just kickin it on boxing day.

lessee. basically in a base phase kind of deal. Usually one hard workout per week. After the break, morning agillity training with a bunch of kids. Weird mix, since it's an open gym, mostly baseball, frisbee, but the baseball coach is a buddy, and he invited me and the frisbee kids to this open preseason deal. Should be fun. I'll have to figure out something to do on the other mornings other than sleep as i find it better to get up at the same time every day.

dec 26 80min skate (level 3), 50 min jog (lev 1) weights
dec 25 hike/ski say 2.5 hours. probably 1.5 of that was climbing, 30 min skiing, 30 min social, ski from the house very easy 1hour
dec 24 skate 1 hour, ski in town 2 hours -- easy but slow, skis were icing
dec 23 70 min skate (level 2/3) 1 hour skiing.(downhill)
dec 22 rest
dec 21 rest
dec 20 ski'd probably 15km. lifted
dec 19 rest
dec 18 1.5 hours classic ski, lifted
dec 17 skate 1.5 hours, easy
dec 16 1.5 hours classic ski, easy
dec 15 LT intervals on treadmill, weights, core
dec 14 ski 1hour. run 1hour
dec 13 ski 2 hours with kids
dec 12 rest
dec 11 ski 1 hour with kids
dec 10 ski 1 hour easy
dec 9 ski 1 hour easy
dec 8 rest
dec 7 ski, run

state of the luke

Sigh. I've been relegated to having to post frisbee tags to my blog to get a post on ultimate talk. Bummer. The kids today have no idea what they're missing.

Today was sick. First day on snow. Coaching, So we did a 4 mile loop, with drills coming back up the hill. Then a couple kms of drills of no pole on a loop. Then I squeezed in another 4 mile loop.

Then we played a fun game.

Pretty sketch skiing. 3 inches of snow ontop of the highway. but it was totally workable, and not hard on the skis at all.

Then, a burrito, a coffee, 2 hours guitar, and an 8 mile run, 8min pace.

Then some weights and core: really light: more focused on PT type excercises and some pistol squats, pushups, incine bench, deadlift, calf eccentric work, and core. 30 minutes exactly, which is my limit for lifting.

Then a good meal, a pint, and some ski care.

Tomorrow, ski, run or bike, and organize at the new house.

Weekly totals, Mon-Sun
run 35-37
ski twice, 2.5 hours
bike once 1.75 hours
lift twice

It's a base week: When i start ski racing (i'm no good, but i have a plan) I'll run less. And I did no intensity this week. If I had my druthers, I'd do no intensity for a 3 month period with lactate threshold runs, then switch to easy and hard runs. I have to modify.

Winter plan is a little different from the past as it will include running:
Ski: 4-5 days per week. Race 2x per month
Run: 3x per week. Intervals through January, then switch intervals to skiing and running as steady only.
Frisbee: Limited opps to throw, but will do one early morning set of cones/shuttle runs in the gym to be as ready as i can be for kaimana.
Weights: 1-3 times per week with attention to core, stretch, flex, and maintenance.

teaching zone

1) get 7 players who know how to play zone
2) get your team together
3) if they know how to throw and catch well, play agressor squad vs new players
4) if they are new players... use a red kickball and let the players throw the ball around so that they can have completions. If they need to, just let them throw it around... and bounces are cool.
5) Use a teaching technique called 'freeze and discuss.' where you let the play develop then call freeze. then discuss positional issues. use this as an opportunity to move people around.

To develop speed, incorporate this workout in the early season: not the late season.
run laps around the field: run the diagonols at a dead run with good form. then jog the endzone. Repeat for 20 t 30 min. Note. This is an early season workout. Not a late season workout. This is to develop form, and develop conditioning. Focus on form.

Then, 10 minutes of throwing. Focus on crisp throws, imagining a mark... Alternatively, 10 minutes of mark drill. College kids, do this now, and you will improve.

no, no real frisbee content, but it includes... the word hawaii... so idris, why don't you post this one just to piss some people off.

yeah, hawaii baby. at least that's the plan. all 'teacher' myths aside, i only get two personal days. it would be unethical to take sick days to go to hawaii, but i think i've got it worked out with the personal days, and the 3 day weekend.

my problem: i haven't played frisbee in february in 5 years. i barely run in february: i ski. coincidentally, i'd planned on running 3 times a week all winter to stay in shape for races: actually to get in better shape. i'm planning on running one tempo run (like 6 miles, with a middle (or whole portion) at 6:30 pace), one interval set (1000's or miles, of some utility for frisbee), and one long run (9-13 miles).

i'm going to add in one early a.m. in the school gym running lines and cones for 30-40 minutes, and try to throw a little at lunch.

but I still imagine conversations like this:

alex: huh. not to take the attention from my own stats, but, what's up with luke.
kid: i don't know. but, let me throw in here, did you see my sick stab? it was a no look. oh, luke. is he trying his 'off speed run' to set up the cut.
jim: no, between adding up my stats in meaningful points, and i want to note that i'm dominating, i noticed that he hasn't changed his pace. and between accounting for 5 of our 6 goals in meaningful ways, i clocked his pace. it's a steady 6:20 per mile. pretty slow for sprinting.
alex: well, i had assists on 3 of those, and you can't keep counting hockey assists as meaningful touches.
will: look. i captained sockeye to 2 national titles in the modern era. and i drew the hodag logo myself. so i'm personally responsible for 4 titles. but man, you're right. he looks slow.
alex and jim: 6 titles
all: pre-flick era.
alex and jim: no way. it was just as good back then.
luke comes off: man, did you see my sweet mark: perfect
all: lots of practice.
luke: but i caught the goal
will: well i wouldn't cover the cripple in the powered cart if he were out there
all: you got posterized by a girl
will: i got that d. and it was leslie calder
all: whatever.
kid: seriously, luke. try imagining your not in jello
luke: what are you talking about. i set up that cut with change of speed. got to have the off speed pitch.
robbye: so you're proud of your 75mph fastball?
luke: i'm a nordic skier. i use kph.
all: ooooohhh. hundy.
luke: fuck y'all i'm going for beer.
all: don't come back empty handed.

this week: didn't go skiing in yellowstone. not enough snow, and i had to move.
sunday: 6.5 miles, 6:50 pace.
monday: rest
tuesday: 9 miles, 8:00 pace, weights
wednesday: 5 miles, 8:00 pace
thurs: rest
friday: 13 miles, 8:00 pace, weights

basically an easy week. looking to go 35 miles, and throw in 2 mt. bike rides sat and sunday. got 10 more miles to do tomorrow and sunday. (my weeks end on sunday).

nope still no frisbee content. well, a little.

i'm going to hawaii. first time. i'll have run a lot, but this is going to require going to a gym and running shuttle runs. and find some time to throw disc indoors enough not to make a total choad of myself. since winter here precludes frsibee, i'll have to make a concious effort to at least throw.

monday, rest.
tuesday: ran 5 miles, played calvin ball, then ran another 3.5 miles
wednesday: ran 2.5 miles, lifted, ran home
thursday: ran an adventure race set up by another coach: 70 min, ran as hard as i could for the whole time, call it a 7 mile tempo effort (that's conservative, but, just being safe)

retro thread of the day. yes, definitely frisbee related

http://tinyurl.com/linkofday

this is the link of the day. a prolonged discussion about legitimizing ultimate. from 2001.

enjoy and comment.

seriously, nothing to do with frisbee.

11-14 40 min ultimate frisbee, 8 mile run.
11-15 13 mile run
11-16 3.5 hour mountain bike ride. maybe best ever

not potlatch part two.

none of this is for the frisbee readers. it's my defacto log. in frisbee, the kids are playing. we tried to go to a tournament, but the road got wiped out by a landslide. tommorrow, I think I'll just play frisbee with the kids, run 5 after. saturday, i'll run 10. sunday, i'll ride (90 min plus). that's technically rest. monday, we'll run and core, then i'll run longer. but it's kind of complicated, b/c i have to run xc ski practices... and i have to plan my workouts among them...

10-29 run 5
10-30 ran 5 miles and lifted
10-31 rest
11-1 8km tempo/race pace (5mile at about a 6:20 pace)
11-2 6 mile run
11-3 rest
11-4 5x1km repeats at 4:00 (like a 6:20 pace), 1 min recovery, plues 3 miles warmup cooldown
11-5 7 miles
11-6 run to gym. lift. run home. 5 miles
11-7 rest
11-8 10km race. plus 1 mile warmup. 7 miles total.
11-9 50 min run. 6 miles?
11-10 6 mile run. then 20 minutes of frisbee soccer game (i call it calvin ball. sweet. rules to follow). then 3 miles. then weights.
11-11 5.5 mile hike. call it an off day
11-12 1.25 mile warmup, 3x2mile repeats with 3 min rest. 6:20 pace. (it's a short course, let's call it 6:30 to 6:45 pace)
11-13 35min run, stadiums, core, weights, 25 min bike

Potlatch, Day 1.

Well, technically, it's d-day minus 3. I'd played Solstice with a young Oregon college team from UofO, and had a good time, and I was feeling friskee. Sunday night, mon, tuesday, at somepoint I was shooting the shit with John Hammond and he invited me to play on Dave Bestock's Potlatch team. Under normal circumstances, that might not qualify as an invite from the Kid, but it's pretty much how I landed on Sockeye in the first place, and Dave's a pal, so I figured it was worth a shot. As an aside, it's pretty much how I landed on my Solstice team, so I was game.

Thursday night I played City league, and dominated (whatever that means in city league), and was feeling friskee. I roped ryan, league coordinator, into going. He was iffy about playing, and I guaranteed him no guarantee of our team, but told him he'd have a spot on SOME team. Plus, selfishly, It's a long drive. And gas was costing $4.00 per.

Friday night, we prepared to leave. My car was sitting outside the house, minus the fuel pump, stolen 2 weeks earlier (great story, I'd solved the crime, but not troubled myself to replace the pump, more on that to follow). So I was riding over with housemates Scott and Chris to portland, where Ryan and I would take Scott's car up to the fields. Scott Had been go to play until thursday night until a family emergency took him out. I'd actually promised to squeeze him onto the team with what was known as the Ketner clause (when, 3 years earlier, the last player to be named later I'd brought watched all weekend, played 2 points, and one of them was in the quarters where he played one point and delivered the game winning block. So my scouting rep was better than my own playing rep). Anyway, Scott's out, so he was being pretty cool with the car loan.

Ryan, guest of guests is late, so we don't roll out until about 7. Drop Scott and Chris off at the family hacienda in Portland around 10 or so, fumble around Gresham for a while, and then roll north. I think we arrive in Remond, or Kirkland, or wherever the hell potlatch is held (I don't know, garmin and google take care of those details, I just knew I could guide it in from the exit). I think we get there around 2.

