Week 1

This week i broke the frisbee instruction into 2 parts. Basic footwork, and intro to zone.
Footwork was primarily applied to pivoting, and cutting. Zone instruction is at it's most rudimentary. We'll build.

Mon, Tues, and Thursday were skills, fundamentals and conditioning.
Wednesday was warmup, and game simulation.

Here is todays practice:
Unstructured throwing while i basked in the amazing 60 degree weather and collected my thoughts. Then while i set up the field, i suggested students work on throwing short completions instead of flinging junk about.

20 minutes, intro to zone, culminating in 5 minutes of zone 'o' with a tennis ball to focus on positional movement.

Warm up (about 1km),
Dynamics
event x 25 yds, stride, event by 25 yds, stride
butt kicks
high knees
skips
side to sides
25 yd build ups (x2)
50 yd build ups
(1 km total)

handler drill
goto drill
sprints
throw in pairs
away drill
.75 km fast jog

dutch drill, run .75 km between game, throw 10 passes while winded.
10 min scrimmage, subs run .75km between points

5 x 40 sprints. told kids that our focus needs to move towards speed

2 minute finishing talk, positive reinforcement.

25 minutes working with 3 students, one got help in huck form, one (newer) worked on flick, one didn't need much help.

Personally,
I did most of the workout w/ kids.
Yesterday, warmup, drills, and Scrimmage. there is one player who tips the field enough with his abillity that I have to play some to balance the game. Then a 25 mile road ride.
Tuesday, lots of drills, and conditioning games (short field, make it take it, dutch drill). Then one hour of mixed unicycling and juggling. Big break through was 2 starts where i actually step up onto the other pedal, without stepping up and rocking back and going. This is hard to describe, but significant. Got one decent trick with the clubs.
Monday, drills, and skills.

Tommorrow, a full team scrimmage, which i'll just watch. I'm going to lift in the AM, and take the pm off. It's a rest day. Saturday and sunday, I'll ski and bike.

Left knee is aching a tad... common for me in early season. Kind of a chondromalacia or something... usually goes away quickly if i'm dilligent about stretching my quad. The sprints were pretty successful. I'd hardly call them sockeye quality, but i was moving pretty good, and the hammy seems to be training up ok...

That's all

let it begin!

official beginning of frisbee tommorrow. 4 days per week, fridays off.
plan for this week:
Monday and Tuesday: Focus is footwork... whether faking / or throwing, teaching the proper pivots for new throwers. Likewise, for cutting. Planting on outside foot, and setting first steps to 'seal off' the defender...
Wednesday and Thursday: Zone intro. If it's real windy, i use a ball, and allow it to hit and roll: the goal is to force the defense to win with positioning and movement, not win because the newer throwers can't yet hit easy ones. The goal is to make the zone 'd' better before our own skills are good enought to truly challenge the 'd'

daily structure:
free throwing while i set up
offer individual suggestions as i move around
warm up run
structured throwing
dynamics
marking drill
groups of 5-7, and movements through stations with small field games (ex: endzone practice), cutting/throwing drill, scrimmage...

one day, weather permitting, will offer a prolonged scrimmage (usually 2 games of 7 a side, teams basically even)... but i prefer, early in the season, to do these on the occasional low wind day.

Me: I'll do the drills, and warm-ups, as i work on improving turnover and stride. but most of my practice is spent highlighting theme of day, and correcting individual areas... i'll run or bike or ski or roller ski everyday after practice... goal is morning lift or yoga or run everyday... we'll see how that goes. hopefully, if it stays cool here, I can still ski in the afternoon: but it's pretty quickly getting to where skiing is a morning pursuit...

this weekend, my first juggling convention. basically, 5 plus hours of juggling and unicycling. marked improvement in both. getting pretty solid with 3 clubs, better with 4 balls, and significant improvement in current unicycle issue of starting without holding on to something...

sides: the discovery science channel planet earth series is flipping amazing. the preview for eaglevsshark looks pretty funny.

"tell him, justice is waiting"
"OK Justin, I'll tell him you called"
"no wait JUSTICE. JUSTICE"

spring break 07

another great day.... ski'd pretty steady for just under 1.5 hours? i'd call it hardish skiing... then read, and napped, (oh throw in eat a few times) and coached ultimate... pretty tired.

summary of spring break 07
saturday: ski
sunday: ski, bike
monday: ski, drills and sprints, bike
tuesay: ski, drills and sprints, bike (in ridiculously cold rain)
wed: ski, drills and sprints
thursd: repeat.

i think it's funny: call the frisbee dryland (and mix it up for the non ultimate heads to include soccer, pole running, and weights) and it becomes a ski camp. people from around the country would champ at the bit to ski in winter conditions, and do dryland in shorts. here, it's either par for the course, or i'm just weird.

i'm thinking of shutting off the comments. interestingly, i've been diving again in frisbee. also interestingly, i have no real interest in playing like i used to, but i'm actually trying some when i play. weird.

spring break, continues

spring break 07 continues... luke gone wild...

lessee, it's tuesday, so i ate (huevos rancheros type thing on toast w veggie sausage), ski'd, ate, read (re-reading hunt for red october, just finished louis l'amours The Lonesome Gods, yes, classic spring break junk reading). The pile of grading awaits.

The ski was good, classic skiing, with a story: I'm standing there, on a VERY gentle hill, and i go to drink some water from my water bottle, and WHOOMBAMO, legs go flying down hill, flop to the ground... THEN i spit out my mouthfull of water... and laugh for a full 2 minutes...

Then, I ate more (oh, i already said that), then went to coach for a bit, then, read some more, then played guitar for an hour, then ate some more...

tommorrow more of the same...

oh, yesterday, i ski'd, coached, then went for a bike ride... and now i can check something off my list of things i will never do. i rode for an hour in POURING RAIN, 50 degrees or less... i was so cold, and numb that when i was fumbling around in the back pocket of my bike vest for my keys... i found my pump... i tried again, and found my tube... each time my frozen brick like hands were sure i had the keys...

so, woo hoo.

spring break 07 woohoo.

yeah deschutes county... wooo hoo...

well i'm spending my spring break in the traditional manner. i'm going to ski 9 days straight, coach some ulti, and bike and run.

wait, that's not traditional?

yesterday, ski'd for an hour or so, and watched some ski races... last night i put a good (read, semi expensive) wax on my skis, in anticipation of this morning. i went up, probably sortof in time to race, but chose to sit out the 30 km race because, well, i'm frankly raced out, and the conditions were marginal...

i did ski for an hour, came home, and rode my bike for an hour. i'm skipping pickup ultimate now, but i'll do some coaching this week so i'll get my throwing in.

should be really good skiing this week. fresh snow everyday, and a mild return of winter means the nordic skiing should be good, and i may go telemark or alpine a day or two. if i can find my snow board boots, i'll do that too.

i'm at a training lull. i'm skiing fine, but i feel flat (another reason for not spending 50 bucks this morning), and i just want to work on form and technique a bit as the season comes to a close. the mountain will stop grooming daily in 3 weeks... so i'll be a weekend warrior. i'm thinking i'll roller ski twice/week until i can no longer weekend ski, and then do no specific ski training until june.

i'll coach ultimate, so look for updates. the team is playing pretty well: this is the most returners i've ever had, but most are sophmores. so in one sense we will be good, but in the past i've always gotten good late season results out of physically mature players playing in their first year with some desparation. this year, i'll have my most technically sophisticated team: but they are physically young, and it will be an interesting season.

for my own training, i'm looking to start increasing running, and weights. maybe i'll play at the local tourney in a month (but that's still ski season, and in fact, the last days of grooming)... i'm planning on going to solstice, so that's my 'frisbee' goal, but there is no local team. it seems the days of pick up teams at solstice are over, but i'll probably just drop in and try to pick up with a team. given my absence from the game, i'm sure this assures me of no specific team, but i'll network to the best of my limited abillity...

the weather here is really cool right now. ski'd in winter (snow, cold) conditions, then came home and biked in light gear. if i went to play today, it's in the 50's, and i could wear shorts and a t-shirt... pretty nice.

so that's all.

