Project Superhero

by E. Paul Zehr

  Me: “OK. But how do I not get in this situation in the first place? I was trying my hardest to get away.”

  Auntie G: “Let’s change it from getting away to getting out of the way, all right? When you think of it like that, hopefully you see that backing up doesn’t get out of the way, even if you’re putting some distance between us. Let’s try again with you hook stepping your legs and rotating out of the way and slide stepping out of the way like we’ve practiced. If you are doing it right, I won’t be able to just attack you again, because you won’t still be standing right in front of me. I’ll have to move.”

  So we practiced it again. And again, and again, and again. Let’s just say, we did it many, many times! She was very patient with me. Once I was doing a bit better, Auntie G went on to explain to “always try to escape. But you have to plan it and get out of the way, be in a good position to do something like hit your attacker, and then get away.”

  “Safety first makes you last!” was the final bit of advice for the day. Auntie G thought she was being super hilarious. It was funny. Sort of.

  I can’t believe how good it felt to be able to do that. It’s hard to believe I’m able to do this kind of thing, because I’m always having difficulty getting my body to do what I want!

  But by the end of practice today, if I’d had a mask and cape on, I might’ve easily been mistaken for Batgirl! ☺

  MONDAY, JANUARY 12

  I’m Batgirl! I mean in the Slam! Today was the day we had to declare which superhero we are going to be in the Superhero Slam. There were a couple of surprises when Ms. King had everyone announce their superheroes.

  Mine was Batgirl, of course. Audrey said Iron Man (no big surprise either) and Cade went with Aquaman. What a shocker. Mr. Swimmer goes with the ultimate swimming superhero! Does Cade think he can just swim to a win? ☺

  The biggest surprise came from the usual corner — Dylan. And should I have expected anything different from him, really? Dylan, my nemesis, my nightmare. Who did he choose? He chose Batman! Batman, can you believe it?

  I just sat in class stunned by Dylan’s choice. Does he realize Batman’s a HERO, not a VILLAIN? Did he actually mean to choose the Joker or Two-Face or Penguin or something but forgot what he was doing and made a mistake? Ugh.

  I can’t believe his superhero is Batman. Batman is all about hard work, training, and helping others. Just like Batgirl.

  Hard work and helping is so not Dylan. He’s all about coasting, being lazy, and doing as little as possible.

  He CANNOT win the Superhero Slam!

  He MUST not win!

  It would be morally wrong! Yargh!

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 13

  I am going nuts about nutrition. Apparently nuts are good things to eat, so it’s kind of funny what I wrote just now. Or maybe it’s not. Whatever. This is my diary.

  Or journal.

  Or non-blog log.

  So I can

  pretty

  much

  do

  whatever

  I

  want

  here.

  And what I want to do is get a little more serious about what I eat.

  Since I’m doing so much physical activity, I am a lot hungrier a lot more of the time. I also noticed there’s less food around the house for me to snack on . . . because I snacked on it already!

  So I asked Mom about what real athletes eat. She told me if I wanted an extreme example, to go check out what Michael Phelps used to eat when he was swimming up a storm.

  So I did.

  Incredible! He said he ate like 12,000 calories a day while training for the 2008 Summer Olympics. An average guy his age might eat about 2,000 calories. Yikes. But he was swimming and training hours every day so he was using up lots of energy.

  Gets me wondering how much food it takes to be an active teen like Batgirl and how many calories she would use up. You know, if she were a real person.

  Mom showed me a website that would give me an idea of how much energy I use every day. She said that to really do this properly I’d need to come into her lab. But this website was a good estimate.

  I’m not sure I would’ve found that site on my own. Mom had to tell me to search for “basal metabolic rate.” Any­way, there’s also all kinds of other calculators out there!

  I put in my height (5-foot-5), my weight (130 lbs), and my age (13) and then presto the calculator said . . . drumroll please . . . 1464.9 calories. Sweet. Mom said that’s the amount of calories I need to eat every day just so my body stays as it is. Without any activity. Like, no gym, no karate, no climbing, no nothing extra. To just stay alive, basically.

  Mom said my calories every day would go up (or down) based on how active (or not) I am. She told me to times my number by 1.7, since I am so active every day. That means about 2,500 calories a day. Cool. Exactly how much energy Batgirl uses depends on what she is up to that day (or night!).

  She’s drawn a bit bigger than me in lots of the comics and for sure she’s more active. She could easily use up to 3,000 calories each day. To stay in balance, Batgirl needs to consume the right amount of food on those days.

  Here are three ridiculous things Batgirl could eat to get those 3,000 calories:

  6 burgers (6 x 500 calories)

  30 small apples (30 x 100 calories)

  15 small chocolate bars (15 x 200 calories)

  Anyway, just like there have been many different Batgirls, there really are many healthy body types and sizes. But Mom showed me one thing for sure — for the best athletic performance, thin is weak!

  And models’ and movie stars’ bodies aren’t often so healthy. Like any teen (and actually people of any age), sometimes Batgirl (and me too!) might be tempted to slip into impulse eating when things aren’t going well.