As we approach the fields, the mist shrouds 40 acre soccer complex. A fox crosses the road in front of us. The scene is pastoral, and I'm relaxed to know that I'm going to get a good, peaceful nights sleep prior to 3 days of ultimate.

And then I turned off the ignition, and opened the door, and was greated with a cacaughanous roar from the fields.

No, The fox was fleeing drunks, the noise was terrible, and I simply hung my head. I'd been there on the other side of this debacle before, and now it was my turn to reap the whirlwind. It was loud, and it was time to suffer.

I set up my tent in the quietest (my thoughts) corner of the fields, in an area that would receive latest sunrise due to the location of the hill. I was a saavy vet, even if I'd not achieved countal levels of eye patches and neck pillows.

And then I notice ryan standing around with a sleeping bag and a pillow. "Uh, where's your tent ryan?," I asked. "Kind of don't have one," said Ryan.
Great. And now I'm stuck with a room mate. How could this tournament get worse in the next 6 hours. Games at nine, not technically on a team, some dopey giant taking up air in my tent, and the loud noise of 1200 twenty somethings freed from normal societal rules. I was being confronted with every painful transgression (Well, at least 15% of them) I'd ever made at a frisbee tournament, but now on the other end of the stick. It was Lord of the Flies. I was treading on Piggy territory. How could it get worse.

Turned out, Ryan snored.

To be continued.

(Non frisbee corner. Ran 80 min yesterday, and lifted. Rode 90 minutes recovery today, and did IllioTibial Band rehab)

xc districts, minimal frisbee content.

summit sweeeeeeeeeeps.
boys, girs, jv, varsity.
the hugest upset was in boys, where a great runner of ours who had not run for 3 years turned in a third in the district time and summit defeats a talented, and classy hermiston team 29 to 30.
.
they were great kids, and came over to shake hands after the match. when state comes up next week, its still up for grabs: their best runner is the best runner in the state, and due to the nature of scoring, they could defeat us by running the exact same, but having 2 runners from other teams finish after their first runner, but before ours. at the same time, we could widen our gap if the boys all run the same, and there are more scorers between the runners.

our girls were dominant, pack running, and our favored runner had her worst run of her year. she's suffered 2 fractured femurs in her hs career, and we're always concerned about that, but she was fine. and if she just had a 'bad' day, that's fine, it's just important to know that she just had a 'bad' day but is healthy.

our JV boys won the 'jv crown' for the first time ever. the heartbreaks come with the boys, where the varsity (7) battles with the first 3 jv guys for positions on the state team. All 7 were given sweet tights, but it's tough to see a guy who poured his heart out qualify as an alternate, not a primary runner. (that is, we carry 7 runners on the team, and 2 alternates).

On the girls, it was arguably tougher, where our JV girls team may have been the 2nd or 3rd best team in the district: it's got to be tough for a girl who knows she could go run for another school in the city and make it to the state team, but instead, she 'settles' for being on a more competetive team that drives her to be better. there is probably an ultimate metaphor here.

personally, i went out to forerun the course this morning, with the goal of running it in a sub 20 time, but within 800m, i felt the fatigue that is 'supposedly' associated with post marathon blues, so i just settled into a tempo run. so 2.5 miles at 8 min pace, then a tempo 5k at 21 min with no kicking. Frustrating, in a sense, but fine, and smart in another.

Then saw tropic thunder, which is hysterical.

no frisbee conten

today, i ran a 10 minute warmup, then 3x6min miles with 2 min rest, then a 10 min cooldown. that's ok, since i'm recovering from the marathon. technically, i should have run 6xmiles, with 1min rest.

i MIGHT play frisbee tomorrow, but likely not. that said, when 6pm rolls around, yeah, i'll probably be out there under the lights with tights on, and a big vacant look on my face looking off bad cuts with the mindset of chucking it deep to the only slightly worse long cut.

Fan mail

Hey, I've been receiving a lot of fan mail and comments lately, and I just want all you fans out there to know, I just don't have time to reply to every individual note. But know this: your thoughts matter to me, so, keep those messages coming.

I mean, you could could be choosing to read about how Match carried Furious to the world championship, fulfilling his lifelong dreams.

But instead you choose to come to my little corner of the world. So keep those letters of encouragement coming!

moving forward

the kids played ultimate today, i rode my bike for 2 hours, then played ultimate for 1.5 hours. pretty fun. first time i'd played since july. i was mainly looking for some extra excercise after the bike ride... I think half of my turnovers were on uncalled fouls (i mean seriously, who calls a touch foul in pickup), and the other half were on long throws out the back (i mean seriously, who set up this field).

pretty fun, ran around a bit, really didn't try to play every point. got a bunch of old guy poach d's a couple run by d's, got beat a couple times deep, stopped some deep looks, hooked up long a couple times, your basic fun pickup game with a bunch of new players.

since the marathon

since the marathon, i rested for 4 days, biked and lifted friday, ran 7 sat, ran 7 sunday, plus 10 points of low key HS ultimate, mon 5.5 mile, tues 7 miles (2 at 8, then a progressively faster run of 7:50, 7:20, 6:40, 7:20), wednesday, ran 4.5 miles in 31 min, with the last 2 fast, thursday rested, friday rested, today, 7 miles.

tomorrow, there will be a mountain bike ride, and maybe play frisbee with the kids, or both. hard to say.

feel pretty good, my shins hurt a little.

more to follow.

first marathon...

As I look back over my marathon training, It's true, that you really learn a lot about yourself. Yes, as the many month (Sic) went by, I came to value the long runs, the training, even the rest days.

Yes, when I overdid it, in day 20 of the training program, I trusted that the month and month of training would see me through... so I just sat on the couch for 2 weeks.

Anyway, it went fine, 3:29:23, I won't say it was easy, but mainly the legs just got stiff: It wasn't really labored, it was just long. I felt worse after the Hood to Coast, I'm just a little stiff, calves and quads. Just a nice long conversational jog.

In the pouring rain.

I'd hear that you needed to show up 1 hour early, we showed up at 6:50. Got to the crowd at 6:55, fought our way to the right place by 6:58.... and away... we... go...

I'll shoot for 3:15 for next year, and if I train right, it should be just as 'easy.'

XC season is coming to an end, going to look to an early season frisbee tournament with the students...

Taking a few days off to rest up, maybe a litle light spinning... next race in november, 10km with maybe a time trial on Oct 1.

upcoming.

wednesday, went to play frisbee: no one showed. yeah bend. threw for 1 hour.
thursday, today, 90 minute run.

this weekend, coach, and a 3:00 run sunday. ble-yech.

gonna try to host a late fall frisbee tournament here: we got new fields, and a sweet field turf field.

more to follow.

below me.

at the risk of alienating toad...
lessee, friday, i took off.
saturday, i was at the bus depot (school) at 6:00 am, and spent a full day coaching. the girls killed it: they may or may not win state, but for now, they are untouchable. the boys were solid, but missing 1 stud, and one stud has a broken femur... so, i mean, we're all good. I did a 5 mile run.
sunday: 20 mile run. well, that's an estimate. I did 2:40 running, and i did the first 5km on a set time trial to get an estimate of pace. worst case, a 19 mile run. the first 10 miles was with a roommate who's training up for a later marathon. but i had to do 20. my expected training partner for the last 10 bailed... so i was on my lonesome. ugh.
monday, rest: frustrating cause the kids were doing hill repeats (which i like), so i was relegated to hi-5-ing every kid.
tuesday: today, 3x1 mile, at 6:20, 6:10, 6:00, then 3x800 at 3:05, 3:05, 2:50. all on grass, on a slowish course, with 2:00 rest between.

and ok, a little ultimate. i spent about an hour throwing with players, and my girl players were bombing it. absolutely bombing it. maybe this is the year for the team!!!

seriously

frisbee first: at every practice, the frisbee players throw.
enough of that.

Sunday, 2:20 run (16-18 miles)
Monday, rest
Tuesday, The kids had a pool party, I ran there, 28 minutes, hills and running. probably 3.75 miles in about 28 min. Then 4 intervals, 6 on, (2 rest), 6 (3), 6 (3), 7, run 1 mile. I was running hard, I thought 6 equaled a mile, but lingering fatigue affected me, and according to mapmyrun, I was running about a 6:25 pace. So a quality workout, but slow.
Wed: ran easy, 3.5 miles, 28 minutes, but flat. Then 6 x 100 yards on the brand new sport turf field. My hip flexor was sore.
Thursday: Skipped the 2mile warm up run, (threw, instead), then played games with the kid on a designed recovery day. Then ran three miles on a track while I timed a kid doing a timed run for a scholarship. then ran 7 more miles. Total data: 10 miles, average 8:14. Knee was mildly achy, but not really. Tommorrow is rest.

Saturday, is a 4mile run, Sunday is a 2:45 run, 20 ish is the goal.

I'm trying to line up running partners for parts of the run. One of my room mates will do the first 10, then I'm hoping to get a fellow teacher to do the next 6... well then, I'm hoping to borrow CJ's dog for the last part. I mean, the dog can handle it.

on and on and on.

lessee, tuesday was painful miles
wednesday was an easy 25 minute run, weights, a meeting, another meeting, and work until 10
thursday was the kids racing, then i did a night run of 45 minutes.
friday, hour:06 run, say 8.5 miles?
saturday, rest
sunday, 2:20 run, somewhere from 16-18 miles. I figure 17.

So something like 41 miles for the week.

I'm on a rushed plan to run portland marathon in a month. only mildly rushed, but I'm being pretty good with my rest days.

school is good.

miles.

kind of a crappy workout today (i think), but the long miles this weekend make it kind of OK. 25 or 26 miles this weekend, then a 1.5 mile warmup, 3x1 mile repeats at 6:10, 6:00, 5:50 (over rolling grass with turns and stuff, not a track).

by comparison,
2 years ago was 4, 6, 5:55, 5:50, at 5:57.
3 years ago was 5 at 6:18, :15, :15, :05, :10.

I'll do 4 or 5 next week when we do them again, and I'll try to run them all 5 seconds faster. (goal would be 6:05, 5:50, 5:40, and 5:30). perhaps ambitious, but we'll see.

labor day.

nothing to do with frisbee, but friday, after a day of work, got some good sleep, then up pretty early to cheer on the kids in the sunrise to summit, then up to cultus. paddled upwind in some ridiculous wind with a full boat, met up with the rest of the crew, did camp stuff, ate hotdogs.

sunday, 13 mile run, stopped halfway to eat a burger at the lodge. ate a lot, drank coffee, etc.

today, 12 mile run, paddled back.

was going to time trial this mountain, but no in my party was in for it, so it was just long distance stuff, at a decent pace.

time trial, blog review

What was i thinking. Saturday, I couldn't even make the wheels roll, Sunday, and Monday were walk backwards down stairs, tuesday was 32 minutes at 8:45 pace and it felt like i was dying, wednesday was 20 minutes of limping. Today I did the team time trial.

