Warm Up Champion

By Jonathan Lam on 06/06/16

Tagged: the-homework-life the-homework-life-thought

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During cross country or track practices, the "warm up champion" is the one to be the "try-hard" during the warm up, only to feel good in the short term by winning an easy "event" and flunk the rest of practice. And I may have did it today.

A little background: I went bowling today. It was the first day of the summer league, so I went in on time, signed up and let the registrars choose a team for me. I was paired with two bowlers, one of whom was new to the league. And so I fraternized with them, got to know them a little better. And we bowled.

The first game I bowled was a 200, on the dot. Not bad. Then a 196. Still pretty great. And then, with a whopping ten strikes, a 269, the high game of the day and the game that made my series and average the highest of the day (and season) as well1.

But it wasn't that that was the most amazing. It was the seven-ten split#7.E2.80.9310_split), of which I had not seen anyone convert2. I had only heard of one bowler in our league who had done it, but it was with a full rack of pins, so it technically wasn't a "split" nor a "conversion."

But what I did was say to my teammates, "I got this, guys. Easy." And I stood up there and threw the ball. It went far right, striking the outside of the ten-pin, which flew backwards, and bounced back up. I noticed this bounce, and before I had time to react, the seven pin came tumbling down. And I thought, cool! and then Oh wait. Did I really just get that?

It was confirmed by the cheering of the few who had seen it, followed by the quick announcement on the loudspeaker and the handshake with the coaches. And Coach told me that converting this infamous "goal-post" split had a one out of ten thousand possibility.

Cool.

And that was only the second game. The third game went much smoother, and I was mostly "in the groove" by then.

I meant to write about this, not only to boost my narcissistic ego, but also because I am frightened. Frightened because I have a 222 average, which is terrible difficult to maintain. Frightened because I cannot live up to the new expectations of my teammates, especially the new bowler from today. Frightened because this wasn't really me, but a freak streak of luck.

So am I a warm up champion? Do I deserve to be booed upon for trying my best at the very start, and doubting myself throughout? I guess I'll just have to see.

1: Presumably, because I did not check. There were many other great games today.

2: Legitimately, I mean. Our coach has a knack for converting it with two simultaneous balls.