coaching stuff: i'm introducing a euro offense, that is slightly different than the 3-4 that everyone else on the west coast plays. my goal is two fold. it serves my teams talents better, and i do want to give my team some opportunity to play against a style they will see every where (every single high school team in oregon runs a 3-4 horizontal stack). but my overall goal remains unchanged. develop young high school players to love the sport, and have a basic understanding of the ways that the game is played at a higher level. i want them to advance, and have options.

guns, gold and glory...

today, the new bend biathlon club hosted it's first clinic... led mainly by the head coach... so i went and helped set that up for the participants... this was dryland... so mostly just shooting, and at the end, we ran some of the kids around so that they could feel the feeling of shooting when winded... i shot, but i didn't do the run and shoot as it was pretty late by that point. mostly, i just made sure rifles were pointed in the same directions... the guns were sweet... a couple of Anschutz, and a Baikal... I was pretty poor in my first Go, but went 5/5 on my second prone attempt, and like 3/5 standing the second time... need work though... it's pretty tricky, it's mostly about trigger pull... ridiculously hot.... like 65 degrees (yes, that's ridiculously hot here)

came home, and took a nap, then went for a 17 mile ride (nice and easy, just to work out the kinks) then went for a 25 minute 'fitness run'. ya know, there are those things near my house, chin-up/dip/situp... there were 6 total, so i'd do a station, run a lap, etc... pretty pleasant... when i get my new bb gun (no compass in the stock, but the vegas odds do have me at 1:2 to 'shoot my eye out kid) (and it's actually going to be a high quality pellet gun) i'll throw that in there for fun...

friday, kids had practice, i ran with them since there was no school that day and it was pretty low-key. just an easy scrimmage cause the weather was so nice.... by easy i mean, no structure, just goofing off on a lazy day... i ran hard, and even dove... first time i'd played w /them this year, probably the last for a while: too much value in full time coaching, too many reader comments about me being Kramer from seinfeld taking Karate w/ 10 year olds... oh, and ski'd 20km friday morning, and then spent 1.25 hours helping dig a biathlon target entombed in 6 inches of ice... chopping with an axe and a spike... then ran some errands on the road bike...

tommorrow, long ski, a run, and i might play some city league pick-up... it's super nice weather, but the field is small, and it's kind of cluster something with a little league game going on in the endzone, and 40 people trying to play 7v7 on a 55 yad field... supposedly city league is coming up, but i'm having a hard time getting fired up for the 4-peat... i may just go in the draft, but i'd rather play a couple tournaments, play in an occasional more competetive pick-up game, and train up for summer tourneys (like run/intervals/sprints)... besides...there are still oh, 2 months of good skiing, and i'd like to focus on that...

so some general goals for the next year of training.
Frisbee: While weather permits 3-7 days of throwing. 3-4 days of sport specific running (i.e., make sure to do my high knees). Tourneys, uh, Maybe the Local Gandy goose in a month. Weather dependent, i might walk out on saturday and pickup w/ a team... got to make sure there is not a HS tourney i have to coach at that weekend. Attend Potlatch, Play fall series. Continue to improve.

Skiing: Improve. Curently I'm a 'competent recreational racer.' I'd like to improve on that. Focus on going fast on flats and downhills (technically challenging), continue to improve technique accross board, and fitness. I have some specific goals like 28 min in a 10 km, but more significantly, i'd like to get w/i fewer percentage points of the winners...

Running: Sub 18 5k. I know that's not that impressive in the grand scheme, but it'll be pretty good for me... my best time trial was around 19:11 for 5km last year...

biking: no real goals, just participate in some bike races and duathlons...

oh, food....

meager food day... plowman's platter, salad, smoked salmon, good cheddar, apple, olives, cherry tomatoes, good piece of bread... and a guinness... after all, it's st. Patrick's day...

today, at practice, for the actual frisbee fans. (somewhere out there, billy layden is looking at his netscape icon, and trying to decide if he should click it)...

30 kids, and it felt like a dissapointing practice. stud number one was recovering from a long term growth spurt achilles injury, but he was throwing, and it was sick... he'll be back, i hope. great girl noname (i will no longer list people's names on my blog) was throwing great, but seems to be suffering from a chronic knee subluxation issue: she'll be back. another kid, fresh frosh, suffered a bit before confessing he had a hamstring pull... i told him... see a PT, but barring that, walk till it doesn't hurt, run till it doesn't hurt, sprint, then play.

that said, 28 kids playing, it was warm (55, and only if you lived here would you understand that that means shorts and a TShirt), 1/2 mile warm up, full dynamics, mor throwing, walk through, more throwing, and then practice.

a scrimmage field, and a drill field. i cover the drills. i like the kids to scrimmage (right now) with minimal interference. i watch, but i'm minimizing comment for now. the drill of the day.

a give and go drill. this is part of my initial plan for teaching basic 4person plays. the drill is a throw from a line to another. line one has disc. line two makes a horizontal handler cut, and receives the disc. thrower cuts down line. later options will describe specific cuts.

endzone offense. ours is simple. call for a flood and isolate. we also have false floods, and varying H-stack offenses. today was simple stack/flood and ISO. i'm a big fan of 7 v 7 everybody's it tag (see previous post for details), call for a play.. it works because it teaches the values of

1) recover after chaos
2) burn time for effectiveness
3) communication...

then we ran some drills...

then, changed from short field 5 v 5 scrimmage to full field 7 v 7, for 15 minutes of full field scrimmage. here i would run back and forth between points and note: make a goal line call.

plan for later; allow longer scrimmage time, and call STOP before a mistake happens. this is usually to identify a point where the team has collapsed on the sideline... encourage kids to either huck and hope, or burn time to reset and set up...

that is all

oh, personal.
saturday: ski'd twice. 1:25 classic in the morning. 1:25 skate in the afternoon.
sunday: 1:30 skate. 4 mile run to drop off a bill. in the middle, i stopped off at the local sunday game, borrowed some cleats, andplayed probably 10 points. threw some goals, made some cuts. the field was the size of a 5 v 5 game...
monday: 34 minute run. probably 4.5 miles.
tuesday: (today), coached, see above. then, 50 minutes of skiing.funky, molten crust, 12km, ski'd abit w/ my room mate, and then, randomly took a digger... back at car, realized i'd lost my shades on the digger, went back found sunglasses in a tree well, went home...
that's all

this is madness...

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Ok, i'm a hedonist. Mr. train all the time is going to the midnight show of 300... what can i say... i'm raised on star wars, raiders, jaws, and matrix, 3 of which i saw on opening day....

today at practice: 34 kids. here's how i organized it. 6 groups of 5. the extra 4 showed up late. 1 full field (technically small, 90 x 30). 2 dutch drill fields. one space for drills.

throw.
1 mile warm up
pair throwing (while i set up cones)
dynamics : each event, 30 yds w/ 30 yd stride. 3 x high knees (strides), butt kicks (Strides), side to side (Strides), karaoke (stride), teardowns (strides), skips (strides), 2 x build ups.
marking drill (one set no arms, one set full mark, both develop foot work, and confidence in new throwers)
then, 1 hour of 6 minute sets of cycling through. if you were group 1, you would go, scrimmage, scrimmage, dutch, dutch, drill, drill... there was some overlap that led to varied competitiion.
mixed in: i would pull aside 1 kid for every set, play catch, and then give them 'something to work on'. so, i only got to a small fraction, but with this system, i'll get to every kid every week or two for a few minutes. today, i coached handlers. mostly focused on simple stuff. basic practice form. and mark breaking. i might have had the same kids huck, but it was windy, and i was looking for success. also, i've got a few 'special athletes'... new players juggling track v. frisbee, and they are good, so frankly i gave them some help.
then i spent 5 minutes only reviewing our simple endzone 'o' version one. it's very simple, so i won't share it. then we scrimmaged 2 fields for 20 minutes.
then, i built a 2nd field, and let them play. i got in a few throws then, then i'd concentrate on running out to tell the 'o' team to 'run the play we've drilled' and 'burn some time on the goal line to get an endzone play call'.
pretty successful.

so i've got 35 kids. 17 don't know what a mark or a force is yet. and the result is positive. by not playing, i'm already seeing new players take leadership roles. i'm also missing 10 players who are ski racing still. 3 of them are 'varsity'. i may end up with 50 kids! sweet. the structure of the practice, my large single field (equivalent to 2.5 full fields) allows me to set up stations easily:

coaching strategy:
i had my 'varsity' run an endzone drill. here is the way i do that for HS.
13 players and me... you get a partner. we play everybody's it tag (if you are tagged, you are frozen, until the person who tagged you is touched, then you are free. the point is to get kids to run willy nilly around for a few seconds. then, i grab my partner, usually the best kid, and one of goes, WHITE ON OFFENSE. STACK. The defender yells FORCE SOMETHING (forehand, backhand (i'll bring up my reasons for opposing use of home/away later) They jump up, and stack, and we call our offense.

works well.

