matt weighs in

I don’t know if everyone at catnamedpig has been as enthralled by the Olympics as me, but we’ve spent a little bit of time in front of the tv for the last week. In saying “a little bit,” I mean, of course, from 7pm until after midnight. Siena’s usually there for the first hour, Laura gives up by 10pm, and I’ve been in it for the long haul.

I don’t exercise really at all, except for playing basketball on about 14 Sundays each year. But I might take up swimming, which like most kids, I spent everyday doing in the summer during my youth. We’ve been doing it with Siena and Elliot almost every weekend this summer, and then watching the Olympics this last week has made me think, like a lot of people, that it might be fun to get into it again.

However, unlike in my youth, when I would spend three-to-four hours at the pool every afternoon, I fear that I won’t be able to stick with it, as swimming laps isn’t nearly as fun as diving off the diving board, playing marco polo or tag and trying to dunk my friends. In fact, my guess is that I will be out of the water within 30 minutes the first time I try to actually swim.

Four or five years ago, I agreed to swim ten laps in a swim-a-thon for the YMCA, for which I raised maybe $25. For some reason, after finishing ten laps, the lifeguards keeping track of the swimmers pushed me to go for 20. I have no idea why, but I agreed, even though I rested about 30 seconds after laps seven, eight, nine and ten. I was breathing hard and wanted to go home.

Ten minutes later I was done – that’s one length per minute if you’re scoring at home. I pulled myself out of the water, walked wearily to the locker room, sat on the bench and almost passed out. I distinctly remember putting my head between my legs, so I didn’t fall over in front of the 3-year-old boy and his dad on the other side of the room (side story: When I was 15, I passed out in a McDonald’s in Mankato, MN, while waiting in line to order breakfast. I was ok, thanks to the 7-year-old boy behind me who broke my fall. My VFW baseball teammates didn’t let my ego recover for awhile, though).

So, with that in mind, I might begin to swim and get some exercise outside of lifting up two kids every day. I expect to be eating as much as Michael Phelps does within 3 months.

I’ve also been following the Minnesota Twins A.L. Central Division race pretty closely and wish they could somehow get in front of the White Sox by a game or two soon. Every time the Twins have pulled ahead in the standings, they lose the next game and fall behind again. I was skeptical when they called up Francisco Liriano two weeks ago, but am very happy they did. The results have been great.

And speaking of the Twins, I’m excited about their new ballpark.