Froodee

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To Glide or to Stroke

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Sometimes you just really have to choose how you will end your race.  Whatever race that is… will you choose to stroke hardest to the finish or will you glide?  The choice for Michael Phelps was all but normal. He was a born champion since his first swimming lessons at 8 years of age.  He knew that every stroke counted as his last.  And during the Beijing Olympics, that last stroke dashed him ahead by .01 millions of a second before his closest rival.  

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task.

“My will to live completely overcame my desire to win.” Olympic swimming has come a long way, to temperature-controlled 50-metre pools, wave-killing gutters, lane markers designed to reduce turbulence, and status as one of the Games’ glamour events. It is far removed from those early days. American swimmer Michael Phelps set the all-time single Olympics gold-medal record by passing Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven. Phelps won his eighth gold medal at the Beijing Games, swimming the third leg for the Americans in the winning four-by-100-meter medley relay. It was also his 14th career gold medal, another record. He also won gold at 200 freestyle, 200 butterfly, 4-by-200 freestyle relay, 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly.

Desire, dedication, determination, concentration and the will to win.

Get Your Kids Into The Olympic Bandwagon

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We’re right smack in the middle of the Winter Olympics. Have your kids gotten into the spirit of it all yet? It saddens me that today, some kids would rather play sports via the PlayStation (or any other gaming console) than actually go outdoors and kick some butt. With the Winter Olympics going on, though, it might be a great time to show your kids just how fun actually playing sports is!

How do you do this? Simple: tune in to the broadcasts of the Olympics as much as you can. No matter how you look at it, the games are glamorous enough to encourage your kid to try sports himself/herself.

You don’t stop there, though. More than simply watching the Olympics on TV (and the Net, perhaps), your next step should be to “drag” your kid out and have some real fun.

If you’ve got a little girl, you might want to take her out to the skating rink. There’s no better time than now! Just make sure you glam things up a bit by dressing her up nicely in an Olympic-style tutu. Some glitters and made up hair won’t hurt, too.

For little boys (or girls, even), try cycling. If the weather doesn’t permit, find an inside bike track. Gear your kid up with enough padding and a helmet. Equip yourself with a stopwatch and a red flag (a hanky will do) and go get some training done.

There are many other activities that you can choose from depending on your child’s preferences. The bottom line is that you wrack your brain to up the activity a couple of notches. You never know, you might have an Olympian in the making!