The Olympics!

My bionic ear is now working brilliantly. We made a bonzai run to the really really big city on Friday because my ear stopped working-as in oh my God, I've gone completely deaf; a quick call to the dr led to a trip south to find out everything is normal-it's all part of the healing process. I just wish I had a little warning before the surgery that this might happen. fortunately, my hearing returned to normal-no, wait, it's better than normal. Hearing is a very good thing!

I love the Olympics, both the summer and winter versions. My only complaint is that the networks usually don't air the more esotoric sports, sticking to the more popular figure skating, snowboarding and skiing events. I was pleasantly surprised when Hubby and I caught the biathlon-definitely a favorite sport to watch, being a target shooter and all...

I have a very nice little 22 target rifle that's an older version of the Russian biathlon gun. If you watched the sport on tv, you saw that the guns have a toggle rather than a bolt for jacking a new round into the chamber; thus, the shooter taps the bolt, squeezes the trigger, and shoots. You may have noticed that the athlete didn't look up as he did this, keeping his eye on his targets. I have yet to master this skill. I'm not nearly as smooth as these world class shooters, even on my best day under perfect conditions. I've tried toggling a round into the chamber without moving the gun or looking up and I just can't do it. This is why these people are Olympic athletes. You have to be a shooter to understand just how difficult this skill is to attain. And then, lets add a little high cardio cross country skiing into the mix-now, not only do you need to be a rock steady, robot accurate shooter, you have to be a fast skier. You have to control your heart rate and bring yourself back to the zen of accurate shooting a split second after a heart pumping ski trek. I noticed that a lot of the competitors missed their first shot, and this didn't surprise me. I'm convinced that no amount of training will teach the body to drop from a fast heartrate to a slow calm demeanor that quickly. I am absolutely in awe of the competitors in this particular sport, because in my own very small way, being a shooter and a runner, I can understand the difficulty in what they do.

The last few times that Hubby and I have gone shooting, we've mostly played with new black powder toys and I haven't fired my target rifle in a while. Watching the Olympics has inspired me to take the gun out and see how many holes I can poke in a paper target. I want to try, yet again, to fire 5 rounds without having to look away from the scope. Hmmm...we don't have anything going on this afternoon....