket list item if there ever was one! And the most important of all, I’ve gone to Canada to cheer for my husband when he finished the Ironman Triathlon, giving us both a memory that will last a lifetime.
My love of sport started when I was a child. It began with ballet when I was three, but what really got me hooked was seeing my first Olympic games on TV when the gymnast Olga Korbut captured the world’s attention and heart. Such grace and skill. Who knew people could do stuff like that? I wanted to be her. Since then, I’ve played tennis, swam, done multi-sport events, gotten into cycling, and finally settled into running as the one I love most. I’ve done lots of races at various distances including 11 half-marathons. I’ve got a gym in my basement. Of course.
The fitness aspect is certainly a big part of it for me. There is no doubt that being physically strong makes you mentally fitter and happier too. I don’t need any studies to tell me this; I know it firsthand. Though the science is definitely not hard to find, if you’re someone inclined to need proof. I remain amazed and deeply humbled by what the body is capable of and how strong we really are. It is the ultimate in well-designed machines, and if you trust it, listen to it, and care for it, then when you ask things of it, it tends to rise to the occasion. To me, it’s an incredible vehicle that is getting me through this life, and I feel a lot of gratitude for what it enables me to do.
That’s not to say things can’t or don’t go wrong. Illness, aches, breaks, and myriad other problems can happen. But you make adjustments and hopefully have the courage to know it’s possible to soldier on. One look at any paralympian will tell you that.
However, the other really critical thing that sport has always impressed on me is how important friendly competition can be for bringing people together — something that seems desperately needed in the world today. I know people have their teams and feel strongly about them in that “us versus them” sort of way, and there are plenty of people who think the Olympics are nothing more than nationalism run amok. But that divisive and negative way of looking at it is only one view.
What has been my experience in any race I’ve ever been in is that no matter what your gender, height, age, weight, ability, or even politics or religion, when you’re out on the road sweating with the masses, everyone is simply a competitor. It’s common ground and a sort of shared kinship bond that’s maybe hard to convey, but if you’ve felt it, you know what I mean. People are friendly, will pick you up if you fall, ask you if you’re okay, and cheer you on. It definitely feels like belonging to something that’s larger than just yourself. It’s humbling and makes you feel small while at the same time empowering and making you feel bigger.
And it’s no secret that sport can also teach us valuable life lessons like how to be a team player and consider the talents that others bring to the game, how to focus and work toward a goal, and how to both win AND lose with grace. I think it’s a big part of why we like our kids to play sports and learn these lessons early — it builds character and makes for better human beings. There’s also that old chestnut that 90% of success in life is just showing up. Sports remind us that it’s important to try and to persevere. Regardless of the outcome, just get yourself to the start line. Life is not a spectator sport.
People also need role models. I know I have certainly been inspired by people like Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, Allyson Felix, and my current crush Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. They make me want to be better and stronger.
So, for a few hours every day from now until July 21st I’ll be watching the fittest people on two wheels, cheering for the Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard to pull out a third win of the Tour de France — I mean, c’mon, he’s a Viking so I have to root for him! And then five days later I’ll be back on the couch cheering on Olympic runners and throwers and jumpers and swimmers and everyone else who has put in the time and energy and dedication and heart to be the best that they can be.
It’s a display of everything that it means to be fully human. That’s what fuels my love of sport.