The Day After The 4x200 Viewing Relay

Olympic glory isn't easy. It takes sacrifice, strategy, profound dedication. But this is America, and we're no quitters. If the going gets tough -- well, give us an extra 10 minutes on the snooze button and we will rise again . . .

Eventually.

But rise we will, with a spirit worthy of our spot on Team U.S.Audience. We might look like yawning, caffeine-drooling zombies by day, but come nightfall, each of us morphs back into a ferocious, if soft-bodied, cheering machine.

See, this Olympics -- entrancing us with all its thrilling midnight melodrama -- has us in its sleep-depriving grasp. And we would have it no other way.

"Oh yeah, it's worth it," says Michelle Lynch, who was two hours late to work Wednesday morning, tired and bleary-eyed after her Olympic habit kept her up past 1 a.m. the night before. "It's history."

We die-hard viewers realize this is our moment. We've trained for this: perfecting the custom-grooved indents on our couch cushions, memorizing NBC's talking points on synchronized diving. We've so mastered the TiVo "Pause-FF-Play" technique that all our snack breaks are now run with the efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew.

But even the most valiant competitor aches the day after an event.

"I am paying the price," sighs Patrick Hope, a systems engineer from Ashburn who's normally a two-cups-a-day kind of guy, but had finished his third jolt by 9 Wednesday morning. Hope's gotta be downtown by 6 a.m. on weekdays, but that hasn't stopped him from staying up past midnight some nights -- fighting exhaustion, battling to blink his eyes back open. Just one more event, he tells himself. One. More. Event. "But I'm feeling it now. . . . I'm hurtin' when I have to get up."

This is tough stuff, especially for East Coasters 12 hours behind Beijing time. Sure, we're not actually out there competing. But we're the ones clenching our stomach muscles as we will Rebecca Soni to that winning wall touch. It's our hamstrings cramping every time we rise to cheer. It's us straining to parse the crazytalk of Béla Károlyi, our favorite gymnastics coach-turned-commentator.

"What? She strudeled the noodle on the dismount? What?"

"Never mind. Just get in position for the next event, would you? This one's really important."

But they're all really important.