Personal. After practice, i went for a 40 minute, 11Km ski. Felt good. Got dinner, now, up too late..

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

training...

lastnight, 30 minutes of formwork, some running and dynamics(buttkicks, etc)... 20x30 buildups
tonight, 45 minutes, easy 10km on a sheet of ice....

coaching: i've in the past had local players scrimmage w/ kids to help train. i've decided that it's kids v. kids... and i saw some good stuff happening.

initial focus is on a basic stack play. a 4 person play, disc to 1-6-3 (one makes a handler cut, 6 makes a check up, 3 goes deep). so i show the play, then we run a drill for just the handler cut. then we are able to turn the handler cut into a recycling drill. then i add each bit of the play, show how the drill relates to the play, then we can run the drill only... so far so good.

tommorrow, i'll warm-up and do some drills, then just jog around and keep the athletes moving... then, 45 minutes of skiiing...

dat's all.

ski season mid point.

This weekend the somethng'th annual par for the course, winner based on most improved. I was second most improved over 10km, in a time of 31: something on so so snow. I didn't fall over in the start... I almost did miss my start, but it actually worked out that i ski'd up, and was ready for my start (:30 second intervals, someone goes) w/ oh, :35 to spare.

Still lots of room for improvement. In a year, I should be skiing around 28 ish (Assuming decent snow), w/ commensurate marathon times.

Now, It's just ski, ski, ski and coach. But the afternoon skis will be done in about 4 weeks due to warming (so only weekend warrior-ing) and a shift to biking/running/ and coaching ultimate. Which usually only costs me about 3-400 a year.

I thought this pic was Ok. Usually I look like a bigger, clumsier tool.

Scotland, w/ boring, what I ate today

uhm, i think i'm up to 75 ski days. today was a 30 minute run... i don't know how far. more than 3.5miles, less than 5. i'd estimate 4 miles. this weekend, a trip to McCall Idaho for the Payette marathon. I'm not sure why 30km is a marathon: I think the Greek tradition would have died after the battle if that were the case, phillipides might have lived a ripe old anonymous life as a farmer (although, as an olympic champ, he would have been afforded god-like status as a farmer)...

anyway, ski'd the race in 1:40. in an epic display of nerdery, i've determined that among the 30 odd racers who ski'd this race, and the 32 km i ski'd 2 weeks earlier, i made up ground or beat the ones in front of me, and put a bigger gap on the ones behind me. so i'm still improving relative to the herd, but i still suck. the good news, is w/ room to improve, i think i can get to a respectable level in oh, 2 or 3 years.

my pace was 3.2 min/km, which is faster than i skied 10 km earlier this year (3.7 min/km). my fastest measured time was a time trial on rippin' fast snow, and i ski'd that in about 3.1 min/km w/ no warmup, and a lot left at the end. this weekend, a race, and with heavy snow right now (like 1 foot a day) it's unlikely conditions will give me a PR.

the snow in town is putting HS frisbee on hold a bit: the fields here don't tolerate much moisture. So I've got 3 more races, the 10km, then in about 3 weeks, there's a 15 km classic on saturday and a 15 or 30 km on Sunday. I haven't decided what i'll do. Probably either both short races, or the long race on sunday.

Then, if snow cooperates, i'll probably cut back to fewer, longer, slower skis to finish the season and hone my technique, film myself, midweek runs (difficult to ski in the evenings due to the effects of melt/refreeze turning the snow to icy death), and HOPEFULLY late season powder skiing w/ no crowds for the month of april and may.

i should probably start getting on the bike, too. i will probably focus on biking and the odd road race this summer, coach, and try to go to a tournament or 2 this summer (solstice/potlatch)...

this was my first experience using 'HF' wax. that means High Flourine, and it's what every 'real' racer would use. You can go even more expensive than that... but that's sort of beyond my willingness to do at this point: i mean, when i'm 200 out of 1000, or 37 out of 80... it's kind of trivial. if i get a little more competetive, i'll be more inclined to go to the trouble.

OK, fine, some frisbee content.

I went to Worlds in Scotland in 1999. My team was too bad. And that was the name. Partying ensued. I played OK, this was sort of the transitional period in my development from fairly fast Atlanta player to stupid slow Seattle player. These were the 3 years when i traveled a ton to tournaments, and developed some skills, some understanding of the game, and had a lot of fun. I was well on my to becoming a suprisingly effective slow player. I like to think i developed the same crafty moves as Jerry Rice. I think it's fairer to say that like Jerry rice in the nadir of his career, I have developed the abillity to juke all over the place with out moving anywhere. Sometimes the defense moves more than me and i miraculously get open. Combine that with the fact that i'm left handed (bordering on incompetently ambidextrous, I can actually cause turnovers with both hands), and voila. Marginal effectiveness.

Anyway, Scotland. This was maybe my favorite worlds ever. St. Andrews is beautiful, the pubs were great, I had no real pressure to win or lose. The weather was what I assume to be traditionally Scottish. Wet, and flipping cold all the time. And basically, all 150 teams would party together every night.

After our last loss (Actually, we may have won our last game, some inconsequential seeding match), ribaldry continued. All but 4 teams (the top 2 boy and girl teams) were done, and it was shennaniriffic.

Eileen and Timmy and I were wandering around late at night/early morning, enjoying the relatively warm (50 F) evening and the questionable decision was made to get to the top of the old chapel, the tallest building in st. andrews to see the sun rise over the Firth of Forth. Well that was squashed by the walls and gates and barbed wire... so we headed back to the main campus. Looking at the old dorm where most of us were staying, I decided that the central tower of this building (like, an old castle tower) was the SECOND tallest building in St. Andrews, and that would do.

We found the closet door that contained the stairs, and up we went... in pitch black, illuminated by watch lights, we found the top door. Secured by a tiny little lock, like a luggage lock, we headed down the stairs where either EILEEN ACCIDENTALLY PUSHED OPEN a secret panel. Like pitch dark. Totally lucky. This opened on to an attic door. There was a window accross the attic, faintly revealed by the predawn light glowing behind it. I walked accross the joists, and when I arrived at the window, i noticed i was covered in cobwebs. No one had been here for years. The window was openable. I climbed out, shimmy-d around to the roof pitch, and there, 20 feet away, was the top few feet of the turret. At 6'2, I was just able to reach the low part of the parapet, and was able to chin up, and help my fellow miscreants up.

Spread out below us was all of St. Andrews, and the beautiful calm waters of the Firth (i think it means Bay or something). Slowly the sun came up. Awesome.

We descended, I jogged home, and went and watched the last matches in Torrential rain. Quidditch-erriffic.

