Sports have been one of the fundamentals of my life, both watching and playing.
In my mid-school years, I recall playing hockey without skates, using only sticks and pucks and watching the Edmonton Oilers, led by Wayne Gretzky, beat the Soviet Union 4:3 back in December 1983. I recall doing athletics in the 5th grade. Playing football all summer long – each summer – till I was fourteen or so. And watching various football tournaments, both domestic and international, throughout all my life, from the Soviet 1st division back in the 80s to the English Premier League to World Cups.
At 27, I started to study karate, which has become another passion to which I am still loyal, even at 50. I attended a Keokushin-kai seminar at our dojo (karate gym) yesterday and enjoyed doing their technique. I especially liked full-contact sparrings at the end of it!
My other passion is running. I did it in mid-school. I resumed running in 2014 when I decided to run my first marathon, 42K and successfully completed it in Moscow in September of that year.
On March 10, I will launch my 16-week run plan, which should get me on peak form by July 5, when I will try to make my fourth 42K distance in Saint Petersburg; it is called “The White Nights.” This has to do with four runs a week, increasing the total weekly distance, and running no matter what weather is or how busy you are. Wise people say that preparing for a marathon is harder than to actually run one. I agree.
By the way, winter has finally come to Moscow, so I started my snowboarding season, too. That was fun!
Scientifically, performing physical activities helps generate more endorphins in our bodies. The result is called “runner’s high” in running. I get a similar positive feeling while practising karate when you switch off your mind, forget about the world outside, and focus on your exercise, actually living it!
Achieving results in sports is another magic; this can be any sport, in my case, running, karate, and snowboarding. Sometimes, I can play football or volleyball if I have company.
I hope I will be able to get ready to make 42K this summer successfully. I don’t really think of making my PB there as I know that this distance is the “make it or not” affair. In other words, I would be happy to seamlessly go through my run plan before the race and cover it on Day X. It would be great if I could run it faster than 4:23:16, my PB. Yet, I’ll be happy just to do it and not to leave the race because of injury or moral decay somewhere after 30K, when the infamous “marathon wall” hits you hard!
I hope that I will not only watch but actually do sports in the years to come.
How important is sport?
Of course the answer is, very. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that pretends to somehow be above the world it inhabits. The Olympics is not about politics, blah, blah, blah. Bullshit.
Right now, in my country, the United States, the President is using sporting events to distract from his dismantling many government services. For example, he was the first President in history to attend a Super Bowl. He left at half-time, so clearly he didn’t care about the game. A couple days later, he flew Air Force One over a NASCAR racetrack and took the entire presidential motorcade for a spin around the track. The Romans called it “bread and circuses”.
He’s been successful, every minute spent commenting on these distractions is a win. Let them eat cake! Meanwhile, some guy from South Africa is dismantling the FAA while the good people of Canada shovel pieces of an American flagged jet off their runway. Are you not entertained?
Jon Dart writes in The Conversation “Many on the political left, including the linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, view sport as serving the interests of capitalism, in part by entertaining, pacifying and disciplining the working class.” Mr. Dart goes on to explain that sport is indeed important and fills a need in society, and I agree.
In general, professional sport transfers money from the working class to the one percent. Elite level players are artistes and deserve the adulation but like most things in life, it’s a mixed bag. When a country wins the World Cup, there’s more than a little ugly nationalism mixed in with the pride. Price gouging for tickets, over-priced jerseys, even six-dollar hot dogs serve to fill the already stuffed pockets of investors and owners.
It would be easy, and wrong, to think I’m against sports: I’m not. However, I do believe once you get much beyond sports in primary education and weekend leagues at the local park, money corrupts.
How important is sport?
I simply cannot imagine what would take its place in my life. I suppose my father had something to do with it – he was a massive football follower, and as far back as I can remember, he took me to see our local town football club play every Saturday. I have a memory that my first experience of a top-flight game was when we went to see Charlton Athletic play Arsenal at The Valley; I was part of a 70,000 crowd back in 1956, when I was just four years old. I have been a massive Arsenal supporter ever since.
Amazingly, considering dad was an eastern European immigrant, he taught me to play cricket, unknown in his native Poland, another sport of which I am a huge fan. In fact, you name it, I love rugby, athletics, tennis, and a host of other sports – only horse racing and Formula 1 fail to ignite my sporting obsessiveness.
I am fanatical about sport, both as a supporter and a participant. I play lawn and table tennis, lawn bowls, snooker, and I love running 5km races. Many of my greatest memories concern sport. I remember watching the 1971 Cup Final with my then wife-to-be; when Charlie George scored Arsenal winning goal, my arms shot up in delight, knocking Mrs B’s head against the wall, and rendering her unconscious for a full five minutes! She still married me, and we are still together after half a century…….
These days, I watch every match of the season involving my team, Arsenal. I go to a local bar which shows all the games, and I join a group of like-minded individuals and experience all the highs, and of course the lows, that come with this extreme passion. The first entries in my diary are the dates and times of my team’s matches which means the rest of my life tends to revolve around those appointments.
Looking back, even my mum enjoyed sport, especially the competition surrounding ice dancing and figure skating. Sadly, we lost her the very year that Britain’s Torvill and Dean made Olympic history.