to "go to the Olympics"

10 years ago today, the Olympics kicked off in Vancouver. 10 years. 

I went back through my calendar and found my New Year's Resolution plan from last year. I was going to increase the amount that I wrote and ensure that I was exercising this muscle. I was impressed with myself that I wrote down "It is not my side hustle, it is a muscle I am building". Good for me! It also takes a lot of the pressure to perform, for myself, and for others.

I obviously have good reason to not be any where near my goal. It was a stretching goal and having a bit of a change in the format of the year, and now the rest of my life, won't get it back on track for this season anyway. I have to say, I cut myself slack, because if I don't it I will try to beat myself up over it.

Every so often I get pretty adventuresome and do something that requires a bit of effort and planning. Whenever I get asked, how did you ------? I think of the time that I went to watch the Olympics. I used to say, when I went to the Olympics but then would have to have the strange conversation of "no, I didn't PLAY in the olympics, I was a spectator". Yes, big whup. You and every other Canadian went to watch the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

But not everyone did.

And not everyone knew how.

And not everyone knew what was required.

Rewind to late 2008.

My best friend, and excitement coordinator, was also a big fan of large scale events. Up until marriage, if I did anything remotely exciting it was because she made sure we were heading in that direction. Somewhere along the way she had decided that we MUST go see the olympics and what better opportunity than when it was in our home country. Logistics be damned we were going. Also, if SHE ever gets around to reading this SHE will be irritated that I used SHE instead of HER name... if you know HER you know pronouns are HER pet peeve.

To get tickets you had to log in and create an account with their lottery. According to my bestie, I have a silver spoon up my rear and though she was on her computer a good half an hour before me, I got through first. The sport categories opened before us. She wanted to watch curling (poke me in the eye, no thank you!), then she suggested Figure Skating. I wasn't opposed but I don't fully understand the sport and wanted to see medals handed out on the same day. A good pragmatic, I wanted a start and end on the same day, no fuss, no commitment.

We called our other friends asked if they wanted to join in. One friend said yes, which was very fortunate for us as she had family in the Vancouver area and therefore a place for us to camp out (we hadn't thought that far ahead).

We were all very into snowboarding at the time and a new sport at these Olympics was Snowboard Cross. A race down a mountain in heats that took a half day and a medal presentation happened at the end. We selected all of this in about 30 minutes, a very well thought out plan.

We flew into Vancouver on the night of the opening ceremonies. We watched the spectacle, including the unfortunate flame debacle, from a comfy couch on the other side of Vancouver. We took public transit all over the city and the bestie and I did what we always did, we put on too many kilometres. We nearly killed our other friend that was unaccustomed to our normative 20 km hikes around cities we had never been in. Vancouver is a very walkable city, but it kills anyone that goes in and out of Granville Island twice. That climb. Just thinking of it makes me weepy. I think we walked the whole seawall.

Then came the day of our event, rather, the day we watched the event. It's very easy to make it sound like I was competing. We got dropped off at the buses, went up the soggy hill where they had trucked in snow from somewhere else. We were up the mountain before the sun was.


Snowboard cross is a very fun sport. Racing around the mountain, bobbing up and down mowgels, shredding around corners and the last harrowing leap down a mountain onto a steep drop to careen past the finish line. Maëlle Ricker did it with expedience in her first heat. And handily won the gold medal. I hope never to forget that moment. We were jumping up and down and screaming, shaking our Olympic bells, and I turned to my friends and screamed "I peed my pants a little!".

So that is how you go to the Olympics. You just start somewhere but you start early. You have to make up your mind that you are going to do something and then become almost singular in your goal, the details will work themselves out, you just need to keep your sights set on "going to the Olympics".

That's all.