What made the trip even better was spending another 7 days hiking and hitching around scotland, but that memory was great. Oh, for a camera...

upcoming frisbee related content...

in a time when darkness ruled the earth...
and snow draped the land...
one voice spoke out for freedom and justice...

naaah, but here's some upcoming ultimate related content...

my famed scotland secret door story...
the wallet (already done, but i mean, who doesn't love hearing about the Miracle on Ice, unless you are russian)
the taco bell story (kind of gross. low on the list)
my domination of low level co-ed and hat tournaments. 7-1, and the one came on a call made literally after i'd slapped hands w/ 5 players of the 'soon to be winning team'

also,

luke on cleats
luke on frisbee clothing for the lazy and cold averse, but don't want to look nanooky
luke on eye black/contacts and glasses

here ya go little orphan annie

At 11:09 PM , LittleOrphanAnnie44 said...
Lemme help you with the Ultimate-related commentary.
Please post (or several posts) on the difference in Sockeye then (mid to late 90s) to now (the '04-'06 teams).

i moved to seattle in dec/jan 96/97 with a plan to put my extensive educational background (9 years of college and a ba in history) to work in the booming seattle economy.

seattle was coming off it's finals appearance, i was coming off a good showing w/ atlanta's chain lightning...

my tryout was going OK, and i 1st reinjured a bad hamstring from the fall, nursed it back, played well on the winning side of a kleinmann split squad sockeye team, then pulled my groin 3 weeks before world.

conceiveably, like the other 'tryouts' i could have made the worlds squad, but i'd already committed to all parties to playing w/ atlanta at worlds.

sockeye went on to win the famed uglitimate game, chain was acceptable,and i played well, but i was cut, the thursday before the flight to chicago. i'd already paid for the ticket. it was a bummer. sockeye went to it's 3rd final

the next year, i vaguely attempted to try out. i think i was cut by email this time. sockeye was starting to attrit. a number of the old guard had faded. if i recall correctly. furious appeared to tank a game to make the dirt road easier, and sockeye fell at regionals.

i went to that 98 sandiego nationals as a spectator, a last minute decision to walk out the office door and catch a bus to the airport, and fly southwest to sandi. as i recall, i picked up a car ride w/ some frisbee tossers in the airport, and spent the weekend, spectating, drinking and couch surfing.

oh for the days of high income.

the next years 99, 2000 were relatively low years for seattle. still competetive on the national scene, the strength of the region proved too much.

the spring of 2001 found me again mired in ski season, w/ no real desire to 'properly' try out.

a dissapointing spring led to the collapse of the team's leadership structure in early summer. the arrival of john 'the kid' hammond and some good will i'd somehow put together by playing w/ a group of more talented players in the past two years (will henry, mike caldwell, dylan) and some occasional pickup success w/ various sub-sockeye groups (tribe, w/ chris page, D'arcy, Barney Ahouse, Gary Brady) combined to position me as the proverbial player to be named later.

My first season w/ sockeye almost ended as quickly as it began. Playing 500 w/ MC before the first Kleinmann game, i wrenched my groin. Depressed and frustrated, i gave serious consideration to getting in my car and driving home.

But i wisely reconsidered, made myself as valuable as possible as i could as a sideline player. High quality health insurance proved a role, as it turned out i had not a groin pull, but a dislocated pubic symphisis. They video'd me, and i may to this day be a display dvd in PT schools around the country... I had also torn my pcl l in the previous year, but rigorous (3 hours a day, no kiddin) pt, and some luck got me back on the field after the groin thing in a couple weeks. My first season, as slow as i've ever played in my life, my role was zone marker...

we had a poor showing at nationals, but a timely mcl strain allowed me to skip tryouts, and ski all spring... and i came back to be an effective, albeit limited player....

i had already commited to grad school, and it seemed like i would miss worlds. but somehow fates conspired, and despite missing the 3 weeks of practice prior to hawaii, i found myself on a plane to hawaii.

without my credit card. another story.

at worlds, i played, again, in a role, but had almost no turnovers, and in the bronze medal game, had a great line (like 3 goals and 3 assists in 7 points, no To's), and combined w/ steady play all weekend, the team kept me as mascot, and dependable reserve, despite the fact that i was commuting 7 hours for practice.

the next year, my final year, i finished grad school, and lived off loans and the last of my retirement fund. somehow i was promoted to subcaller, probably based on the assumtion (correct) that i would not over play myself compared to other players.

we were all dissapointed w/ our 5/6 finish, but my mom enjoyed the game:

highlight: catching the goal at half in our pool play victory over ring, there's a great shot of augie chucking me in the back as i catch the goal. my mom saw the pic, and emailed, 'look, i think that was a foul'...

by then, i was an impoverished substitute teacher living in ski town oregon, and the abillity to even try out on the new look sockeye was out of the question...

the rest is history. voting the weakest link off survivor island, sockeye rose to greatness

it must be college season...

...cuz my hit count is off the charts... hundreds of daily opportunities to have new readers ask...
why is this guy on ultimatetalk.com...

well... the reason... is, i don't know.

but if you read the archives, you'll find nearly 10% of my content deals with ultimate.
this is somewhat different than jim parinella's blog.
where you can go to find out exactly how wrong i am about my actual ultimate content percentage.

but over the next month or two, i'll be sporadically coaching ultimate (sporadically, because, we'll practice no more than twice per week, and i have no problem cancelling practice when it snows. and snow it does, and frequently).

speaking of snow, a couple of awesome ski workouts this morning...
this am, a 5.5 km timetrial, 16 minutes... fastest ever measured workout, and i went relatively easy. the success came from the conditions, which were RIPPING fast, and the fact that my technique has improved enough that i'm able finally to go relatively fast on the flats and gentle downhills. on these terrains, it's necessary to accelerate, and it's been hard to keep the technique together... then another 10km at an easy pace...

then i went home, played guitar for an hour, read about the 10th mountain division, ate, ate more... did some laundry...

and went for another 18km ski. interestingly to me, at least, it had snowed about 2 inches... much, much slower... easy, sustained pace...

that's all

take meat who you're lead ear.

I now reveal my true form. All your base are belong to us. My list of demands is simple. I'd like jambalaya for dinner tommorrow night. And peace in the middle east. What you say? No, I have no idea how difficult it is to find good quality chorizo in central oregon. Nor do I care.

Aren't photo programs fun.

Summit wins states. In my inspirational speech at the team meeting Friday night, I pointed out that this more than just a ski race. This was a chance to come heavy, go hard, go home w/ hardware, and be honored by having a 50% shot at getting their name in the paper mispelled.

How funny was it when the actual newspaper mistake was to List the event as occuring at a different mountain, some 1.5 hours away.

I served as the announcer. For those of you who don't know me, this is part of my ongoing plan to overcome my terrible fear of public speaking. Today, a 4 hour mix of mp3's, that literally ended the moment the awards ceremony began. The past two days have been miserable ski-wise. Like 7 or 10 km per day because of coaching duties.

Friday, i went for my first run of the year (29 minutes, no idea of distance), and first unibike of 07 on my sweet new 26" unibike (full size MTB wheel, instead of the usual 24" (BMX size) wheel. Rusty at both is an understatement.

The races were awesome, well run, smiles around, good results. There was an unfortunate incident w/ kids jostling for position which led to some necessary, but unwanted civil conversation and hopefully a result that was at least 'not unpalatable' for all.

We not only won, we dominated. Near perfect score for guys, girls missing top girl and 2/3 girl also crushed, albeit, a little less handily.

Little break, then frisbee coaching.

Tommorrow, ski, run.

That is all. Fullfill my demands, or meet the wrath of our technological superiority.

heere comes the frisbee

I think there is a picture here. I've just changed my blog layout. I assume that this means that everything i've every written has been published. sorry idris. you seem to have dealt w/ such tribulations well in the past.

but in the meantime, whassup. couple races recently, a 30 km, and a 15 km, mixed bag of results... i'm generally skiing a lot better. 3 more years and i may know what i'm doing. my theory on this whole deal is that all the skills are learnable. it just takes some people (me) more time than others.

as is the consequence of coaching, i'm in a taper period corresponding w/ the team's gear up for states. for me, it's the middle of the skiing, although, racing wise, there is only like5 weeks left. There's 2 more 30km's, and a 10km, and a 15km classic. Hamstring a little strained, but sofar no biggy.

HS Frisbee starts next week. My focus, or theme for the year is to challenge the kids to learn by teaching... so, i'm thinking, for example, to do a drill where the kids throw for a bit, then make a correction of the other thrower, then repeat. May be a flop, but i want the kids to get owner ship. Also, i've gotten too drawn into to running around out there: I'll do it a little to model the habits I want, but not enough to cause them to get used to me having any specific role on the field. I.e., unlike Kramer, I don't want to dominate the jujitsu field. Plus, I'm getting a few players w/ 2 and 3 years now of experience, and they need the opportunity to dominate.

