Regionals are over, it's time to head back to the real world. It's been an interesting season with Mischief. We went from barely staying together as a team to 5th at Regionals (up from a seeding of 9th), thanks largely to the Smith Brothers: Mark, Kyle and Kevin. Which is not to say the rest of the team wasn't instrumental, just that they are our stars.

I played a lot in the tournament. I pretty much played as much as I could. If I stood up and looked at Andy when he was calling players on the line, he called me in. It's an interesting position to be in: at the top of the roster. I'll admit to being at the bottom for so long, that it feels uncomfortable to be one of the players that always goes in. On the other hand, it's why I took the classes at ASA.

I left regionals sore, but not tired. It's been a LONG, long time since I've been sore at the end of a tournament. It just doesn't happen any longer because of the amount of ultimate I play. However, taking about a month off, then playing hard at Regionals, well, made me sore.

My highlight reel from Regionals:

• Kris going up for the huck and skying the guy 6" taller than he.
• Stopping CTR's Chuckles in an iso play, where it was she against me, and Mark intercepted the throw to her (with Rick's voice in my ears the whole time, encouraging me to stick with her).
• Kevin's handblock next to the sideline
• Kyle's many layout grabs

There are more. I'm sure I'll think of them.

What I need to do now is research toenail removal surgery. I keep jamming my big toe toenails and having them fall off. Better to just get rid of them then continue this cycle, I think.

I know that developing a website is difficult. I know I do it well. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish some people would just fuck off.

Being on the webmaster mailing list, I get the full list of "I need help" emails. Some are okay: they ask for help without being aggressive, whiny or overbearing. Others are rude, accusatory and hostile.

In the latter cases, I'm becoming better at the diplomatic response that's usually something like, "Yeah, well, with the limited time and resources we have, we're not spending $1000 in man hours to fix a bug that only 10 people out of 100000 experience." Much nicer than that, of course.

Thicker skin is what I need. Thicker skin. Somehow, this has always been a criticism of me in various yearly reviews, up until VA. So, I'm inclined to think the skin is getting thicker.

Having a problem with this website? Go screw yourself.

Ah..... I feel much better.

ASA MVP workout Sept 29th

Kris and I started out warming up with ladders by ourselves. Originally, we were told that G wasn't going to be in today, but were later told he'd be in, but late. Turned out, a player of his at Cabrillo had broken his collar bone diving awkwardly for a ball at practice. He hadn't punctured the skin, but the bone was obviously broken, as it was protruding outward.

Tragically, the kid hadn't finished the paperwork for enrolling in the class, so Cabrillo's insurance wouldn't cover his injury (the trainer couldn't even look at him inside Cabrillo's facilities). G mentioned the kid was one of his better players, making the injury more tragic. He broken the collar bone of his throwing arm. G said his first question was, "Will I be able to play this year?"

The ladders were strung together, so we didn't have the usual 9 squares - break - 9 squares. Instead, we had 19 straight squares. We did the usual ladders to warm up. G arrived during our warmup, near the end, so we were good and warm. Today would be an upper body workout.

We started off with pushups. Kris did them from two aerobic steps. Because of the time I took off, I started back at clapping pushups (made funnier by the fact I had to do some from my knees). 3 sets of 10, I managed 2 or 3 from my feet, the rest from my knees.

Next came traversing hand walks. In a plank/pushup position, I walked just under 90° to the right, then back 90° to the left. Doing each hand 5 times, for a total of 10 walks. Tragically, my butt was in the air as I did my first three sets, so I had to do them over again, but with my butt down the second time.

Kris, in the meantime, was doing really cool explosive, balancing, single arm presses. Essentially, he lay on a bench so that one side is barely on the bench, with his leg tucked under the leg brace at the end of the bench for balance. His other side was hanging off the bench. With that side, he did 30 pound presses explosively. It'll take me a while to build up to that one.

Next, Kris did tricep pull downs while I learned a newly-invented exercise. G stood on a 12" box, I stood facing away from him on the ground, about a yard in front of him. Balancing on my left foot, I turned around and held my right hand up high behind me. G placed a 2# weighted ball in my hand. Continuing to balance, I touched the ground to the left of my left foot, then explosively tossed the ball up, behind me, over G and myself.

When I was done, I played around with the 0.5#, 1# and 2# balls, trying to throw them against the walk. It was very, very obvious when I threw that my timing was way off. I definitely have little transfer of momentum from my lower body to my upper body when I throw. We worked on it a little bit. We'll definitely do more after the season ends.

Next I did some bench presses. The weight wasn't so heavy, but I did need to use my feet on the last set. I did three sets of 12 at 50#, 60# and 50#. When I was done, I went to do the tricep pull downs.