I couldn't help it. It's what I do. 2006, august, 12:52, 2007 I couldn't run in august b/c of injury, but I repeated the run at the end of the season in 12:25, and today, i ran it in 12:31. I'm not PROUD of the result but I was still pretty toast, and even worse, I ran an absolutely terrible first 400 meters (90 seconds). My next 600 meters were the worst as I necked way down to get my motor back, and frankly, the 12:31 was not a disaster. I am going to run it again next week when i'm 'fresh' (that is fresh after this coming weekend's coaches mini camp of

sat 45 mile ride/2mile paddle
sunday 11 mile hike, 5 mile hill run (max effort)
monday 13 mile run (easy), 2 mile paddle. I think i'll skip the bike back at that point.

But by wednesday, I should be able to crank, and I will, with the goal of 12:00 even. I may cheat: and get some pacing help from a couple kids who are making up the TT and can't run the race the next day.

All things considered, I'm pretty happy with life. I'd like to think it's pretty odd for 38 year olds to make progress in this way, and I think I have 7 years to sort of 'peak' in my second career as a middle distance runner.

As an aside, there is a 15 year theory that holds, that, no matter when you start doing an event, you will continue to improve for 15 years. The idea, then, would be that your frisbee career would PEAK 15 years after you started, barring physical break down. Obviously, in a demanding, cutting sport like ultimate, starting when you are 10-15 would be ideal. But just 'cause you peak in a year, doesn't mean that a 10 year old couldn't have a 25 year career: it just means that at 25 they might be their best, but could conceivably still be good for 10 more years... just not their best.

Personally, I started when I was 20, but I would say my best 2 years were when I was 31 or 32, living in bend, commuting to play with sockeye. And with markedly diminished sport specific regimens, my game play at age 34-35 was pretty good. Now, 17 or 18 years in, my feeling is that, without a team to focus on, I can't continue to IMPROVE: but that i can still 'do it.'

Nuff said. Coaches corner.

On worlds:
You can't imagine my sadness in seeing sockeye lose. This is my team. While they may have passed me by, 12 of those guys were my team mates for 1 or more years, and another 6 of those guys are former team mates of mine on varied other teams. I have the utmost respect for furious, and having never won a national title (somehow sockeye went on to win 3 without me. ahem. outlast, outwit, outsmart, out-out-foul-luke), I still feel a more recent connection w/ fish than chain (still got big love for kid, barrett and a bunch of younguns who i only got to play against when i was a 26 yearold college senior). Just a bummer, and I can't speak to the play of the games, other than to say, i hope payback comes in the form of a national title.

On RSD. Gawd almighty it sucks. I can't even bring myself to do a thread review. Todd continues to mask relatively valid points with hyperbole (but, see, I know the guy, and I've seen him play, and played with him, and frankly, ON THE PITCH, he was great) so I can look past the absurdity, Frank continues his rants (but, while I've not played with Frank, I've had some one-on-one e-chat, and frankly (no pun intended) his desires are not impossible, it's his general unwillingness to deal with people... and then there's the latest kook, who's just brought a desire to extrapolate pickup to the real world. shit.

How bout a Blog review.
KD brings tremendous depth to his writings. Frankly, I make no claim to either his command of the syntax, grammar, or most significantly, language in his writing. Truly beautiful stuff that should honestly be finding a place in a literary magazine, not this pathetic venue. I hope he's working on a novel.
I claim only to have an honest voice. I guess I should draw inspiration from Ken's command of the language, but I go the route, why try to compare myself to his strengths. A caveat: In my few (two) (lame) publishing credits, I have tried to use real grammar.
Match: I appreciate the effort, but there are just some things that make me puke. 'Cogs in a wheel' Varied painful misspellings, bizarre homonyms, odd, weird thoughts that remind me of jackie harvey. But, Match, if you bother to read this, Aplus for effort, and I note the improvement, and applaud the mssui-ish effort.
Mssui: Seriously, is this Cyle? Is half that shit true? And I thought I had a checkered college career.
Frosty: Don't know the guy. Takes his shit seriously. I approve, even if I think a lot of this may be just as faddish as the whole run forever slow thing (which I think he and dusty think I do, but really, I never jog. I RUN. And when I train for frisbee, I run FASTER.
Al: I almost threw Al and Jim in the same line, just for humors sake after years of referring to them as stadler and waldorf. By the way, by far the largest sets of hits to my site are from people searching for stadtler and waldorf, so you guys are getting some hits from me. Guy could always play, even when he was deliriously thinking he got a layout block on me. Truth be told, I never got enough playing time for him to get a block on me. And, I remember every block on me in 18 years. They are few and far between. I'm usually not open enough to be a target. Anywhoo, great blog, selfabsorbed, detailed, pics. Sweet.
Jim: Losing ground on his formerly ridiculously stat heavy set, or gaining ground in talking to people, Jim has entertained me for years.
Billy: Second only to Kenny in language, maybe most captivating in terms of frisbee, he had us all going for a year. Speedy recovery on the Leg.
Flash: Must read for a perhaps small set of us who were around at a certain time, and his link to his poker buddy is fascinating stuff.
DlK: Oh, why, oh why did you run away.
Dar. Oh, let's not forget Dar's blog, lives in denver, wife works with my brother, who lives in dublin.

And yes, I still type deja.com to get to google groups.

Hood to Coast.

I'm starting a new blog to separate my non ultimate stuff, but, in the meantime, just to piss off the ultimatetalk readers who can't stand to read about anything but h-stack...

Tuesday Night I somehow went from 'saturday 30min bike ride' to thursday-sunday, massive Hood to Coast Relay run. Next thing I know, I'm driving the Van over from the Redmond airport (only place the team could get the van). I also somehow drew the long legs/ hard legs of this challenging race. The team was great, the girls were members of a race team in SF (one or two were at the olympic trials kind of deal) and the guys were pretty good. (But, really, the girls were the difference makers).

The team at the start. The race included 1000 teams (plus shorter walking and HS divisions). We were iTeam (reflecting our apple sponsoship). This allowed for some plays on that in the van painting (Putting the i back in Team, there ain't no US in WIN, etc) and allowed for some funny schtick about the merits of selfishness. Two vans of 6 played leapfrog as we went accross the state. You would run a leg, tag off to a van mate, and eventually, the next van would take over, and our van would drive ahead 30-40 miles, and chill out for a while (and wish we could sleep).

I joined up tuesday night, and thursday I ferried a van 3 hours over the mountains. We went to the Kennedy School for dinner, and I must have gotten 2 solid hours of sleep in the hotel. Then we drove BACK 1.5 hours to the start (conceivably I could have slept in my own bed, and driven over, but the team bonding thing was cool, and it was no biggy. We decorated the vans, cheered the start, and then our van went to safeway for lunch (soup and sandwich) and then to hang out at FredMeyers for the exchange (bought a new travel scrabble (which i never used, but my current set is missing a letter)). Finally, the time neared for van ii to start.

Van ii (our van) waiting near the exchange for the start of our first set (of 3). Laura and Karen went first, before handing the baton to me. My first leg was 7 miles (averaged 6:45 pace), before tagging off near dusk. We finished up after our next leg evan ran, tagging off to janet, and then we were done for 3.5 hours.

We made a mild error here, in our effort we went to a hotel to avoid trying to rest at an overcrowded transition area. In hindsight, we should have gone to the tranny, but, c'est la vie. Here I piled on to my crazy driving mileage, and continued driving late into the night. My late night leg was a 5 miler, I averaged 7:00 pace, but about wet my pants when, in a stretch of deliverance country, in a spot where there were no cars, or runners I heard

crash crash GURNT HONK MROWW. I don't know. Buck deer will apparently make noise before charging. Could have been a cougar or a bear. Fuck. could have been an angry chipmunk on steroids. I was scared. And sprinting. I discussed this with people, one of whom mentioned, "dude, if it's a cougar, you got to face it down."

Uh, I've seen movies. I go up into the woods investigating, and some kind of Predalien leaves my drumsticks behind. But in any event, i'm sprinting in the dark, and I KNOW that if it's a cougar, i need to face it, so I'm running down some crazy country road, looking over my shoulder, holding my water. Finally, another team's sag van comes up on me (oh, it's 3:50 in the morning), and I flag them down:

Me: "Hey, can y'all pace me, I heard some animal growling at me"
Driver (British); "Are all Americans so brave"
Me: "Well, we did invent the disposable diaper"
Driver: "Are you wearing one?"
Me: "Depends"
Driver laughs.

At this point, I'm catching runners, we chat, and eventually another van appears in the back. I say, "thanks, you can race up to the exchange if you need to"
Driver: "Naah. You're entertaining us now."

Eventually, they leave me, and now I'm racing into the exchange. It was fascinating. I thought I was going fast, but the dark, uneven road, demanded a keen awareness of what was going on. My theory is that the proprioception required made things SEEM to be happening faster than I thought they were. I also was running without my race mandated reflective vest (I somehow forgot it at my first exchange: we broke 24 hours only because we never missed an exchange, but this didn't mean that I didn't need every spare moment at the exchanges to go to the blue room, and warm up, and after the driving and what not I just forgot it, and my fatigued team noticed nothing weird when passing me). As I approached the exchange, and worried about getting busted for no vest (a potential 1 hour penalty or DQ), my brilliant plan was to pull my shirt off so it could conceivably look like i was running with the vest in my hand, or that my white-ass chest was reflective enough, and I covered my number on my shorts so I could make the exchange and sprint to oblivion. Either they didn't care, or it didn't matter. But the bibs were no joke. One young lady was hit by a car on the race, but my rural run was better suited to forgetfulness.

We made the exchange, annnnndddd.... I was driving again. We arrived at the next exchange at dawn, now moving up on the pack, enough that we parked right at the exchange, and only had to wait 5 minutes for frenchtoast, bacon, and eggs, and a coffee ($6.50) prepared by some fundraising group. I caught 15 minutes of sleep (literally my only sleep of the race). Off we went. First Laura, then Karen, then Me, an 8 mile (did I mention the previous 12 miles, sleep deprivation, etc). My leg was working me, and I ran it at a 7:15 pace, but oddly, this was the only leg no one passed me on. One guy sat on my wheel for 4 miles, and I somehow shook him. I considered walking, quitting, etc., but only sort of in passing. I mainly just focused on my breathing, and tried to ignore the pain in my leg. I finished in form, and handed off to Evan who, again turned in another 6:45 set. He should have taken my legs: He'd run 5 marathons in a year in preparation for Boston, and where I faded 6:45, 7:00, 7:15, he just held on.