  But Batgirl knows that ice cream won’t freeze her problems. But Mr. Freeze? That is a different problem entirely.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 22

  I totally love junk food — huge weakness for cotton candy and caramel corn over here. But not together at the same time! Although, now that I think about it that could work . . .

  But I’ve seen enough shows to know that a true athlete like Batgirl would need to eat right. Or eat healthy, I guess. My parents have always been on about “healthy eating” and healthy food choices. We get to eat lots of good stuff too, but we’re supposed to think about the choices we make.

  My parents are totally against soft drinks though. Just “sugar bombs in water,” they are always saying. (Sugar bomb doesn’t sound that bad to me, actually, but I understand what they mean. Mostly.)

  But I never did understand why it was such a big deal. Until Mr. Pratt talked about it in gym today. He was all like “everybody likes sugar,” even rats and monkeys. He showed this video of an experiment somebody did with some rats. He said we were talking about A SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE.

  These rats were just normal happy rats that ate their normal “tasty” rat food. Of course, the rat food was pellets of stuff that, honestly, didn’t look so yummy to me but they seemed to just totally love it. Which is the important thing. But when the scientists gave the rats a sugar snack, they just went completely berserk. And wanted to eat sugar all the time.

  Mr. Pratt said that when food gets digested and broken down, a lot of it gets burned up or metabolized as a sugar. But it’s how that is packaged up that’s very important. I don’t know if it’s because it’s so soon after Christmas or what, but Mr. Pratt was all about gift-wrapping and sweets today!

  In Mr. Pratt’s story, the packaging controls how sugar gets used up in the body. It’s all about how it’s wrapped up. If the sugar is packaged real flimsy and easy to open, like some thin wrapping paper over a present, you kind of rip it open quickly and get the sugar fix. That’s like sugar in soft drinks. Fast acting and su
per big response.

  Instead, if the sugar is packaged up really tightly, it takes way longer to get into the body. If sugar gets into our bodies too fast, the hormones that take care of sugar overreact. Mr. Pratt talked about the two hormones we heard about from Mr. Richardson when he explained diabetes — insulin and glucagon. Insulin helps get sugar into cells and glucagon helps unpack that sugar and send it moving around the body and into other cells.

  He said that big sugary drinks make insulin levels go bonkers. And that if you have too much bonkers activity like that, your cells can stop responding to your normal insulin levels and you can wind up with what happens in diabetes! Yikes. The kind of confusing part is that it isn’t just the amount of sugar — like the number of calories — it’s the way it’s packaged up. So a 200-calorie soft drink and a 200-calorie snack of apple and banana doesn’t do the same thing to insulin levels. The sugar in the fruit is wrapped in a tighter package.

  Mr. Pratt said it’s kind of like when your younger sister or brother keeps bugging you all the time. Eventually you just start to ignore them. My inside voice wanted to suggest that sometimes, instead of ignoring them you just slug them. But of course I didn’t say that out loud because I try never to talk in class, and anyway, by the way Mr. Pratt was acting about our SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE, I didn’t think he’d appreciate my sense of humor. When Mr. Pratt is talking about A SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE, it is best to pay attention and be quiet. Unless, that is, you want to seriously improve your health by TAKING A REALLY LONG RUN.

  Which brings me to Auntie G. She’ll be here in a few minutes for my one-on-one martial arts lesson. We’re doing it today because she’s away this weekend. She warned me that I’ll be tired after tonight because we’re doing a bunch of kicking and punching for cardio. Still have time for a snack, but after writing this entry I guess I’ll pass on the leftover piece of chocolate cake (sigh) and go for the banana instead.

  That way I won’t let down Mr. Pratt or Batgirl. ☺

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 23

  I caught up with Cade and Audrey today at the end of school. Sort of. They’ve both been away at a school swim meet for the past two days and got back just before the final bell.

  Cade won two medals! A gold in the 100 meters and a bronze in the 400-meter freestyle. Awesome! He’s such a great athlete. I wish he’d have chosen Batman, instead of Dylan getting him for the Slam.

  Audrey didn’t win any medals, but she came fourth in her two swim events. Since it’s her first year of competitive swimming, that’s impressive!

  Cade said he was really zoning in on his Aquaman mystique and Audrey’s done some more research into building real exoskeletons. Her drawings are amazing. She is going to change the world one day.

  I caught them both up on what they missed in P.E. yesterday. I made sure to emphasize the SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE. I also told them about how much Olympic swimmers in training actually eat.

  Cade (blushing?): “Hey, that’s not that much! I usually bring three sandwiches for lunch at swim meets!” And then out of nowhere Audrey punched him on the arm.

  Audrey: “I thought you said it was an extra one for me and I could eat it? You must be starving; you only got two sandwiches for lunch today.”

  Cade (rubbing his arm a little but mostly looking at Audrey): “Um. No, it’s fine. The muffin you gave me helped out!”