Interesting, I'm definitely exited about the team, but frankly, even as a diletantte ski racer, it's really my main focus. I'm currently so burned w/ my insane teaching loads, the volunteer hours, etc. (etc means i had to change rooms, have 2 classes of 47 plus etc), i'd love to have the time to be a wee bit more selfish... i.e., i'd love to start the frisbee coaching after spring break. oh well. just a mild kvetch. i know for a FACT that the first time i step on the field to toss the disc around, i'll be right back in it mentally.

General marks of late: 30 km in 1:32, skate race, all down hill except where it wasn't, fast snow except where it wasn't. area to work on: like a dummass, i set a goal of 1:35, and my mad math skills had me skiing to time, instead of to feel. skiing harder, a couple minutes faster, expensive wax a couple min faster, a taper (if i want), a little faster. All trivial, but at 2something out of 1000 skiers, i'd like to be top 100 next year.

15km race, 48 min? doesn't seem fast, but it was an acceptable result. that's about 3.2min/km, and in a straight up 10km skate race this year (early) i was 3.7min/km. In this race you change from classic to skate mid race, i didn't bother to brush my skis, i had some friends show up from atlanta at midnight.

There is an upcoming 10km where you ski the same course twice, in december, and in march. last year i'll reveal, at risk of disclosing my lack of talent, that i skied 44, then 38 (divide by 10 for min/km pace). I went 37 this december. I had set the preseason goal of 32 in march. Given recent performances (sim course, sim snow), i'm actually resetting my goal of 32 to 30 minutes. Frankly, either of these would be a rather ridiculous improvement from start of season to end. My 6 minutes of improvement last year was the 'best of bend' and if i can do it twice, moving up from sucktastic to medium tasic to pretty good tastic... I'd like to be skiing in the high/mid 20's before i peak. world class, probably in the low 20's, i think. in any event, i'll probably spend a little money on my remaining 3 ski races (wax wise. it would not be out of the question to use a flourinated wax and spend as much as 20 dollars on your last layer of wax for a race. you might wax 3 times. embarassingly, while i'm dilligent about waxing, i'm usually dealing w/ kids, and generally too frugal, (and too mediocre) to spend cash on wax that might speed me up by low single digit percentages. )

next time. frisbee time.

peace out.

fun with darth.

vader theme'd fun. of course none of this compares to the darthside...


http://tinyurl.com/2xmq9l

this one seems to be from adult swim. it's the must see clip of the bunch. claymation, i think, and hysterical

not bad... dubbed dialogue fun with field of dreams

warning. mild ultimate content.

diet tip of week.
a pint of icecream the night before the race is not recommended.
but i'll be daaaaa_________ed if i won't keep dooing it.

Saw Borat tonight. I'm going to check de Toqueville's work out. Because Borat was outrageously on point in it's characterization of the american Zeitgeist. The american pronunciation is appopriate, because we came off ugly.

And it was accurate, if not fair.

I'm looking foward to the DVD and commentary to find out what was 'scripted' and what was 'au natural'. This will be the first DVD I watch the commentary first.

Frisbee thoughts.
This is specific to me. I've not run, (except that i tend to jog around like a UPS guy a lot... really), for months. I manage to get in probably 3 miles per week of, jogging to meet my carpool, jogging in the halls, etc. The weights will help, but, I strongly recommend a minimum of 3, 3 mile runs for 2-3 weeks before even light pick up ultimate. That seems like a silly number, but the stress of running is significantly different from skiing. I intend to do 1 mile warm-up, 1 mile of fartlek, and .5 mile cool down. The conditioning is not an issue, it's simply conditioning to pounding.

In other news, i picked up a new unicycle. It's a custom mountain uni, 26" wheel (most are 24, which i think is like a dirt bike)... so it's well suited for cruising about town. the neatest feature is that there is an air seat: on top of the regular seat is a sleeve, in which a folded inner tube is stashed. This will allow me to ride, without banging, er, ya know. This is important, even though right now, i mainly will be riding up and down my street continuing to develop my water starts (or as i say, warter starts).

Summary of week: Sunday, 10km classic race. 10th overall. best finish ever, but, i mean, the comp was what it was. i'm still craptacular, but, hey, first top 10, so i'll take it. Fell over humorously at the start. uh, heh, heh, meant to do that.

Saturday, 10km skate race. Really blew the carbon out of the engine on this one. 26th, but i missed the start. Maybe as high as 18th w/ a real start. heh, heh, meant to do that.

Friday, no ski, 12 miles of biking. Taught. heh, heh... oh wait.

thursday, 20km of skiing. steady. 6 am squats and lat pulldowns

wednesday, intervals on classic skis. 1min, 2min, 3min, 4min, 3min, 2min, 1min. rest equal to interval length.

tuesday, classic skiing. 10km. easy-ish .6 am squats and lat pulldowns

monday, skate skiing, too short. probably 12 km. moderate.

sunday, rest.

saturday, 36 km race. broken pole. heheh... nevermind.

friday, rest...

i can't remember farther (further?) back than that. lots of intervals.

this coming week i'll taper. not sure how the carpools will work out (and as a bike commuter, i'm usually pond, or pool, obviously not car)...

but here's the plan

monday: 10 min warm up, 5 x 3, 10 minute cool down, 50 min total.
tuesday: 1 hour steady
wed: 6 x 2, w/ 10 warmup and cool down
thursday, rest, and drive 10 hours.
friday, 10 km skate, easy.
saturday, 30 km race.

not much of a taper, but a little. the next week, will 2 days of 5x3 w/ a 15km race at end.
then 1 week base (easy), and one week of easy, one week of one tempo, one interval, with 2 1 hour skis, then, one week of 5x3, 6x2, with 2 'easy, short skis', then a 10km race.

that's what constitutes a taper for me, right now. after the 10km race, a week of easy long, then a week of short intervals, then a 15km race on saturday, and a 30km race on sunday, then i'm into spring break, and the goal is just steady state skiing, and afternoon frisbee. the 'race' season is over at that point, so i'll focus on technique and easy return to base training, and i'm going to train for bike season. i'll play ultimate this year some, but i'm going to shoot to be up to speed by jun 21, not before.

abuh, abuh, a that's all.

oh: diet. focus on small changes. for instance, if you like butter on your pancakes, try switching to a syrup yogurt mix, and cutting out the butter. or at least use less butter, and mix with bananas and microwave. try snacking on fruit during the day, so that you aren't as hungry at night. and move towards portion management. lots of small meals. but do focus on small things. one less cup of coffee. one more apple. one less meal eating out, or get the salad, not the fries. but better to eat out less, and when you do, get the fries. they're just tastier.

victoire! part deux!

yes, i am still the undisputed champion amongst my age group among people of my age group who elect to show up to ski in the race!

suck it, those of you, in my age group, who didn't show up to kick my ass! yeah!

today was the classic leg, which means, you have to do the traditional 'diagonal stride', which looks kind of like a shuffle. you put grippy stuff in the middle of the ski, so when you weight it, it grips, and you get 'kick'. I spent two hours helping getting skis ready for kid skiers. used mine as a test pair for a variety of waxes, which left them... uh, manky. i should have taken the time to fix them, but, they seemed 'ok.' i spent the time left warming up. it was reasonable to think i'd miss my start...

but, with the help of 30 plus people, who kept telling me when the start was i made it.

and then, promptly fell on my face in the start. literally.

it was a pursuit start, which meant, i started behind the guy who finished in front of me, by the time he finished in front of me. i made up some time on him, and basically did ok, but i would have liked to have don better... the course went flat, down hill for about 1.75 km, then turned and climbed, for about 2.5 km, and then a screaming downhill. (total, 5km, 2 laps). so i slowly reel dave in, catch him at the top of the climb, and watch him glide away on faster skis (that's why i think i should have re-done my skis after all the testing)...

i'll try to throw a couple pics up, yes, including the one of me on my face.

all in all a good weekend... 59/68 days on skis. so, some rest, some travel (travel days don't count as rest days, i hope you know what i mean), with lots of hard stuff and long stuff thrown in. the next three weeks will be more restful, but w/ a 30km skate race, a 15km race where you change gear in the middle of the race, and a 10km race that i'm trying to improve my time from an earlier race on the same course. i'll cut my skiing back a little, but i struggle with the fact that skiing for fun is more fun than training for events... this week, a mandatory taper (exams, and travel), next week, 3 days only (all shorter, harder), and the last week, 3 days, all short and fast. goal is to ski the 10km in 32min (weather dependent, of course): by my ridiculously complicated spreadsheets, i'm half way to the 32 min goal (from 37.5min), with no taper. taper research indicates that properly tapering (significant decrease in mileage, like down 80% with all work done at race pace, resultes in high benefits. ex: 29 seconds for 5km runners). that's a lot. If I can get 2 minutes from base, 1 minute from taper, 1 minute from technique improvements, and 1 minute from luck, and 30 seconds from desparation, i'll be there.

i'll let you know.

not breaking a pole, falling over, missing the start... well that's worth negative negative time...