It was very clear: the marathoners (the ladies karen, laura, janet, lisbet, sarah, and evan, greg) all held consistent splits where the rest of us faded a bit. But everyone was strong (enough) and we never screwed up a transition, which I saw happen over and over. For a team that finished 23:59:43, well, no mistakes was significant.

Evan handed off to Scott, a strong runner hamstrung by a groin pull forced to run well below his pace, but he showed great discipline in not hurting himself. I finally got some sleep, nearly 20 minutes, before we arrived at seaside.

We were corporate sponsored (apple/nike) so we hung at the nike tent site for a while, some people got free massages, drank free beer, ate free food. A couple team mates scored some nifty polypro beach blankets. We got our last team picture taken, and headed back to clean up and eat pizza. There was a little bit of ocean-ing, but if you're not from here, you need to understand, you wear a wetsuit to swim in oregon.

After pizza, a small group, organizer Don, Cat, Laura, and Myself went out to shoot some pool and check out the end of the bands... before crashing at 11:30 and waking up 5 to drive back.

Our Co-ed team came in like 76th out of 1000 total teams (all categories), or 4th out of 80 in corporate. Pretty competitive!!! Honestly, the ladies won it for us. We averaged 7:18 as a team for the race, had no major screw ups in transition, no arguments, and through the miracle of wetwipes our van never smelled bad.

Since then, Sunday, I couldn't walk down stairs, or my driveway. to the extent I walked backwards down both. Monday, I was still walking backwards, but I found riding a bike, due to the use of different muscles, was fine as long as i stayed in the saddle (no cranking). So I rode to work, and rode with the team while they ran 40 minutes (I don't count that as training, too slow on the bike, just wanted to do my job. I'm still a few years from coaching from a golf cart, I guess). Today I ran with the team...

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!

Exquisite pain that defies description. I ran very slow for 3 miles, trying not to throw up, but I DID find that if I ramped it up a bit in the last half mile, that it didn't hurt any more. It's called doms, and i'll recover. But it's no fun. We do have the team time trial this week, a 3200 m (approx) run in a park, that I've done the past 2 years. I guess I'll do it, in the mindset that It's OK to show weakness, but I'll probably repeat it again in a week or two to get a better baseline for personal training.

this weekend, I was planning to repeat an earlier running camp with some friends in an environment where I don't have to watch kids: bike 40 miles, paddle 2, run the mountain, run 13miles, paddle home, bike home, over a 3 day period, with only the mountain run being HARD. At this point, I may have to modify that, but I think I'll start to freshen up in a day or two, so it's still the plan, but I will DEFINITELY modify it, probably, bike 20, walk 4 with gear, sleep, do the mountain (to the best of my ability), sleep, run, sleep, go home. Or something.

thanks for reading. nothing to do with ultimate.

heck yeah.

i loved Generation Kill.
I don't talk politics, but that it is a great miniseries.

But I got to approve anyone who is so american they eat apple pie for breakfast, have a flag tatoo, but keep a flag pin through the skin next to it, an Ipod that has 80 gigs of 'America the Beautiful' and 'StarSpangled banner', and drives a forklift b/c pickups are for sissies...

Well, those boys rock.

Seriously, great miniseries, looking fwd to reading the book. More to follow. Also, my Hood to Coast race. 24 hours. 3 legs. Nike/Apple sponsored.

adfadda

long week. i'll have to look when i last posted. week of too much work, too much heat, and before that a running camp. basically, every morning, i'd sleep until awoken: in the back of a UHAUL van, at around 5:00-5:30, people would start walking around and slamming portapotty doors: 5:30 to 5:45, someone would toss a bag on the back of the van. depending on my fatigue, i'd immediately, jump up, at 5:15, or snooze til 5:45: then load 260 riders heavy ass bags for 2 hours, squeeze in a 10 -20 minute brekky, dissassemble and load some heavy ass tents and chairs and tables...

then drive an hour and reverse.

i also squeezed in 3 40 mile rides, an 88 mile ride, and a run (10 warmup, 4x6 hard effort, 4 min rest after each, 10 cool down).
today, 4.5 min, 40 min run (very easy, 104 degrees). also squeezed in a serious night on the town.

lost about 5 pounds, i look like what passes for emaciated (for me).

ciao

on and on.

ON the bike ride up to the running camp I stopped to take a pic with the new camera. Not bad for a cheap digital. Set it to 10 second delay, it takes 6 or 8 photos over a 3 second period, pick the best, voila. I dig the camera, i haven't figured out how to have all the images preview or show as thumbnails, so i'm a step slow in sorting them right now.



Good camp,
tues: 49 mile ride there (from the house), paddle accross,
wed: get up, 3 mile hike to mountain, run the mountain (5 miles, x1000 vertical), (56 minutes, 11th place for the team, totally fine, probably 3-5 minutes better than when i did it 2 years ago), then read, and ate,
thursday, 13 mile run, read, ate
friday, biked home, included 17 minutes up sparks grade (which I THINK is about what i did it in last year.)

Tomorrow, 8:00 am, bike ride the second.

my first loss...

well, that's not totally true. the team lost one when i wasn't there. and we lost one to a team that played 5-2 to our 4-3. but tonight we lost one basically fair. so, meh.

it was kind of annoying that they insisted on playing 5-2 (it's a 4-3 league, and both teams had enough... i just didn't really care). basically, they had 4 players who could put it, and we had... well every time i had the disc, i had plenty of targets deep to look at. unfortunately, several were wearing white. but we kept it close, i came up with a couple d's, matched that with a couple throws out the back (SHIT SHIT SHIT WHO SET UP THOSE FIELDS), and we were outplayed.

my league record in the draft where i'm a captain: 3-0. when i'm a draftee: 0-3. no complaints. and it was pretty fun having a team with good defenders take turns cover me. it was a bit more frustrating trying to cut to get open for throwers who can't break the mark... on defenders who know that.

we lost by 2 (i think), and frankly, it was dark enough that had we scored to make it -1, i'd have been cool with calling it. i got in a 20 miles of riding (to and from morning frisbee, running errands, to pm frisbee). i had a couple up high, missed a couple d's up high (on good receivers), got piece (but no joy) on a layout block... dang.... it was a fun conclusion to my summer league season, albeit, bitter sweet.. 14-3, one loss i wasn't there for, one loss again, to the team that played with an extra guy, and tonight... so, ok. if i was sticking it out, i'd push the league td, who is on our team, to draft a couple players (he's been generous to a fault letting other teams pick up players, us, well, not so much. our one pickup wasn't there).

tomorrow: i leave early for the bike ride then it's off the to cultus mountain running camp, then the second ride... then it's pretty much back to work. I think i got the allergies/cold licked, so that's good. the bike rides are like boot camp: lifting hundreds of bags, then PM bike rides of 2 hours or a run or both. other than that, i'll pretty much play guitar. they bookend the running camp, which is, bike 50 miles, run 3.5, chill, get up, hike 3, run 5 (uphill) and run/walk 8 back to camp. then run 13 miles the next day, then run back 3.5 miles on day 4, and bike home, then another bike trip. it's pretty burly. do-able, but i usually end up with some foot pain.

I spent 3 hours getting my 'song book' in order. i usually play guitar using my computer as my music stand, showing tabs. I went to the trouble to print 100 songs (guess) and hole punch them. my goal is to start to 'memorize' the songs...

oh, and the last day of organized morning frisbee. only had 14: but, i got to say, 6 weeks of 15-25 kids has been pretty fruitful:

the gems:
i got a girl who was slowing up when covering her mark to attack the frisbee when it was going up: she immediately got 2 d's.
a kid called a travel on me (totally legit), which is always hard, as i coach: play by the rules first, then make calls. (as opposed to the god awful make calls you can't play by).

closing note: the hardest thing about coaching youth friskee:
BE VERY SURE WHEN YOU GET TO THE GOAL LINE IF YOU THROW A LEADING PASS.
The classic turnover is a 3 pass sequence that gets the disc on the goal line, and then the unforgivable pass: a tight leading pass when a dump or a reverse of field, or even a fake would lead to the goal. and, we eliminated some of that.

tryouts.

ok, so this may be on the absurdist side for most, but for those of you with a certain sense of humor:

the first tournament we played this year was 'state'. single gender. the second was 'state', co-ed. the last was the local tournament, which i called districts. this set in motion a running gag, that we went state, districts, practice, tryouts. in keeping with that, i've constantly used bad grammar in our tryouts, telling kids to 'try not to be nervous,' we'll set the teams previously.

i know... maybe you don't get it. the joke is coming to fruition, as today, our second to last summer practice, we ran drills (for the first time all summer), and this thursday, we're going to do the name game, and meet all the new players.

it's actually been a great summer. i've averaged 15-20 kids (sometimes more), tu-th mornings at 8:30. and it's a real team dynamic. we do semi-structured throwing until 9, then we play mini and / or dutch, then we scrimmage. several players have made huge gains, and, man, it's pleasant.

in contrast, tuesday and sunday pickup, it's a disastrous mix of noshows, lateshows, etc. and tons of players, who get off their bike, and their first throw is their first of many turnovers. i go back and forth as to whether or not i should offer to run some drills or short field games... but it's pretty frustrating when uh, no one can catch.

there are a few good players out there... but, i mean, let's get better, m'kay?

personally, sunday, i took it off, but played ultimate, everypoint, for say, 1.5 hours, then,
monday, 45 minute run, with the 24 minute 3.5 mile run... i'm still congested, so averaged like 7 minute miles... but felt shittay.
tuesday, morning frisbee, 2 hour 35mile ride, then a 1.5 hour frisbee sessh. one argument... but i'm trying to stop doing it, even when people are acting poorly:
long story short: i asked a guy why it was OK for him to call someone out from 40 yds accross field, but i couldn't get him to consider whether he was (1 yd) out when i was right behind him on the line.

got in 3 hours of guitar: hard for me to sing, not that i sing for other people, but the cold has made it unpleasant for me. (for you, imagine blackboards screeching). but i'm getting my register back.

sat/sun, i re-read rainbow six (crap, but at least it's reading, so no worse than watching RAMBO (which i did last week), and mon/tues, 'without remorse' (more clancy crap, but again, better than watching TV), and downloaded about 60 songs...

current faves to play:
twilight zone (golden earring) although, I prefer the f# to the f#m, tainted love, love me like a rock, and sultans of swing (i got a problem with the instrumental... i'm reading tabs, so the measure isn't listed...)... logical song is pretty cool. rehab, by amy winehouse, although, i'm not sure how comfortable with my 'daddy' so i go back and forth between 'baby' and 'mama'. i'm not sure which is more bluesy correct. is 'old lady' acceptable these days?