I forgot the order of the rest of the exercises. I recall being unable to do a ball traversal, where in plank position, I "walk" over a ball, balancing briefly on the ball. I was unable to the exercise at all. I managed maybe, MAYBE two.

To complete the upper body, we did chin ups, with palms facing forward, to exhaustion. I couldn't do one chinup without help. I could get about 1/2 way up, but not all the way up. G had me "complete" 4 "chinups" for each of three sets, but he was pretty much lifting me for all of them.

G gave us the option of abs, or forearms and abs. I, of course, selected both. We did the plate grip, bus driving (holding the plate vertically, twist it 180° clockwise, then reverse).

We did abs last. The usual abs. I find it very difficult to push Kris down during partner push-downs. Ugh.

The last abs exercise was 6-12" leg holds. G said it was on me - 45 seconds, if I dropped, we'd do it all again (actually, I think Kris would do them all again, not me. Heh.). I said, "No problem." About 10 seconds into the exercise (actually, a count of 10 into the exercise, as my count to 30 took 45 seconds), G leans down and starts harrassing me, telling me it would be easier to just drop my legs, take a break, wouldn't it be so easy to just drop them, I didn't need to keep them up, just drop them, we'd get to rest, wouldn't that be nice. Inside, I was laughing so hard! I kept with my count. At 45 seconds, he said, okay, you're done, but did so in such a way that it sounded like a ploy to get me to drop my legs. I had to ask for confirmation, keeping them up longer. Felt good to be able to do that.

Continuing in my quest for reasonable fitness by Regionals, I ran a modified Special K workout.

In particular, I ran:

  1 stinker
  4 stinkettes
  3 suicides

I wanted to run more suicides, but, eh, I wimped out. The fields were getting overrun with kids (who all showed up at 5:30, oddly enough. And the MP3 player I was using messed up a little bit, so, eh, I just stopped.

I did have a mental lapse in the middle of the stinkettes. I was about half way through the run, and just stopped. Ick. I didn't count that one in my totals.

Well, I have less than two weeks to get ready for Regionals. Though I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it, I'm sure as hell going to give it my best shot.

I'm not supposed to play ultimate yet (the risk for a really serious injury instead of merely a serious injury is too great), I played yesterday. Kris said I looked pretty good, but every step was hard. I am out of shape.

So, in an effort to get back into shape quickly, I joined Kris at ASA today for the MVP class. This is the second to last one for me before Regionals.

We were joined today by Scottie and Mitch. Mitch was pretty loud and obnoxious, though somewhat entertaining. Scottie was a little more serious. G tried to instill a strong sense of work ethic in the two of them ("Be the player the coach can turn his back on."), but they weren't really self-motivated. Still they were entertaining. Both play on the Vikings (some local, possibly travelling, baseball team).

Started off with ladders. Because Scottie and Mitch were also doing the ladders, we did two sets of 1/2 ladders (nine squares instead of 2x9 squares) for warm up. We did the usual, nothing new.

Note to Self: I should get up and do ladders hourly. See if that helps my aerobic capacity.

Next, we did the eye of pain (read: shuttle run at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25, forward and backward (i.e. no turning around like in a suicide)). We did 4 sets.

Next, we did did frog hops to one legged balances, to explode into a sprint. G set up cones every 6 feet or so. We started at one end, and did two legged jumps to the next cone, bounding up as soon as we landed. At the last cone (there were about 25 yards of bounding), we landed on one foot, and settled into a one-legged squat. After holding that squat for two seconds, we exploded into a sprint.

We did two sets of these landing on the right foot, two landing on the left foot, then 4 more landing on the foot G called out just before we landed.

Next, we went back inside (those were all in the back parking lot), and did a 5 station lower body workout. The stations were:

• Hop onto a single lift aerobics step, hop onto the other side, that's one. Hop back onto the step, then off the other side. That's two. Do 20 (10 each leg).
• Hop over the step. As soon as you land, jump back over to the other side. I stuggled with this one. The longest streak I had was only 8 jumps.
• Next was jumps off a 1' box, land and spring up to a 2' box. Do 12.
• Next was the shuffle over a 1' box. Essentially, put a foot on the box, the other on the ground. Spring up, and switch which foot is up, and which is on the ground.
• Last was toe touches for 30 seconds (Kris had 45 seconds).

We did this set of five exercises three times. Ugh.

Next was leg presses and squat jumps. We did 2 or three sets of these, I don't recall.

Abs came next. Once again, I wasn't able to complete all of them. In particular, I couldn't do the partner leg throw downs. Too much torsional exertion.

My shins here. My ribs hurt. But I feel good. I'm exercising again! After 4 weeks off, it feels good.