MY MICHELLE PHELPS PHANTASY

Every few years, people inspired by fantastic feats of athleticism, underestimated underdogs, and sensational skill dream their own Olympic dream! These dreams send herds of people signing up for gymnastics and cannonballing into the pool!

For me, I’m convinced that I’m Michael Phelps’ twin, Michelle, and had I not moved from Baltimore as a child, that he’d have been drafting off of me in a pool.

SIMILARITIES:

• Birthdays – he’s June 30, I’m June 03 – mistake on my birth certificate?
• From Baltimore and Towson
• Competitive Swimmers – me in high school, as a senior they had to put me on Varsity

IT’S A STRETCH:

• He’s 6’4”, I’m 5’3 ¾”
• I’m Asian, he’s Cauc-asian
• He swims 200m Freestyle in 1:42:96; I take 4:00:00 – different training regime

OK, you non-believers, call it what you want, but the Phelps phenomenon got my butt back in the pool today after a year – or two!  After summoning all the strength from my shoulders and giving my abs fair warning, I put my toes over the edge of the pool, one foot over the water and slipped in gracefully (from what I could tell underwater).

STARTING TO SEE YOUR POINT:

• Barely managed 100m straight – after training my son 2 weeks ago to do so
• Innate skill to damage myself standing still – I don’t drown while swimming so fast that churning water surrounds my face, I choked when I sucked in water still holding onto the pool’s edge. I pushed off to cough underwater so nobody can hear me drowning (from what I could tell underwater)
• Dizzy brunette – While rocking the backstroke (my edge over Michael – he hasn’t dominated that stroke!), I arched my head back, chin up to enjoy the view from under the water but returning to proper position caused some sort of whirlpool in my ear that went straight to my nausea center. I tried to swim past it and thankfully didn’t puke in the pool.

STILL A WIN-WIN SITUATION:

• Best exercise for your heart and body!
• I love tan lines
• Fellow swimmers – I’ll take meeting some dude with endless abs in swimming goggles over meeting some guy in beer goggles.

What’s your Olympic fantasy? How will you fulfill it?

What?  Phelps is retiring and Nathan Adrian is half-asian and a swimmer… so am I…