batman, no spoilers.

flipping unbelievable. i'm a huge nolan fan, and this delivers. it's dark, and long. long enough that my mid day showing was challenged in the last hour by my absolute involvement in the story, and my full bladder from the xlarge arnold palmer (tea/lemonade). suffice to say, i'm a pushover for the good graphic novel movies/escapist fiction (liked VforVendetta, OK w/ Ang Lee's hulk (not great), but more a fan of the cinema, I really liked Batman Begins, Matrix (can we pretend the sequels never happened), X2 is good...

but to me, this is great, challenging cinema. Ledger's work is maybe or maybe not oscar worthy, but that's immaterial: he commands the piece. bale is solid, eckhart, is solid... and there are some stomach turning twists. i'm not sure if slate's comparison to 9/11 i spot on, but overall, it's 2.5 hours of thoughtful and commanding cinema, the best i've seen in months.

the cameos are great too: tiny lister, anthony michael hal, wm. fichner (is that right)...

without giving too much away, it has the feel of an 'empire strikes back', and with ledger's death, it's questionable who could fill his shambling, feral role. i didn't see brokeback mountain, and while he was entertaining in brothers grimm, a knight's tale, ned kelley, and the patriot, and something a bit more in the monsters ball, he's always been a vanilla throway character (with the caveat that i'm not a 14 year old girl).

however, his work in this moving was compelling, and while the movie doesn't demand a sequel (thank god, it's not one of those lameass matrix 2 unfinished movies), the quality of nolan's work leaves me wanting more.

maggie gyllenahll (wrong spelling, i know), was great: loved her in donnie darko, and in other work, was great, and i look forward to more. if nothing else, she's far superior to katie holmes.

in all aspects, its a wonderful movie. if you comment, i'll delete spoilers, for say, one week. just out of fairness. then all bets are off.

in other news, my new protocol seems to deal well with my allergy/cold, or i'm coming close to licking it. my second day of 7 hours of sleep was heaven. after almost 2 weeks of 4 hours of sleep, i'm wrecked. but i mustered a 43 minute run today, just over 8 minute pace, but after a week of illness..... i guess it's alll right.... and it was a hilly profile... but, i was pretty unimpressed with myself. after a few hours break, and 3 hours of guitar, i went for a 1 hour (58:30) 17 mile ride, nice and easy... but i'd say i'm at about 80%. that run should have been a 40 minute run at that effort...

tommorrow, i'll ride,and run... or i might play ultimate, but someone kneed me and stepped on my ankle thursday.. so i'm a bit limpy...

one more week of coaching, then it's a 1 week bike trip: i handle the luggage, and set up tents (the big kind)... i can get in as much biking as i want, but while the paying customers do 505 miles in 7 days, i'll do maybe 250, but with lifting bags, and stuff, it's plenty. then a couple days rest, then a running camp... 45 miles in 4 days, then another bike trip. the last 2, combined with other injuries, have left me limping for months... we'll see how i do.

what a terrible week.

ok, since saturday, i've been debillitated with allergies/ maybe a cold.
saturday, i did a 45-50 mile ride.
sunday, i woke up with gawdawful sinus issues. like, i'd hickup, and my ears would hurt. i did steam inhales, advil, antihistamines, etc. but, sunday, and monday, were lots of time on the couch, trying to breathe. awful.
mon, see sunday.
tues, i rallyed for morning, and p.m. frisbee, but, i mean, i actually don't count frisbee as training anymore.
oh, tuesday night, i went out to someone's birthday, and ran home 3 miles, but, that doesn't count. i spent the night hacking so hard my room mates were awakened and thought i was throwing up.
wednesday, i ran a mile and a half to practice, hawking around, and ran back after the head coach and i agreed i didn't need to run.
thursday, i 'cancelled' coaching morning frisbee, but they played anyway (that's fine, i just wanted them to know that they were 'unofficial, i.e., if your parents need an adult there, it's cancelled. ' i did this with a cell phone.
thursday night, i rallyed for league, played everypoint of two games, and just for grins, introduced someone to shotgunning (i opened them both with my thumb, always a crowd pleaser).. so, 3-0 tonight.

so by my standards, zero exercise this week. i'm hoping to ride the bike after running tommorrow.

i'm about to try a new sleep regimen, hopefully one that will give me more than 3 hours sleep (which i've not had more than in a week)

1) pot stickers
2) cloraceptic spray (to numb the throat)
3) 1/2 dose of nyquil
4) 2 advil

i'll let you know how it gos.

july 12

Thursday, July 10, woke up very tired. I'm suffering from brutal allergies, which wake me up around 2 am... So thursday, I just chillaxed, played a few points of jogging A.M. ultimate early with the kids (probably 20 there, most consistent summer ever), ralleyed to play the 2nd game of the city league double header. Sort of miffed, our opponent had only 2 girls, so played 5-2, and acted pissy when I said, at the beginning of the game, 'so you forfeit? why not play short handed like everyone else does?' they were very happy with there cap win and the numerous goals they threw to the girl covered by the guy.

Friday, kids played games at XC practice, i just organized things, little everyones it tag, clock tag, ultimate, sharks and minnows. as an aside, a 50 person game of sharks and minnows really looks like sharks... and minnows. Then I went for a 1:04 slow jog (about 8:10 pace), a 20 minute swim, lifted weights.

Today, (Saturday, July 12), I went for a 3 hour bike ride, nice and slow, about 47 miles. Tommorrow, a ride, and a short run.

generic.

solstice write up to follow.
july 9, today, 45 min run (hard, figure 6to not quite 7 miles), then a 42 mile bike ride (road)
july 8, yesterday, threw around in the morning, 2.25 hours biking (1.5 in a single ride, the rest commuting), swim 20 minutes, weights, frisbee for 1 hour in the evening. ankle achy.
july 7, rest
july 4,5,6, solstice
july 3rd, frisbee in am, 2 hour ride, weights.
july 2nd, 30 min run, 2 hour ride.
july 1... already covered.

southland tales

I'm watching southland tales. Im a big donnie darko fan. the movie is off the hook weird. but.. good. i'm thumbs up... they screwed up... it was supposed to be Justin Timberlakes version of i'm not a soldier... but it's sweet...

more to follow...

sabe

sunday: rest day.
monday: 6mile run. awful. it was about 95. i ran it at a 7:30 pace, calves cramping, mouth dry. miserable. lifted weights that evening.
tuesday: early morning frisbee, 1.5 hours, getting worked by some 18 y.o. kid who got 2 d's on me, which i answered with 2 handblocks... basically, chasing a sub 16min 5km runner around like crazy. we played a few points, i called game to 5, down 4-0, we won, 5-4. a great battle. prefaced by 2 hard fought games of dutch. then a 2.5 hour mountain bike ride, then some p.m. pickup ultimate... i cleated myself on a layout catch... my sore ankle seems to be improving... i'm pretty sure it's bone spurs (a recollection from a conversation with a doc about 5 years ago in similar symptoms)...
tommorrow-3-7 mile run(depends on how i feel)... getting ready for solstice....

later

pretty good...

thursday, ran 7 miles, at about 7:30 pace, biked 1.5 hours (mountain)
friday, ran 7 miles (about 7:15 pace), swam 20 minutes, lifted
today, 2.5 hour mountain bike ride. i was going to swim, but i'm thinking i'll do it tomorrow, with running intervals in the AM, and maybe a medium bike (1hour or so), and shoot for a full 30 min swim.

solstice, etc.

i played solstice this weekend. here's the line.
1 drop. 1/2 turnovers, several hucks, several d's (mainly in the zone).

i was pretty solid. my throwaway was a lead break mark that kind of hit the guy as it went by, and then he could have run it down... i think. I definitely take the 1/2 turnover there. The drop was of the embarassing sort. the hucks were leading, easy catches. i missed my one 'h' bid on 'd', but covered 2 players in the zone a couple times, and i think forced d's (like i'd break to the side for the catch 'd' and it'd be in the turf in front of me). my ankles are starting to look so so even. If anyone has a set of the two year ago used, size 12 speed TD's in decent shape, or one left, I got 40 bucks.

the team was so-so, not talent wise: great young players, it just took us a while to shake off the rust. we lost by 2 to the 2 finalists, and should have won both games. (this was the open bracket, but see my Rec.sport.disc post for my thoughts on the superiority of elite play)

the U of O is in good shape if they take it upon themselves to win; dusty was sick, nice long shots, aggressive, but backed up by stellar 'd', stout made some plays i can only have dreamed of making in my prime: kevin minderhout was everywhere, and solid the whole time. We just came out of the gates shaky, and only decided as a team late to make a serious play on saturday. Great play also by dan force and all the other kids (and i mean kids only in the complimentary manner).

monday morning, i went for an 8 mile run, and my ankle blew up like afro - sheen. It's definitely related to the weekend.I'm really struggling with my new cleats. I think it's just the slight differences in ankle cuff height, and new cleaty-ness.

tuesday, i wasn't going to play hs ultimate, but i did, and sort of was fine, jogging around in my limpy running shoes. i won my two games of mini (players picked their own teams), and sort of won the full field game, but i called travel on myself on the winner (i mean, it's sort of silly to beat up on HS kids just 'cus I can throw it far).

i encouraged my kids to use the silly mark: 'don't count to ten, just go 1, 0, 1,1, 0' since no one was going to hold onto it for more than 5 seconds, also, 'turn your back to the thrower, and wave your arms' and 'put your hands peekabo style in front of the thrower for 1 second.' It was pretty funny.

Then I ran 30 minutes, lifted weights, swam 20 minutes, and then rode my bike for 1.3 hours watching the Georgia College world series game... before Georgia's dismal performance led me to take the bike off the trainer and go do 3, 4min max effort intervals on a big hill.

today, i 'rested' and just timed the kids runs. I probably biked around for 40 minutes total.

Ankle is quickly recovering: it's clearly related to cleat break in. I'll just tape for further games. I may or may not play league tomorrow: i need to call Krupf: If he's playing, I should play, and if not, I can skip it in good conscience. Definitely odd: I spent several seasons in seattle taping my ankles in much worse shape: I just don't want to take advil right now, nor do i want to limp through anything.

Tomorrow is morning frisbee, then I'll swim or ride for a while. Maybe league night: If i don't do it, I'll run, or bike intervals.

I'm inspired to play potlatch: I got the usual shot in the arm by playing open ultimate. Got a good team?