VICTOIRE!

That's either french for victory, or the name of the new Ford. Regardless, sweet Victory today. Today was a 10k Skate race, and I rolled through the field like a LOCOMOTIVE. At speed, not when it's getting up to speed, and it's real slow, and can't turn...

Take Two:
That's either french for victory, or the name of the new Ford. Regardless, sweet Victory today. Today was a 10k Skate race, and I rolled through the field like a Ferrarri. But a dependable one. And one that's good in the snow.

Take Three:
That's either french for victory, or the name of the new Ford. Regardless, sweet Victory today. Today was a 10k Skate race, and I rolled through the field like a stallion. But not like one that injures an extensor ligament...

Take Four:
That's either french for victory, or the name of the new Ford. Regardless, sweet Victory today. Today was a 10k Skate race, and I rolled through the field like a flippin' magical digital spaceship piloted by someone with an extremely high mitochlorian count. That means, the force was with me.

Yeah. I like-y.

Yes, today, I walked away with my first ever straight up victory in a 10Km freestyle (Skate) race.

And now the rest of the story.

There I was. My 250-300 calorie breakfast of 1/2 cup oats (dry measure), yogurt (dollup), blackberries, banana, and honey have set up perfectly. I've restricted my coffee intake, and hydrated carefully, but not excessively. I've rememberd skis, poles, and boots. Everything else is gravy, but i've brought that too. Hat, ski suit, etc. I'm good to go. A nice easy warm-up just under an hour before race time, then back up to the lodge, to, uh, use the lodge, nuff said, take off warmups, and then back down. Now, 20 minutes before race time, i take a hit of hammer-gel from my hammergell dispenser bottle, sip some more cytomax. And motor around a bit...10 to go... I've been double checking start times with other racers skiing around, and i'm set. I feel flat, but not stale, but i've not tapered at all for this race (And won't until march for the 2 big days at the end of the american masters in bend, a 15km classic and 30km on sat/sunday in late march)... plus, i've been racing a lot, and the whole 'hurts so good' thing is always great after, but everything up until the bell gets the nerves going... But i'm dialed in. I've 6 minutes to go, 3 x 100 or so, speeds to get the rythym, 4 minutes to go, 3 x 60 of double pole only to be ready for the double pole mass start (line up next to in front of or behind 100 other aggressive skiers. flail arms wildly whipping sticks around for 100m. try not to break a pole. enjoy!)... As I return to the start, I notice that the start area is strangely empty... i mean, the high school kids who just finished racing, parents, other coaches, etc, but, where are the other nose/ear hair types... another summit coach looks at me as i quizzically move towards the start, and asks, 'Luke, aren't you racing.'

'yes,' replied luke.
'Well they've started,' said coach peterson.
'yeah, right, good one,' said smith, as his watch clearly indicated 1 minute to go...

but as luke moved further towards the finish, another voice cried out, 'dude, aren't you racing.' Luke became less sure that he was in fact on time. At this point, 1000 people pointed and stared (no, not really), as Luke realized the error of his ways, and dropped the hammer.

Time lost, unknown, but would later turn out to be a couple minutes.

I cranked as best i could and started reeling people in. The two lap race took me by several mockers, i mean supporters. I finished. But, Oh yeah, I won. That's right.

I won....


My age group...


Un-opposed...

oh well.

Tommorrow, Todays first place finisher starts on classic skis at 10:00 am. The rest of us start based on how far back we finished today. My 2 minute handicap kind of sucks at that point... but no one's fault but my own. 10 km classic race.

More to follow.

ULTIMATE RELATED POST.

why am i still in ultimate talk? i don't know. but, to answer the criticisms of a recent post, here are my thoughts on diet, and a year round macro cycle of training for ultimate.

1) diet. recently, ultimate prognesceti (i just made up that word) ben wiggins posted a long winded email about diet on RSD. I disagree. If you care to look up ben's diet, do so, but here are my thoughts. Ben focuses on day to day variations of diet, but I think that you should eat well every day, and then, focus on nutrient maintenance on game day.

I have in the past posted longwinded stories that an ultimate players diet should be based on fish, chips, and beer. Here is the truth. That is a bad diet. Your diet should actually be based on the following principles.

1) Many small meals
2) A diet varied, and rich, in fruits and vegetables, minimum 5, and almost no maximum. I aim for 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. A serving is a cup of fruit, or a single fruit, like a banana. I typically start the day with either a bowl of oatmeal, w/ 1.5 cup of frozen berries (which i microwave first), and one banana. That is 2.5 servings.
3) To continue the many small meals theme, I include in my feed bag the following. 1 apple, 2 oranges, and a pear. I also include a 1/2 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bowl of pasta, chicken, and veggies, and a 1/2 sanwich of HIGH QUALITY DELY STYLE chicken breast, salami, and cheese, and a V-8 6 oz can. I value the fat in that sandwich, and the fruit provides closure on my goal of 9 servings. By 3 pm, i have consumed 7.5 servings of fruit and veggie. I usually have a granola bar, or some almond/raisin trail mix in the feed bag to eat in the 30 minutes following my workout to provide glycogen reloading, and one more serving of veggies (1/4 cup of raisins = 1 serving of veggies). I eat at 5:30 a.m., 9:30 am, 10:30 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, and then the post workout feed. What i eat from the feed bag is based entirely upon what i am hungry for. Protein/Car/Fat/Fruit. Dinner usually includes a salad, usually based on either baby arugula, or mixed frise greens, as they are high in vitamins. Sometimes I substitue a homemade gazpacho. Recipe follows:

32 oz can tomatos
1 jalopeno.
onion
1 spoon of garlic from one of those jars of pre ground garlic
cilantro
oil
vinegar
salt
blend

mix with one 8 oz can of V8, 1/2 cucumber, cubed, and 1 slice, home made bread, torn into 1 inch cubes.

season to taste. when lazy, skip steps 8-10, and dip low fat chips in previous mixture.
Note. Yes: that's a salsa recipe. But it's super cheap, and unbelievably high in antioxidants.

sometimes for breakfast (when not lifting weights) i make waffles. i use a mix. Hain brand. Buckwheat variety. Equal to in fiber or exceeding the oatmeal.

FOCUS on a varied diet. Make sure you eat immediately after working out. If weight gain is an issue, make sure that you eat 2-300 calories of carbs after working out, and then fight the FAKE hunger that will come later. Count your calories, and eat a diet that is based on the food pyramid. You think you are: you are not.

Tournaments: Get more salt. Eat many, small, meals. Use cytomax (etc), gu(etc), but use byes to eat sandwiches etc. If you eat enough meals and snacks, you should UNDEREAT at each meal. You should meet you caloric needs by the end of the day, but don't exceed. If you eat too much, it's in the way. If you eat too little, you bonk. I like a feed bag of the following:

Drink: Cytomax or Heed
Protein: Beef Jerkey or Beef Chunks (REI)
Carbs/Vitamins: Dried fruits, especially pinapples, raisins (pinapples provide vitamins not normally in your diet) and RIPE bananas. Do not eat green bananas. Causes digestive blockage.
Carbs: Bagels are fine. Also include fat.
Fat: Nuts. See bagels. Almonds or less good, peanuts. A half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is good too.
Vitamins: Oranges, bananas, tomatoes... whatever your stomach can handle. In the summer, I prefer seasonal peaches, nectarines etc. Easy to digest.
Eat icecream in the evenings, and eat a varied meal of lean protein, veggies, and complex carbs. Sushi is great. Don't eat fast food. The fat is appealing, but if you eat right there is plenty in your other sources of food. You will still crave it. Tough shit.

