The beautiful weather continues. It has been lovely for almost a week now, which is basically unheard of for August in Houston. The weathermen keep saying that the nice weather is about to end, and that we’ll soon be returning to our regularly scheduled heat. Each time I walk outside I find myself holding my breath in anxious anticipation, hoping that the oppressive humidity hasn’t quite returned.
It hasn’t. Yet.
This morning Jen O. pointed out the other reason swimming is so appealing as an Olympic sport — the incredible hotness of the swimmers, of course. 😉 She just made it to Seattle and is trying to settle in while trying not to miss California too much. I wish I could offer her some advice, but the truth is that it’s been more than two years since I left and I still miss it. She’s right — the weather out there really does make you happy every time you walk outside, and the proximity to beautiful recreation areas was awesome.
Wistful sigh.
I was doing mental calculations last night as I watched more Olympic swimming. I’m a pretty decent swimmer, not spectacular, but I won a few races in my time. So though I knew the Olympic swimmers were fast, I didn’t know how fast. They cover any given distance in almost half the time it would take me. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me so much, as marathon runners run twice as fast as I do. I guess I thought that, compared to the best in the respective sports, I was a much better swimmer than runner. Turns out that the difference is pretty slight.
I also read an interesting NY Times article debating whether elite athletes are approaching the limit of human ability. The article explains that records have not been falling as often as they used to; however, it also explains that performances today are just now catching up to the performances of the 70s and 80s when widespread drug use was suspected, but not always detectable. Today, with the intense focus on drug use, athletes seem less likely to dope.
I read articles like this on a fairly regular basis, but I find the issue interesting every time. I have no doubt that someone will eventually break the marathon record, for example. A man will run it faster than Paul Tergat’s 2:04:55 and a woman will beat Paula Radcliffe’s 2:15:25. But I highly doubt that anyone will ever run it faster than, say, an hour and a half. Obviously that would be a huge gap to close, and the point is that somewhere between 2:04:55 and 1:30:00 lies a time that humans will never beat without some sort of genetic mutation! Is there any way to figure out where that line is? I wonder.
Ali says
How do u know that 2:04:55 is not that “limit” ? With any reason u give me, i can prove that any other time cannot be that limit either 😉