We've had 20 kids out every morning for frisbee (t/th), and pretty decent play.

sabe.

pretty low key week.
monday, i rode my bike for about 30 miles (but just sort of commuting). let's here it for commute options. also threw in a 20 minute 5km.
tuesday: a rippin' morning frisbee session, with 3 great dutch games, and then 30 miles of biking, then a casual afternoon frisbee pickup game.
wednesday: rest day. watched a couple movies.
thursday: easy early morning frisbee session. lazy 12 mile bike ride, then, 2 league games. i actually got a legit layout goal. we won both games. i'm a little miffed, as we had 3 subs, but somehow, everyother team had 3 new pickup players. my long game was working, but about half were due to lucky catches.

this weekend. solstice, i think.

next week, i'm going to talk with my HS kids what do they want to do to be winners next year, and what do they want to do to win this year? i'm happy to have all games as casual, but if they want to run drills, i will.

skools out.

wednesday, I think I rode the bike a bit, but pretty low key.
thursday, biked to and from league night, about, 30 min each way, played, we won.
friday, i think i rested...
saturday, I got up, and did 4x4 intervals on my bike. the first one was amazing. this very steep hill i climb for the intervals is marked by a road at the approximately 4 minute mark, except it's VERY rare I can hit it 4 times (I don't think I ever have). But this time was different. Even though I've barely ridden this year, I hit the road at 3:30!!!! I was cranking.

However, the next few were worse, and I realized, that I counted incorrectly on my stopwatch... But the workout was solid. Foaming at the mouth, working hard. Later, I ran 50minutes easy with a dog i'm sitting.

Today, birds woke me at 4 am. Walt Disney can kiss my ass. the soothing song of songbirds? More like Swiss cukoo clock hell. but i ran a bunch of errands on my bike, biked with this crazy border collie (slowly, I know not to abuse a dog on a bike), put in about 25miles in total. Then frisbee started out slow. At 4 (the stated time, there were 2). At 4:15, there were 4. By 4:45, though, we were playing 3v3 dutch, then 4v4 mini (games to 3, then 4, then 5), then a low key 5 v 5 game of 'regular' then 6v6 to 7, then 5, then 3. I didn't play the game to 3. Pretty sweet, couple of alums showed up, and some other Uof O guy I didn't know, and it was a really fun brisk game of pickup. I won every game, dutch, mini (won the first 2 x-nil, switched teams, won that one, won all of the frisbee games).

you know what I say, better to be lucky than good. but a good high paced game, got to run the field a little, played some occasional OK defense, got 5 handblocks... but, boy o boy was i tired by 6:20. nba game was pretty good.

tomorrow, day one of xc practice... i'll bring the dog, and it's a 15 min run to the meet sight, so, it'll be a 70min run. maybe less if i'm fried (i guess i can walk back).... then i'll take the rest of the day off, or maybe swim or paddle. oh, and move my room across the hall...

dgfdhgfgd

i dunno. where was I. quick tourney wrap up. varsity goes 3-1, losing a heartbreaker to Crescent Valley. Up 7-3 at half, we lose 13-9. We agreed not to cap the game: the 2 hour plus game may have gone the other way, but a great team with more experience won. tough loss, but hopefully the kind that grows the team. basically, we won ugly early in a hucking game, and in the second half, our defense was too soft, they broke the flat mark repeatedly to the backhand side. and the most importantly, they completed 20 plus passes per point to win. my kids were bumming:

I said, we had a good half. They said, we always had a good first half. I said, no, in years gone by, we'd have no good halves. We're on the upswing.

Personally Friday was the great run, 7miles, 49 minutes with a 21 minute 5km sandwiched in the middle: no great times, except for the overall.
Saturday, coach allday.
Sunday, rest.
Monday, bike 1.5 hours. Run 30 min. Lift 30 min.
tuesday, bike to and from school (20 min?), rode the trainer (40min) (It's coldish, watched a little diehard2). Biked to pickup: 15min, ran 15min, then, 3x4min HARD intervals. with 3, and 4min recovery. Then another hour of ultimate, mixed bag. had my first discussion on the new marking rules (through a completion, and called violation on a guy (he was wrapping with the arms, definitely over the pivot with the line). It was a pretty funny conversation, where my team is downfield turning it over, and the opponents are coming back, and I'm explaining the new rule, this character moves his arms back flat (they weren't to start, they were wrapped), and says, I wasn't wrapping.

pretty funny to see him spread his wings and say, 'naw, this is what i was doing.'

my side won the 2 games to 5, the first was playing 4-3 vs 5-2.

best current conspiracy theory

Polybius

afdad

What follows is a true story.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Tuesday 7 am, I go to start my car. It disagrees. After pumping the gas, etc., I look under the car. Lo and behold, my gas line is severed. “Whoa, I think. I must have hit a speedbump too hard.” A note. I tend to drive my 25 year old car like a grandpa, unless there is snow, or speed bumps involved. Where speed bumps are concerned, I go with a 'speed is safety' approach. Where snow is concerned, I tend to go with a 'rear wheel drive rocks.'

Cut to Wednesday night at the BBC. I retell the story for the 4th time of the day, when Scott notes. “Seriously. How far could your car have run with NO GAS.” I'm a pretty trusting fellow. And frankly, what's the value of assuming that my pump was stolen. However, the fact that 2 feet of hose was missing should have tipped me off.

Well, I’m a trusting soul, but I’m wondering if perhaps, my Graduatiing seniors on ‘Senior Campout Night” stole it as a prank. That evening I board the senior bus as a chaperone, and after discussing the graduating requirements (any drugs, alcohol, or beachballs will be met with tasering) I ask, “and by the way, did any of you steal my fuel pump?” I retell the story to the gang (my first bunch of kids I’ve taught 4 years, and several note, “well, it’s funny, but we’d go to jail.” I'm pretty sure none of them were drunk (they breathalyzed), but i'm not sure they weren't inebriated.

Either I taught them well, or I taught them too well.

Cut to Friday. Work ends, and I decide to go for a run. I make it all of one block, when I notice another old Volvo. With racing stripes. And all f$%$ up.

With a pile of automobile parts underneath the car. I jog home, and call 911. It turns out, when you do that with a cell phone, it locks up the phone, and causes all sorts of problems. Eventually I return to real world, and within 10minutes, an officer, Officer “P____” is on hand.

I’ve had extensive experience with the police, as my repeated “Yes Officer. Thank you sir,” demonstrates. I relaxed with a 'whush' when he was done, then checked myself, and realized I was not being investigated.

He leaves, and goes to investigate.

I go on my run. Pretty good run: 7 miles, with the middle 3 miles in about 20 minutes. Total time 50 minutes.

After a thrilling hour, I return home. I’ve literally been home for 5 minutes, when the officer returns, and knocks on the door.

“We got your fuel pump back.”

so, Great. I got a gasoline soaked pile of rags on the deck, and some dude out there who thought fuel pumps cost 500 dollars (his story to the cop). Sadly, this 100 dollar part is going to cost someone a lot of shit. And for me, I'll have to deal with the tow. Conceivably, I'll get paid back from the crime. but, It's nice to solve the crime myself.

affdafd

Monday, I rode for 2 hours
Tuesday, a little practice. My new cleats (I think) are hurting my right ankle. Not an achilles, but back of ankle pain. I remember this from 2 years ago when i bought new cleats. Very sore and stiff at work. If my new cleats work out, I'll probably buy 2 more pairs, and break them all in. Hopefully I can get through the next few years. Then we tie-die'd shirts for the team, and a BBQ. I spent a lot of time cleaning the hosts kitchen.
Wednesday, today, bike intervals, 4min,4min,4min, 6min. Hammering. I'm a little concerned that I could only get my heart up to 175, but when I run, I can get it up to 185... the times are all that matter, as I measure my improvement...

Uh, I woke up this morning, and my fuel pump was gone. I thought I just dropped it, but, maybe it was stolen. I mean, it's something weird to lose.

That would be weird.

more of the same.

i'm completely wiped. teaching, coaching, etc. i'm not even at the magic 5 year mark of teaching by which 50% of teachers quit.
02-03, grad school
03-04, subbed
04-05 half time
05-06 taught
06-07 taught
07-08 taught

so 5ish.

the coaching is wearing me down. i coach, almost 52 weeks a year. i get paid for about 20 of them. it's affecting my training.

tuesday, i cancelled practice. it's been pouring rain here: our fields don't accomodate them well. it doesn't help that our 'fields' were closed by sinkhole for 2 years. pretty irritating. i ran stairs.

wednesday. i went for a short bike ride.
thursday. coached frisbee, played a lame league night.
friday. slept
saturday: got dressed to ride, saw lightning, went home, sat around in my kit for 5 hours as it poured rain. the break never came, so it was another rest day.
today, 1.75 hour mtb ride, .5 of commuting errands, 2 hours of ultimate.

and what sweet ultimate it was.

my ideal 'pickup' ultimate was met.
a bit of a breeze (makes things more interesting)
hard play (everybody was running)
civil play (it's pickup. there are rookies out here. let's skip the close calls)
good humour (a personal beef. i have a hard time with bullshit heckling)

literally, as far as i can remember, not a single call was made... i know i tried to play my part... i dug one out on a go to cut... but i felt grass (it was high).. i just threw it down, told my team mate (ahh... shorter grass, it's for sure up, but it may have hit the grass)... a nice, tight clean game was played, with every player giving the other team the benefit of the doubt. win it with excellence, not with calls.

to me, the perfect way to play a pickup game. that said, i can be the worlds biggest asshole, stickler to the rules. but sunday in the park, just win it with your legs, and throws, not with your calls.

in contrast: i've just given up on some calls in league play. they fall on deaf ears.
'a turnover in the endzone, and the opposing player is walking it up, and spinning it on their finger and drops it, and picks it up. (i just let it go).
'a player cramps, (on a team with tons of subs).' they stay in
'2 players leave for injury in one point.' i sub 2. they say 'you don't HAVE to sub' 'Thanks, i say'

i'm good with all of this, until the opposition starts screaming pick, when they poach, or losing it when we play zone, and they call every ticky tack double (fair) but when i ask their cup to step off the double a bit, they lose it.

back to an earlier post:

why is it OK to let a bad result stand in the interest of 'let the players sort it out' where ignorance is concerned?
if a player doesn't really know the rules, is it right to let a new player be taken advantage of?

at the risk of alienating everyone:

your child gets in an argument with your other child or another child.
is your instruction 'work it out' . or is your desire for a right outcome.

seriously. teaching the rules is part of spirit of the game, codified in ettiquette.

From Section 1. Introduction, item B. "Spirit of the Game. Ultimate relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship that places the responsibility for fair play on the player. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, or the basic joy of play. Protection of these vital elements serves to eliminate unsportsmanlike conduct from the Ultimate field. Such actions as taunting opposing players, dangerous aggression, belligerent intimidation, intentional infractions, or other 'win-at-all-costs' behavior are contrary to the Spirit of the Game and must be avoided by all players."

specifically, adherence to the rules. that's part of spirit of the game. where players don't know about the rules, we should make sure they do!!!!

training.