TRAINING:
Ultimate training is a year round commitment. The challenge an ultimate player faces is this. As a new player, you need to play all the time. As an older player, you need to take care of your body. I recommend the following program for a club player. Maintain periodicity. Take 1 day off entirely each week when training high impact (running). Minimal, take a day of active rest (swim/bike). Out of each 12 week macro cycle, take a full week as easy. NO FRISBEE. NO HARD OR LONG RUNNING.

1) Pre season. Mileage, Weights, and Throwing. The goal is to heal old injuries, develop strength, and maintain basic skills. Keep mileage moderate. While running is the best, biking/ swimming/ skiing is acceptable, but be aware that frisbee is a running sport, and some base running is required before sprinting. Weights should focus on major lifts. Bicep curls are worthless. Focus on lifts that accentuate multiple muscle groups and efficiency. Full parallel squats, bench, chin-ups alone are acceptable. Remember that 6-12 reps develops hypertrophy (muscle size) where 1-6 lifts develop power, and 12-20 lifts develop endurance. I recommend periodization. 1 month of 3 sets, 12-20 lifts, then 1 month of 3 sets of 8-12 per set, and 1 month of 1-6, high power lifts. If this is too much, skip every thing, do 3 sets of 3x10. Please don't bother w/ calf raises, curls, ets. Do explosive squats, and chin ups if you do nothing else. If you are fit, now, and in the early season is the time to incorporate plyometrics.


2) Early Season. You will be in maintenance weight phase. Fight the urge to skip weights for practice. The weights help sheild you from injury. Adjust weight to protect yourself. Workouts will move towards speed. Avoid the temptation to run HARD more than 3 days per week. Use weights/cross training/ and stretching to develop the shield you need to prevent injury. Continue to refine your throwing skills. Now you should always include dynamics (high knees, butt kicks, etc., but remember, adequate rest is always required)

3) Season. It's summer. Maintenace lift. 1 to 2 times per week, again, if you are hurting somewhere, this is MORE reason to lift, and less reason to 'run through it'. As your team develops tactics, you personally need to adapt you training to make you a better, more explosive player. Now is not the time to incorporate plyometrics beyond dynamics (which you can, and should include in all warm-ups where sprinting will be included). When injured, do not skip lifting. Focus especially on your mid-glute (accentuated by bar-bell step ups), and appropriate abdominal work. The abdominal core, accentuated by bridging (shoulders on ground, knees at right angle, ball between knees, straighten one leg, while not allowing hips to drop) will benefit.

4) off season. it is best to take one week off for every 12 of training. The challenge is to maintain your health. while you may want to return to frisbee asap, take one week off from training. Here is the frisbee challenge: DO NOT TAKE TOO MUCH TIME. Move into 'pre-season' phase asap. Take time from frisbee. Take as much as 1 month from throwing. DO NOT rest too much. That said, off season is the shortest season. Heal up wounds. If hurt, focus on cross training, and easy training.

OK, diet. exercise.

what do you want more of?

Watching video should improve your play. Strategery and tacticalllity for the next time someone bitches.

race results.

so, not terrible, not terrible. 150 skiers, mass start (there was a 2nd wave too, and a 3rd, high school race behind that). I was jammed, and skiing 18 abreast in a trail groomed into a single lane jeep road... ok, that's hyperbole, but you get the idea... got to the part where we descend 200 meters in like 4 km (trust me it's pretty steep) and i'm doing fine, and then a guy comes by me dressed in a fake muscle suit and a minotaur hat. now, i had skied this section before, and i knew to take it easy, w/ a sharp turn coming, going about 50 km/h or so, i knew i should slow down, but i wait too long... i mean, shit, a CARTOON has just passed me, so i'm running up on him and another guy, i try to speed check and blammo i'm down... i try to roll off to the right, and i get one sweet matrix move in, but an out of control skier (a kid i know) doesn't hit me (thanks matrix move) but i look up, and there's a 6 inch long stick fluttering down in front of me.

i suddenly realize that it's not a stick, it's a chunk out of my, uh, you would think ridiculously expensive, pole. so i hop up, collect the parts (shafts are 100, whole poles, like 150) and keep going. 3 or 4 km later it flattens out, and i get a pole from a course monitor.

it's about (no kidding) 25cm shorter, and it's for the wrong hand... but, i keep going, and about 7km later including a big hill, i see a friend of mine, and he gives me his pole (it's only 3 inches shorter than mine, and the correct hand (left)). i figure i'd lost as much as 6-10 minutes in this time, and i go on to ski pretty well.

i finished in 2 hours, 54th out of 130 or so... if it had been 8 minutes, i'd have been around 30th, which is wish in one hand and you know what in the other territory, of course... but i learned a ton about pacing, as i reached that, 'sometimes you got to say what the eff' stage and worked well...

so it was fun. replaced the shaft after i got home,, bought some groceries, and now i'm resting up for a big evening of nothing. there's a banquet, but i don't have the stomach to go see someone else win a pair of poles in a raffle with a number one off from mine.

tommorrow, probably go ski the course backwards, or just go ski easy for a couple hours.

so, felt good. if i could have said what i'd like to ski the race in, 1:45. If i'd ski'd it in 1:50, that would have been super. i'm excited though. with no taper (yet) my times are improving rapidly, a reflection of somewhat improved technique. so, while vancouver in 2010 is not likely (that's understatement), my main goal, improvement, is being met.

nordeen...

I'm up, reading the news, and getting ready for the 'Great Nordeen' Ski race, a 36km race... luckily it's all downhill, er, except for the parts where it's not. It's not that I can't ski 36 km, it's just that it's too long for me to race well. So, time to suffer it up. I got my new aero haircut goin' though, minus the 4 pounds of afro (and big apologies to the woodowl who had nested up there), so i ought to be cranking.

For about, say 18 km.

Oh well. The conditions are as good as they can get, i should have the skis waxed for the right temperature, i took yesterday off, except for 30 minutes of biking, and that whole work thing, ya know, so it should be good.

In the interest of improving my classroom teaching, i gave a survey to my entire 52 person classroom. The results have conclusively proven that i'm 'too hard (30), too easy (2), awesome (5), a jerk (2) and that in the opinion of many students, 52 is too many for a classroom.'

That was useful. No actually it was. While the results demonstrate the usual things you'd expect about HS students (like 3% will hide behind anonimity to make jerk comments like it's the teachers fault for everything), it was worthwhile to learn that some kids, even high achievers, have a difficult time finding a way to express themselves: I'll probably repeat the experiment.

Of course, It's also clear that students want
1) an 'A'
2) entertainment
3) to do no work
4) to complain that the above teacher is too easy and a joke

if you are
1) hard
2) you are a jerk
3) and you should give easier assignments
and
4) go slower

I love to hear how kids complain about every possible educational situation. What can I take from this? Continue to refine my craft, work hard, etc. I think I found a few more hours to give. See, I'm putting in about 50-60 hours per week in the classroom and prep and grades, and another 10-18 hours per week as an unpaid coach. But if I stop eating, I can get 8 hours per week. Likewise, if I cut out bathing, thats another 3 hours. And finally, I'm going to cut my sleep to 2.5 hours per night.

eureka.

the amazing thing is how truly fun and exciting the job is.

ski, ski, ski...

and work... everyday is pretty similar. up at 5:30. turn on coffee. shower. drink coffee. make breakfast. pack feed bag for work. update school website. go to school. 2/3 days per week lift... teach like mad... ski... eat... home... eat... read... eat... juggle... bed...

sunday, the 'fun race'. 10 'raced' 4 couldn't pay attention and got lost, 2 quit.
monday, 20 km, slow, slow, slow... and easy... tuesday, weights in AM, i dunno 12 k and some pickups with 6 of the km up up up... today, classic skied for a bit, then did 4 x 4 minute intervals... tommorrow, steady state 'easy' ski, (oh, and some morning weights)... friday, rest.

gotta get after the stretching... sore muscles...

starting to get excited about frisbee: generally hard to ski in afternoons after mid march, so it's a great time to start playing frisbee... but i'll miss the 5 and 6 days a week of skiing...

that is all.

