How I Rationalize My Athletic Failures

As I age (and age and age) I have a new ally in my many shortcomings: rationalization.

"I'd do better but I'm an `older athlete,' so that's o.k."

And then a patient, Cheshire smile.  (Now slowly blink your eyes and pat your belly).

Greying hair turning silvery white adds a sort of distinction to getting worse and worse and worse. Isn't that a dirty trick!

While wishing I were in the Olympics but searching for a way to let myself off the hook I came upon this interesting essay:
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Against Athletic Pride
Brian Jay Stanley

Watching Olympic swimmers paddling through the water with gangly legs and arms, heaving their heads up for air, unequipped with fins or gills, I question the pride of the champions.

Goldfish in an aquarium move more gracefully.

Is not a contest of humans swimming like a contest of fish running?

If animals competed in the Olympics, few humans would win medals.

• An elephant or rhinoceros would hurl our strongest wrestlers from the mat like plastic dolls.
• Our fastest sprinters would lose the 50-meter dash to their cats.
• Schools of sardines would dominate synchronized swimming.

Feats of intellect should be accorded more honor than feats of athleticism.

To be an Einstein is to comprehend more of physics than any other mind in the known universe. But to win a gold medal in the Olympics is merely to stand atop one's narrow class of competitors, human beings, who share the same evolutionary handicaps.

The Olympics are really the Special Olympics.
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Being old enough to find one's own history filed away in a folder in the National Archives (true) puts a new spin on cycling event records. When I turned 60 I was elated. Now I could be at the back of the pack and still be `first' in my age-category. "(F)or his age category" always followed "And a new record was set by Dan Fallon."

Like I have said many times in the past: I'm special. (Given my age).