I cancelled frisbee practice today. I needed a mental health day after 5 hours of grading on memorial day. I also squeezed in a 1.5 hour bike ride, and a 35 minute run, and a quick circuit of single leg squats, chinups, dips (jogging from station to station, 3x).

Came home, slept, ate, and did a 30 minute workout. 10 minute warmup up to the college, 4x2min hard effort stair sets (stairs that run from the bottom of campus to the top, got my heart rate up to about 185, which is pretty high. By my age, guestimate, time, i think my heart rate max is about 193. So, that was a decent set.

felt really good. like i could have done at least a couple more: I'd do as many as 10 of these on a bike, but the higher impact of running was taken into account. And it was, again, a long day.

mining the rsd archives.

the initial wsj thread

scroll down to 14 to read the article.

questions for discussion. where do we go from here. how do we improve our image. what is the future of ultimate. but more significantly, go read RSD, and search wsj, and find the sweet posts. reply with links.

adfsadf

I haven't gotten much response from my question:

right outcome or 'consensus.' you decide. it's actually a significant personality point question, and I think it may be telling about the nature of different focuses ultimate frisbee players have. me, I'm a 'right outcome guy.' I try to balance this with self officiating, but for me, AS MUCH AS I AM ABLE, I prefer a right outcome.

if I see my coached players make a bad call, I just won't let them stand by it. if their ignorance is such that they make a bad call, that's unacceptable to me, as it's cheating. i, as much as possible, try to direct my thoughts on bad calls by the opposing team to the other coach, and not interfere with the game.

is this right? I think it comes to my question. i sincerely have a problem with teams going with the 'let them work it out approach' as I wonder, what is the virtue of someone who is in the wrong winning by 'consensus.'

I do, conceptually, appreciate the viewpoint that consensus and agreement is a positive outcome of a selfoficciated sport: but, and a significant caveat, if all parties are

1) objective
2) understanding of the rules

nuff about that.

Friday, I took off, slept 1.5 hours after school, went to bed tired, woke up tired, but got dragged out for a bike ride. Rode about 35 miles, recouped, then ran (tired and slow) 4 miles, and did a quick strength sesh. (14 chinups, 20 pushups, 23 100 pound squats (full parallel: it matters).

Cooked up some jambalaya, caught the end of the celts game, watched 300.

Photo.

Team picture (A and B) from state.




thurs.

uh, wednesday, i went for a VERY slow 1.25 hour mtbike ride, a very hard 4.25mile run (about 7minute pace). then lifted weights.

today, played a mini tournament with the kids. so, 5 games to 3, the last against the 'stacked team' was 15 minutes long with lots of running.

next week we go back to practice seriously getting ready for district (the local tournament)... my joke with the kids, is, we peak for state, then we ramp back for districts. we'll have tryouts after that. i like everyone loose for tryouts.

then i had league night tonight. we won, running away, but it was chippy. i'm probably to blame: but here's where i got bent.

disc goes up, our deep deep (athlete, but novice player), holds his ground, and gets the sky. on the way down, or perhaps as both, basically stationary players go up, there is some minor contact. the offensive player calls foul. i don't yell, 'send it back', but i do turn to the captain and say, 'really, what do you think?' he says, 'hey just let them sort it out.' that shit just kills me, but what do you think?

what is a correct outcome:

let them sort it out?
or, is it correct to make the right call?
is it a 'no contact sport?'

i know where i stand, but i'm looking for feedback from the conflict resolution crowd.

I think we won 11-4, and i got a comeback block on game point. i was prety high on that, even if it was a mediocre block in the grand scheme of things.

updoc.

I wrote a post the other night about states. IN retrospect, I was a bit peckish (look it up, I was also hungry, in addition to being surly. To summarize: the winners deserved to win, we got what we deserved, I'm proud of my students for playing their best, and comporting themselves in a great manner. I feel that HS teams SHOULD be coached, and that supervision should occur as a few players on a few different teams were allowed by their coaches to act with bad sportsmanship, and the occasional bad call, but I bench my kids for the same. It is a failure of the game when players don't hold themselves to sportsmanship.

This is a different argument than Toad, etc.'s desire for Refs. I'd ref a HS game I wasn't coaching, but I think that sportsmanship: how you comport yourself in a game during a discussion is important, whether it's in a winning or losing situation. I think it's OK to react to bad behavior, but as kids, I want them to see the value of maintaining their cool, but sometimes, it's OK to disagree. It's very complicated, and kids need direction.

Sunday I played a few points of ultimate; I think I was mildly heat exhausted.
Monday I split my survivors into two roughly equal teams (they both won; i had very few 'jv' players there).
Today, we did a lightish practice, but it was so windy all we could do was dutch (pretty cool had a new player out there who was all about the no look behind the back passes and working hard... I'm all about ambition, If he keeps coming out, we'll talk about strategery later)... did a scrimmage after.

Then a 1.5 hour pickup scrimmage. I did some goodstuff, some bad stuff, but i tried. Just frustrating to play in a mediocre game. But workout wise, a good day.

state, league night

lessee, friday, i think i rested. i coached the track team, but they were running late season sprints, and it was at the local juco, where they were having alt-ed day. so i picked up a neck massage, and called it good. Saturday, I skated 40k, and biked for 1.5 hours (about 25 miles), so a sweet 50m day. but wasted. i took sunday off. monday, biked for about an hour. tuesday, ran drills with the kids for 2 hours (including 30 minutes of JV (plus me) vs. Varsity, jv gets a point for every Varsity turnover, game to 3. I think we won 4-2 (so, it was a 2-2 tie). Wednesday, 30 minute run, 1 hour bike, 30 minutes weights. Today, throw around session, finalize rides to state, figure out (I know it's crazy) how many kids were going to state. The final numbers are based on girls. We have 14 girls going, not enough for 3 teams (it's 4-3) for 2 days in 85 degree heat (I know that sounds sissy, but we're going from 40-60 degree temps for 3 months to this. I can't do it responsibly: I'll limit numbers to the varsity team, but I just can't afford to have 4 girls play for 2 days. Then I biked to league play. The plan was to bike to the game (30 minutes) drop off the game bag, bike for 30 more minutes. But I flatted, and my spare was bad. Luckilly, a buddy of mine (parent of kids i coach) lived less than a mile away on this sweet, weird, runway that's kind of down town. If it sounds like a weird setup, it is, but i got a patch kit from him, (oh, and he's invented all sorts of weird things like a pen that writes like a spirograph, and a ball that turns into a frisbee. and a former rescue Parajumper. crazy guy). But my tube wouldn't take air (ANOTHER HOLE. CRAZY BUT IT HAPPENS). So rick gives me a ride to the fields, warm up, and we play. 4-1, 4-3, then 10-3. Weird. I threw some golf discs today, I don't know if it matters, but I was overthrowing everyone. but weirdly, the pulls were the best i've pulled in a while. After an embarrasing line drive to the goal line, it was 5 straight coffin corners that led immediately to goals. But tons of long overthrows. shanks and errors. weird. But several 'ds' and played every point until 10-3. I was embarrassed to see my team go with the 'all upside down point' when receiving 10-4. I feel that sort of shit dishonors the game, and mocks the other team. Respect, for me, is respecting the game, and playing to win cleanly, and fairly.

In school, I told my seniors I was giving a test on 'senior skip day'. The rich, entititled kids were apoplectic with rage that i would dare make them accountable. I said, skip the class, you take a different test. And it will be harder. Come in in the morning, take the easy test. Come to class and take the test. I don't care. I actually test prep before every test and READ THE QUESTIONS to the students: All year, 3 kids have taken advantage of this. So, I'm not impressed, but despite my anger at their awful, white bread, juvenile behavior, i tried to use reason. They were having none of it. I was mildly pissed, and yes, it's punitive, but the bottom line is that It is inherently discriminatory to reward kids whose parents will lie to make an excuse, where other parents allow kids to do what they want.

How will the kids do?
Well, first of all, my coaching strategy is to let them do the playing. No screaming, no marionetting from the sideline. Alex Fergeson, not Bobby Knight. I will make sure they don't get 'cheated' on any kind of egregious bad calls... but, I'll make adjustments.

The Varsity team could play great. They looked fluid and brilliant Monday at scrimmage: ladder cuts, dumps and swings, opportunistic long throws. If they play like that, we could maybe make the semis for the first time ever in the 10 team pool. But it's high school, and if heads hang on defense, or if the couple throwers fall in love with their throws... then...

Well, we'll see. I'm taking 40 kids camping. Luckily, parents are going. But, we'll see how it goes. My policy, is that if any kid breaks a rule, the tournament is over for all kids. I'm blessed in that everyone of my kids is generally respectful. But I'll stick to it.

thursday.

as usual, tired, from the weekend, ramping it up.
Monday, Varsity vs. JV, as Mt. View Played bend. A disappointing showing by varsity, with too many turnovers. I put my psycho freshman on my main handler, and told him to harrass at the mark, and get crazy. It was hilarious, and successful.
tuesday: Light turnout, kids worked on my beloved 'stanford handler weave'... with mixed results. i'm really high on the drill as a cutting drill, it's designed to reinforce the value of dump, swing, give go and LOOKING OFF THE CUT STRAIGHT UPFIELD. It also looks really cool, and there is a lot to be said for a cool looking warmup drill to get you feeling good.

most importantly, it's totally relevant to ultimate. this drill has affected the cuts I make at frisbee, as i refresh my own love of the game, and it's a great set up for handlers, and how to clear and reset the stack.

thursday: all zone, all day. I tend to wait really late in the year before introducing zone. my goal is to teach the kids to be good frisbee players. I find that if i introduce the zone early, the lack of disc skills makes the zone TOO effective as the turnovers are too easy to generate.

personal: monday: rest day. very hard to do. it was beautiful, but rest was due.
tuesday: city pickup, and i tried hard.
wednesday: a 1/2 personal day, so i took care of my banking and etc., then after a 30 minute run with the track team after school, skated 20km, then tele'd a bunch, then lifted weights. whew. big day.
thursday: coached (played a little) then went to the city league clinic, took them through a basic handler cut, a continue cut, and an away cut (3 different drills) then did a cycling flow drill with a handler cut to an out and in cut to an away cut. then scrimmaged for 1.5 hours.

I was tired and flat: 3 days per week of ulti, plus the running, skiing, weights is hard. Hard to get fired up to dive at everything, but I made an effort to play some defense, until the 3rd or 4th turnover each point.

weekend.

