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?

sabe

Lessee, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I participated in a nordic ski/coaching clinic. Lot's of good drills, Lot's of tips, video work, discussion of weights. Really valuable.

Friday, I ran 45 or 50 minutes, and lifted. Saturday, I biked 1.5 hours, and helped set stuff up at the frisbee party for the tournament I missed. Weird, I love playing frisbee, there are just things, after 18 years, that i love doing more... at times.

Sunday, another 1.5 hour bike ride after the clinic.

Monday, Practice. 75 degree weather turned to cold and snow during the day. There are some really good things going on. Kids are moving down field and clearing the line suprisingly well. The throws are flatter and flatter. I'm getting decent moves and throws on the pivots. In what I thought was a total rebuilding year, we're moving towards having a nice year. Probably 35 kids.

then I hiked mt. bachelor (total climb time, 66 minutes, plus ski time down). then the usual... kids in the room at 7am, and no downtime until the end of the day.

Tuesday: 30mph winds early, so i changed from one of our first full field scrimmages to some dutch, 4v4 in an endzone area, teams divided varsity boys (plus one girl), girls, boys. The divisions were their own. I just said get into groups of 10 or so. Only about 25 kids. Then scrimmage, and the wind dropped, and the scrimmage improved. Then I ski-hiked for 40minutes, and ski'd down.

We'll start scrimmages next week with the Central Oregon League. We'll see what we see. In the past, we've been too proud, and it takes tournaments to round us out. We've lost to other city teams in the early season, as I try and develop offense and defense and the other teams just huck it and f##4 it. But we'll see. Now, we have as many as 50 players, and the other 3 teams have 10-12 players each, so I'm not sure how I let teams play. No rhythm if i play everyone, hard to hold the starters out... what to do...

tommorrow night, coaches meeting. the COL sched will be set.

frisbee content, at last.

for the younguns of the world (cultimate, dk jr (dude, your brother should MAKE you add my blog to your blogroll, if you don't know, just ask him), I actually have some ultimate content.

it's just a drill, but one i think is good for HS, or college. I call it the 'stanford handling drill'. I call it that because it reflects my belief that the 'stanford' 'o' with it's handler set, tends to have handlers hovering around the disc (this is old stanford, not any H stack, which I think is great, but has limitations). The point of the drill is to teach players basic understanding of movement in the 'backfield' or near the disc. I'll put a link up to a flash demo in a couple days, but, here's the basic.

3 players in a short vertical stack. 1, 2, and 3. 1 with the disc. 2 cuts for a swing to the line and receives a pass. 1 cuts give and go. 2 cuts right past him calling for the pass. This is the cut Mike G has referred to as 'the worst cut' in that you are cutting for a pass straight up field with the defender on your hip, and NO ANGLE. I accept that there are time that you should make the pass, but my HS kids are constantly seeing any upfield pass as a good one.

So, 1, to 2 on the swing. 1 goes for,and receives a nice give go on a 45 degree angle (or if the the swing was really wide, takes the defender with a few steps straight towards the sideline 2 receiver, jab steps, and goes upline for the give go. then 1 runs straight by them and cuts back to the middle for the dump/swing. Pass thrown. At this point 3 (who has ideally 'backed the stack up by walking slowly backwards) cuts to the far sideline for a gain. Now 2 cuts for the give go and the process repeats. 1 drifts to the middle (front of stack) and backs up slowly, getting into their position for the next swing after the whole 'give-go', 'dump swing'.

Any cut up line is into a great position for a long throw to a cutter, or to someone cutting underneath. And I want my throwers to hit those. But I'm trying to develop a concept of active cutting, moving the disc side to side. Yes, I could just line them up 3 accross in an H stack and put the worst handler on the backhand side (since everyone forces flick), but I'm trying to teach full field play. In a perfect world, once you were 'out of the play' you might break deep... but that's for later. I realize written descriptions are inadequate, but it's a really cool weave drill that I'm sure someone else out there is doing, I just can't find it online.

I found out on wednesday that the local tournament is this weekend. That's pretty funny. But true. So far am I removed from playing right now, I could infact give you far more details of upcoming college and club tourneys (which I'd be more likely to play) than of my own local tourney. So tomorrow after day 2 of the coaching clinic (which is really sweet, and informative) I may bike ride out there. Oh, we had 2" of snow tuesday, and it was 75degrees today, and awesome.

Instead, I'm still skiing, just took my studs off, drove to school in 2" of snow tuesday...

I'm a lot more focused on coaching than playing right now, but I'm slowly training up on the off chance I play club this year.

This week was my 'rest week' for the year. Sunday I graded papers for 8 hours. Monday I had an orthotics fitting appointment, changed my studs out, graded for 4 hours, and spent a couple hours at school prepping for the sub. And I coached, and got in a light workout of 20 min running, throw, and played a little dutch. And weights. Tuesday, I just coached, very light workout. Wednesday, coached track and ran 45 minutes, and weights. And 2 hours grading (grades are due this week, so I have gobs of reworks and last minute submissions). Thursday, Frisbee (very low key for me, mainly coaching, little workout, and a 1 hour ski tour). today, I took a coaching clinic for 3 hours (for skiing), worked at the office for 3 hours (It's a teacher work day, so I owe another hour of 'clock time (which is stupid to me, since I work on average 50-60 hours per week, and this week 70)) then coached track (50 min run) (i'm a half time track coach, and the speed workouts are usually on frisbee days, so it works out GREAT). Then lifted weights.

I've done one set of pacing 1000's, but I'll do two 30 min tempo runs, one per week, and then add in more intervals. I'll also do increasing dynamics and sprints (which I do with the kids, but the 40's I'm currently striding, not sprinting as I try and slowly limber up my 28 year old hamstings).

Gave myself my semi annual haircut today (which involves shears, newspapers, and 10 min).