  Me: “Anyway, I’ve found out some pretty cool stuff for my Batgirl reality training. Auntie G was showing me some cool karate moves for getting away by being out of the way!”

  I was pretty excited to share with my pals but they were kind of distracted.

  Audrey (not responding to me but instead talking to Cade): “That was awesome when you pulled away from the second-place swimmer in the front crawl! He was really strong!”

  Cade (also not responding to me and instead responding to Audrey): “Yeah, it was pretty hard. He used to always beat me last year. I thought for sure you were going to get bronze in your last race. You almost caught up to the girl in third! Next meet I bet you will take her.”

  Me: “Um. OK. See you guys? I guess?”

  Seriously friends, obsess much? There’s more to life than swimming, you know!

  Well, we’ll see what everyone says in June when I’ve won the Superhero Slam AND got some super Batgirl skills under my belt!

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9

  All my research into Batgirl, girl superheroes, and men versus women got me really wondering about women in different sports. Billie Jean King was quite the pioneer in tennis but women have played tennis for a while. What ladies haven’t done as much is play ice hockey! So I guess this is my “wick”-ed interview, because I got a letter back from Hayley Wickenheiser!

  Dear Hayley,

  My aunt and my parents all think you are an ­awesome athlete. They are really into athletes, especially those — like you — who are super at more than one activity. I know you are an amazing ­hockey player, because I’ve watched some Olympic and World Championship games with you starring in them!

  But when my Auntie G told me you were also a member of Canada’s national softball team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, that was news to me! So I did some research and found out you were the second woman to be in both the Winter and Summer Olympics! And the first ever to play two team sports. And then in 2003, you were the first woman to score a goal in the Finnish men’s professional hockey league! And you have multiple Olympic and World Championship gold medals in hockey! Wow.

  I am doing a big school project about super­heroes, training, and human ability — especially about girls’ ability. I’ve been looking into whether you could actually train to become Batgirl. Some of my classmates think that boys are better at sports than girls are. I don’t agree, but I have learned that it is often a lot harder for girls to do some things. Or get the chance to do some things.

  Since you seem to have gone after your dreams, I was hoping you could answer some questions about your life in sports.

  Hi, Jessie. Thanks so much for your letter. That sounds like an awesome school project, and I totally think you could train to become Batgirl (although I’m not sure about the costume, I’d change that). I believe that you should always go after your dreams, no matter how high or how hard they seem—that just makes you try harder! I’ll do my best at answering your questions.

  I read that you started playing hockey at age five. How did you get interested in hockey in the first place? Did you get into softball at the same time?

  I grew up in a family of hockey enthusiasts in a small town filled with even more hockey enthusiasts! Everyone in my family played hockey, and I grew up on the backyard rink pretending to be playing with Gretzky and Messier! My brother, sister, and I would each take turns being different players. I started softball about the same time because my parents believed that it was important to take a break from hockey. So in the summers, we’d play softball. The soul of our community was rooted in the two sports and it just made sense to be a part of that.

  What was it like to play on boys’ teams when you were a kid? And what was it like to play hockey on the men’s team in Finland? Did the boys get any smarter or nicer?

  Growing up playing on boys’ teams and playing against other boys’ teams wasn’t easy. I was so happy I got the chance to play hockey and, for the most part, the boys on my team were pretty good, but the parents seemed to have a harder time with it. I changed in the bathrooms instead of the locker rooms so at times I didn’t feel as tight as the rest of the team. I did seem to have a target on my back—but I’ve been told that it wasn’t just because I was a girl, it was also because I was good. I had more to prove, and there were tears of frustration and hurt feelings along the way, but it just made me push even harder!

  The older “boys” in Finland were great, though there is always a sense that I have more to prove. The biggest difference there wa
s the power and muscle capacity of the men—there are some differences in physiology between men and women. But all my life those differences in physiology has made me push harder to grow stronger and stay in top form, so I can compete.

  So far, what has been the biggest challenge in your life? How did you deal with it?

  I think the biggest challenge for me (and you may be surprised to hear this!) is overcoming bad losses, like when Canada won silver at the 1998 Olympics in Japan. When I go out to play, and especially when I’m representing my home country, I play to win. And when that doesn’t happen, it is really hard for me.

  At the 2013 World Championship in Ottawa, we lost in the gold medal round to the U.S.A. I had hurt my back in this tournament, which was related to a knee injury that I thought had healed enough, so this loss seemed personal. I felt, to some degree, responsible. It isn’t because I think I carry the team—not by a long shot. Our team is amazing, but in that game the pieces just did not fit together. It’s easier to take the loss when you know you played your best and gave it your all.

  Another challenge in my life is time management. Outside of being a full-time athlete, I’m also going to school to become a doctor and I’m also a mom to my amazing son, Noah. Juggling the time to study (and I have to study hard!), making dinner, training, driving Noah to swim practice, and so on is a daily struggle. I overcome this challenge by learning how to manage my time: making lists, keeping accountable to others, and having support through family, friends, and professionals.

  Have you had any big injuries and how did you work through them?