Thursday, lightly attended practice (as threre was a big school charity function that night). drills, playing. then I helped coach the local league deal. sparsely attended, but productive.
Friday, ran 6 miles, lifted, swam 20 minutes.
Saturday: Skated 1 hour, biked 50 minutes.
Today: Toured for 2.5 hours, (probably 1.5 hours of climbing), biked for 1 hour, played ultimate for 2 hours.

Ultimate was frustrating: My mindset at these pickup games is, don't make calls, and my biggest pet peeve, is, if you don't know if the opponent is in or out, just call it in! So right off the bat, the calls are coming from the other side (i'm not so one sided as to think that there is only one way to look at the universe, i'm just saying, Further adding to my low blood sugar ire: as more skilled players showed up, they all stayed dark. We should have gotten killed in the Game to 7, instead, down 4-3, went to 5-4, then 5's, 6-5, 6's, then we scored on a give go, a down the line pass, and a hammer.

But, they had more throwers, and should have dismantled us. They had 5 guys who could all throw, plus 2 subs. We had a slightly stingier approach: and in the end it was enough.

I just don't like ticky picks and tight line calls and violation calls at league play. But I mean, that's just me. And I was exhausted. Probably the longest training day of the year.

For the week, 6 hours of cardio, 4.5 hours of ultimate, 2.5 hours of strength/core.

This week, Varsity v. JV in the scrimmage. If it gets out of hand, I may bring in a returning player (brother on the team) and / or play a little, and make it a zone practice day. Might ride tomorrow, but I'm thinking of running a 5km trail race tuesday. Probably not worth doing if I don't take a rest day tomorrow.

Pretty light week.
Scrimmages:
Summit Varsity: 15-4 (now 2-0) over Mt. View (Pretty good team, skills, they need some tourneys).
Summit JV 7-9.

Varsity is shaping up, It was windy, and they handled it pretty well, throws and decisions shaping up. Focus was on playing sharp, and overcoming our habit of watching throws as thrower and team. Slows flow.

JV: Not dissappointing, as they are shaping up: a little frustrating. I have decided to minimize my during game coaching, especially in match play local games, be more like sir Alex, and less like Bobby K. There was a little more involvement from the other sideline (making calls (OUT) on a variety of throws. I explained my position to my teams, all the calls that they didn't make (in calls, line calls, foul calls), and said, my intention in not babysitting you is that you learn from the consequences. For example, one of my players clearly caught it in, (but a little tight, catch with foot down, step (in) third step out). I stepped back from the line, just pointing in, the other members of the team were all in the far sideline sort of yelling IN IN, but the kid trusted someone. Yes, a call for refs, but coaches aren't refs. The lesson to the kids was, spread the sidelines, and just point if it's honestly in or out, but let the kid only use that as a guideline, especially if no PLAYER (of the 14) is in any position to be making calls on an unlined fields. Also, one of my kids made a call, but play sort of continued: he, and the team now knows to just stand there hold your hand up, make a call, and as team mates, to stand there, stop, and echo the call. Learning. Teaching moments. The other team ran a zone, and there was lots of double teaming: between points, I explained the double team rule, but also said, I CAN"T CALL THAT FROM THE SIDELINE. Lesson learned. There was also the usual, occasional mystery point discrepancy. I said, you have to keep up with that yourselves.

Honestly, in a game, at 'state', i'll advocate more actively, but I want them to learn the rules. read the rules. stick up for themselves.

Tuesday, in truly shitty conditions (38, snow, 30mph wind), we did 2 new drills, and the 2 basic drills, but with the focus on never looking at your throw. Some improvements were made. I intended to do some other drills, related to cup, 10' rule, and mark breaking, but we ran out of time since i wanted to do a little dutch for a workout.

Wednesday, oh wait, that's a track day. Coached in cold, cold weather, kids did fine. A girl turned in a 2:18 800 (1:06 split, no one to run with. beat the pack by 20 seconds. A skier, 1st 1500 of the season, went 10 seconds off a PR, it was cold.

Personal: Monday, I was tired. So I just lifted. Solid, decent weights.
Tuesday: Practiced pretty hard. Meant to do some additonal cardio. Call it 1.5 hours.
Today: After coaching, I ran 3 x 1000's. here's the history.
9/29/2005 3:42, 3:49, 3:49, 3:49, 3:34.
10/3/2005 3:41, 3:38, 3:38, 3:40, 3:30
9/20/2006 3:37, 3:25, 3:21, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16
9/19/2007 3:45, 3:35, 3:30, 3:25, 3:30. Plus 2km warmup, 1.5 km cooldown
9/26 3:40 3:35 3:30 3:25 3:30 3:40

4/30/2008 3;30 3:30 3:30 (only 3, but i was tired, cold. ran them in heavy sweats. short recovery (2-2:30). Actually a very good workout, but the feet, muscles, started hurting, so that was plenty. Actually a very good workout. It'd be nice to hit some of those faster times this fall (3:15), but, if I could do 3:30 x 5 with short recovery, I could legitimately start looking at a sub 18 5km, which would be a great goal. (I need to run an average of 3:35 to go 17:55. So I can get faster (and it is VERY early) or stronger (shorter recovery) or both. Not going to be easy.... but.... but I was pretty happy with the effort, and the consistency of the workout.

I'll be shooting for an in season (or sooner) workout of 3:35, 3:30, 3:30, 3:25, 3:20, 3:15. With short recovery, that should get me right at 18. If I can hit that by mid summer, I'll look to shave 5 seconds off all those times.

Then weights, light squats/lunges, pull down, dip press (machine takes weight off), pushups, vert row, military press.

Tommorrow, coach, then go run a city league coaching clinic. don't know who's showing.

recap.

Took a Boys a and B team, and a girls team, and well, the only team my varsity beat was the jv team, but this is nonetheless, an improvement. Why... you ask? Well, We're going up against teams that play longer, with more experience... so, I'm Ok with it. Our V team lost at the cap to a team.. We scored the last goal to lose 10-9, and on a run. This is a far cry better than the past. As an explanation, the tournament only includes, for the girls, studly Churchill, and for the Guys, a western bound south eugene, a churchill team that's a bit off from past years, and a CV team that was short handed, but game. (We only had 10 boys per team, but I felt that it was important to split the teams).

If things go to plan, we'll play BETTER at the co-ed states in 4 weeks, and then peak at our home tournament 2 weeks later. I'd love to be better sooner, but it's not really relevant to our season. In lieu of the 75 degree weather we played in corvallis, I look forward to a week of snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. and I mean, in town, not at the mountain.

Today, I road for 2 hours, then played ultimate for 2 hours of pickup, even, trying.

state

wednesday, 45min run, weights (core, balance, 2x10 squats (140), 2x10 single leg squats, straight dead lift, bench, chin, dip, latrow), 45 min on the bike trainer.
thursday, practice (30 min warm-up drills/dynamics/sprints, 30 minutes 5v5 dutch hard). 1:15 bike ride
friday: coached track (sprints (didn't do them, gave kids times), then ran to gym (25min, core, weights (:45 min), swam 800m (20 min), ran home (25min).

tomorrow: 40 kids on a bus, single gender state. 6:00 am. 3 hour ride. we're woefully unprepared, relative to the world (which has been practicing for much longer). my girls get the shaft: one game only. churchills girls after their likely win. by a likely large margin. have agreed to clinic / scrimmage for a round. Then I told my girls they could get games playing against the other guys teams.

my varsity team could be OK. I've split the teams into V and JV, probably 12 each, maybe a couple more. I have 1 legitimate handler (in that he demands the disc, stays behind it or near it), 2 guys who want to run deep more than they handle, 2 guys who are definite lane cutters, 1 guy who just wants to play 'd' and never turn it over, 3 legitimate mids who just look to flow and continue, and 3 sort of new to the game 'a' teamers. If I had ONE guy who was a legitimate take down guy, I'd feel we were very close to the perfect balance. as it is, if I can get some plays out of the boys, and encourage protecting the disc, we'll be OK. As I look at the team, we could have a great, 'flowing' team. but how quickly they buy into possession, the better. the basic disc skills are as good as any team i've ever had.

we'll see how it goes. we've never won a game at 'this' state tournament, but if it gets us closer to state, the better. my challenge will be getting us closer to success at the co-ed states...

our offense is a very basic V-stack. I stress a short stack, mixing handler cuts, and basic swings, and continuation cuts. i focus most on moving the stack back, and too the center. i like to stretch the stack in 'their' endzone, so that we can make endzone cuts to the front of the stack.

we need to work on crossing the field, avoinding throws into the traffic, looking off passes, cutting too soon.. in otherwords, field sense.

the girls are doing pretty good, we lack the take down receiver we've had, but we have throwers now who can deliver the pill up field, and varied cutters.

i'm looking forward to it.

update.

deleted the last post. sorry. didn't like it.

1 week later.
Last week:
Wednesday, ran 35min (track)
thursday: frisbee, then a 1 hour ski hike
friday, 50 minute run, then weights, and a 30 minute swim(track)
saturday, coached all day at a track meet.
sunday: bike 45, run 55 (7miles), swim 25 min (900m)

mon: frisbee coaching: JV loses 13-4, varsity wins 15-1. weights (core, proprioception, squats, chest, chinups)
tues: oh, that's today. 2 inches of snow on the ground, then pouring rain all afternoon. cancelled practice, but 14 or so varsity players showed up, and i got roped in. 1 hour HARD scrimmage (i even dove twice) working on covering the current best player (a new player with a great soccer/football background who's very quick. so i'm able to focus on quick movement right now, and slowly start ramping up the big runs. since i'm also running track practices, i'm working 'back to the middle' with quick movements and longer movements moving towards an open field game. good practice. how is the team? we'll see. this week is the 'single gender states'. we're usually lucky to score goals.... i mean, take a team of skiers with 1.5 months of practice, and stack them up against a bunch of teams with year long play. it's just a tough go.

personally, I AM playing poultry days, with PAX. Winners of every even numbered year since 2000, the pax is older, older, and older. but, this may be the year. one for the thumb. it's the first year that teaching hasn't conflicted, and I'm psyched to see the old crew, many of which are former college roommates/team mates. go PAX.

summary notes: the weights are going well, tommorrow is a 50min run, swim, bike, lift. My goal for the week is 11 hours of training. we'll see. thursday is practice and team BBQ, friday, 50min run, saturday, big yellow bus and coach all day.

uhm. i thought this was for sure a 'rebuilding year' for HS team, but it's looking more and more like a reloading year. I'm only losing a few, and the young guns are bringing it. the challenge: not enough tournaments for HS kids. The UPA Westerns makes it great for the elite, but is currently making it hard to break into the elite. What to do?

Shaaa, I dunno. Word is the count is coming to poultry days. That will be good for laughs and entertainment, even if our teams don' meet. Unless your looking for a team, count?