Do you consider yourself an athlete?

I think the athlete is in all of us just waiting to come out. We all were swimmers right from the very beginning.

I think the word coordinated is a big part of being an athlete. Coordinated enough to participate in a sport w/o killing yourself or anybody else! Seriously, I think of myself as an athlete who got a bit sidetracked for awhile and is now on a path of being athletic to be healthy. I no longer compete and when I hear the sentence "i am an athlete" I would assume that person competes in their sport.

To me somebody who's athletic participate in competitions. Since I don't, I guess I can only classify myself as "active".

Originally posted by geochuck When I was young and went to the pool you had to step into a foot bath of chlorinated water. This was to kill athletes foot, I guess we where athletes before stepping into this water, I don't know about after. How to cure athlete's foot www.alive.com/.../index.php

I consider myself an athlete - as a chess player! - but not as a swimmer.

There should have been a place to answer "used to be." And, while we're quibbling, Jon Kruk was a first baseman, not a catcher. Cherub

I don't think you have to compete to be an athlete. I always considered someone who had an innate ability to be athletic. An athlete works at a sport talent/no talent competition/no competition. I compete, but consider my teammates who don't to be just as much an athlete as I am.

I think there's a difference between going to the gym a lot and seriously training / competing in a sport. It's one thing to swim laps or to run for pleasure and another to swim in a meet or run a marathon. Both of the later activities take training, a focus on certain dietary things, and often extra activities like strength training. Does that mean those people who train at the level of a competitive swimmer or runner or cyclist and choose not to compete are not athletes? No, I don't think that's the case. I think the defining criteria for the athlete is someone who can compete at some level (masters, college, professional, olympic, whatever you call marathon level). Whether or not they chose to is up to them.

I agree with hmlee's statement. I consider myself not because I compete, but because I could compete. And I probably will do so more often in the near future. I see a lot of 'amateur racers' (meaning Cat 2 and 3) while I am out riding my bike. I can keep up with most of them, and I suspect that most of the ones I can't keep up with are the Cat 1 boys (and women). Yet I have never done a bike race in my life. But riding 60-120 miles per week gives you the endurance base of a racer. Now if I can just convince myself to do more races.

I am an athlete. Swimming has been in my blood since i was 8 years old (52 now). The (literally) spiritual experience i have when swimming tells me, i am where i was created to be. Also, to be an athlete merely requires "BEING" an athlete. There is a "beingness" to athlete. Hope this ain't too metaphysical but it is my belief. byefornow