I came saw an ancient forum (circa 2003) about prerace rituals and that got me thinking about how god awful stupid I must have looked before any of my races!
The splashing, crazy stretching, water spitting (which almost got me beat up once), the boxing thing, and finally the quick prayer. That’s a lot to do before you swim. Maybe it helped me by taking some of the focus off of the nerves. Or maybe it hindered my ability to focus on the race at hand.
All I know is that I must have looked like a nutbar behind the blocks.
Notable prerace rituals –
Gary Hall and his boxing garb and flexing routine is a classic example.
Phelps with the headphones and the arm swing once he’s on the blocks.
Seth and AJ with their damn clapping on the blocks.
JR did some good crowd waving at the 07 Sun Belt meet, before front halving the shit out of his 200 fly.
Some KC Blazers do stupid nordics and jumping jacks, which is at least amusing.
Backstokers have some crazy antics once they enter the pool.
If I’m leaving any out make sure to add a comment!
greg
p.s. the water spittinng incident occured at the Little Rock Invite in Dec. 2004 when Ben Labowitz from Drury University (picture huge, hairy, New Zealander) thought I spit in his lane and wanted to kill me after prelims and was even yelling at me in the warm down pool. We smoothed it out and actually partied together a bit in my later college years. the end.
1 response so far ↓
Lesley // August 15, 2008 at Friday, August 15, 2008 |
Temple!!!! I would like to thank you for writing this blog, but since I stumbled across it, I am sure my productivity has dropped. (In that aspect, I am sure my employer is not happy.) I also laughed out loud when I read the thing about JR, got insulted when you talked shit on the Blazers, and remember fondly the day Ben almost killed you. Hope all is well.