End of the Hard Week

S'Ok, last week was a hard workout week... starting last saturday, intervals, sat, sun, tues, and thurs, took mon and fri off, skied 15 k saturday (5 at near race pace, and 1k at a sprint), skied 15 k today (13 at race pace, changing gear midway from classic to skate in a friendly 'skiathlon.')
Lifted (squat/bench/lat pulldown) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Played some guitar.

I actually feel suprisingly pretty OK. Tommorrow, probably two to two and a half hours easy. This next 12 days, probably 5 total harder workouts (Say, 3tempo skis, and two interval, with some moderate distance at an easy pace), and start off February w/ an easy week, and then ramp up again.

In terms of Frisbee, well, cool your jets friskee, Mid February is the start of Frisbee Season around here, so it'll be 2 to 3 days per week of me waxing rhapsodic on the virtues of 'dutch drill', big picture v. nuts n' bolts, and how much of an interference it is for me to have to coach in the afternoon when all I want to do is ski.

By April 1, it's Frisbee coaching 5 days per week (although I kind of want to modify that a little this year. I'd still like to ski, and I also give up a lot of my training time to coach). By may it just doesn' t matter. I can train it up after practice ends. So maybe I should just write off April as my low volume recovery month, or ride the trainer.

In terms of personal growth and development as I attempt to stave off the imminent geriatric threat of early onset presenile dementia, my efforts to become a polyglot are stuck in monoglottony, w/ tendencies towards a bit of french studies. The guitar is coming along, i'm faking my way around my screwed up pinky (thanks ultimate!) as I figure out how to play Bb and the like.

Pin juggling is on hold, i need pins of my own.

Speaking of which, now i'm off to read some french.

training...

Lessee, sunday, more intervals, say, 5 k warmup, then 4 x 4 minute classic ski intervals.
Monday, rest day, weights,
Tuesday, 1.25 hr ski, w/ intervals in the middle.
Today, 1.25, easyish ski.
Learned to basically juggle clubs. Still have a way to go, but say... 10 catches? Super fun.
Made salsa, cooking chicken and beans, heat tortillas... mmm...
Aston Villa v. Manchester United while I cook. Might switch over to the NPR...
OK. Oh, listen to the Cow's with Guns link on the right. Good fun.

10 worst things a teacher could say..

10 things a teacher might say that would be contradictory to the educational process.

1. How many of you want to go to college -- show of hands. Really? Now keep them up if you still believe in the Easter bunny.
2. No, I don't believe your bladder will burst if you wait five minutes.
3. Look, I'm sympathetic, I really am. I'm just not going to do anything about it.
4. (var)It's not that I don't care, It's just that, oh who am I kidding. I just don't care.
5. Oh dear. Your file says you are average. Humanity is doomed.
6. (var)Have you considered joining a monastery? yes the catholic kind. right, no kids for you.
7. How 'bout a nice warm cup of shut the f&^K up?
8. Oh, could you just grow a pair?
9. All this, and $6.50 an hour.
10. No, I was not always this cynical. I used to give half a shit.

Note. This is SATIRE. If your irony-meter is stuck in sarcasm, well then you are probably one of my students. If you are critical of these statements, meant to be humorous, well, I refer you to the bill of rights, and ask you to leave.

don't call me romo.

"In a back-and-forth game that ultimately hinged on a botched 19-yard field goal in which Tony Romo bobbled the hold, the Seahawks survived 21-20 on Saturday night to send Dallas into disarray" From ESPN

I watched in horror as Tony Romo huddled in shame on the bench. I wanted to go over and tell him, shit, Cowboy, we've all screwed up before.

But then I realized, we haven't all 'bobbled the snap that would have led to the game winning field goal in front of 60,000 people.'

Ouch.

I went skiing today. (No kidding, says someone, somewhere, sarcastically).

The road to the mountain was closed due to howling winds. So around Noon, went up w/ one of the coaches, and did intervals. Well first we skied oh, 5 k, then we did 4, 4 min intervals in fairly heavy ungroomed snow.

So it was inelegant, but sweet. I love intervals.

Friday was an easy classic ski. IN the pitch black. And my head lamp sucks. (too cloudy for moon to help). It was awesome.

Thursday was a 1.25 hour skate ski in crummy grooming, in a huge storm. Also, awesome.

Tommorrow, 2 hour classic ski, with 3 x 3 minute intervals (monday is rest, er... except for all that teaching stuff)... but it'll depend on the weather...

Ate like a champ... waffles/fruit/yogurt... little later, more of same... skied... pear, pinapple juice, baked potatoes, meat, cheese, carrots, hummus, salad, shopped, got my new vest (broke the zipper on last one, nice factory warranty, thanks desente

oh wait... then i ait more. black beans, rice, and kale greens in a broth... yummm...

Tommorrow, if i don't ski, i'll grade the other 32 sets of essays (each set is 5 essays), (18 done), and er... eat.

lots.

another day in paradise...

... but it's raining like hell. and about 32 at the mountain, 42 here... white rain all around. a shit-ton of new snow. but too warm for good skiing. i'll hit it tommorrow, when it should be 1.5 feet of fresh, and a high of -7 C... perfect... But significantly, this is the first day i've not skied Since Dec 18th, which, along with the 15th, 11th, and the 8th, and the 4th. And 3 days in november. Pretty much the only days I haven't skied Since november 18th. So something like 37 days thus far. And yes, the ski suit needs washing. But not 38 days worth. Like 2 or 3.

...today, i made a list of things to do... kind of a year end thing, and making a list of things to do is easier for me to do than doing. casualty of the great ritalin experiment of the 1990's. Ritalin worked great for me for the year or two i took it. 4.0 at college, dedicated in my workouts, and then one day, i ran out of Ritalin. And I forgot to get more.

Flash forward to now, well, I'm more of a 'big picture' guy now...

Here's the way the list started...

Yearly Goals
1) Always get grading done on time. Eff that.
2) Achieve improvements at Nordic Skiing, Biking and 5K times. Certainly do-able, and enjoyable.
3) Coach, and play frisbee from March until, say, mid september. Maintain form, attend 3 tournaments. 3 Doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a drive to get to most tourneys worth, especially, 'competetive' ones. But it will force me to be consistent with my stretching, and help with everything else. Plus, it's fun...
4) Oh, improve my teaching trade craft, blah, blah... i should probably throw that in there...
5) eat out less. Add additional savings towards retirement...
6) Juggle 5 balls (ambitious)
7) Continued Improvement w/ guitar.

I'm not even going to bother with like, keep room clean, etc...


That's close enough to 10.

This brought me to daily goals...

1) Ride trainer for 2 hours. I went and got a video of the 1999-2000 world cup cross country pursuit, so i'll have something to look at. but i need the LSD (long slow distance) of a bike, more than i need to run, so... I'll probably do this. Especially if it means skiiping
2) Clean room
3) Organize garage, do laundry
4) Grade papers (52 of them, 6 essays each)
5) Play guitar... (A-hA! now we're back in the realm of realistic, achievable goals)
6) Juggle.. ditto
7) Read some Harry Potter in French, or do some excercises in French.

Just to round it out to 10, let's combine 2-4 into some more realistic goals. I know it sounds like i'm just eliminating the onerous chores in favor of screwing around on my computer, and doing some more palatable tasks...

8) Prep skis. Done and Done... well, i'll get around to it.
9) Clean wax box. Ok, fine, whatever.

Hey look something shiny...

But the new year is a time for fun-lists as well. And since i have no real desire to do anything 'relevant' or 'productive' Here's my list.

Top 10 names I would want to name my kid, if i ever get married, and ever have a kid. You see how productive this is. But my dad wanted to name me Huckleberry Finn Smith, and while I'm pretty happy with my name, and well, with me, I think I might change my name to Huckleberry Finn Smith. Or Joe Kick Ass.

10) A category: Boys names based on Automobile names. You might think these are stupid, but you have no creativity. Big shout-out to my friends at Jeep. I mean, CRV just doesn't roll off the tounge, and western themed names can't be beat.
Laredo, Commanche, Lariat, Cherokee, Ranger, Bronco (although, i prefer Bronko), Eagle, Mustang, Trooper (the one japanese entry in the top 15), Cougar, Jaguar, Rover, Commander. You pick 10, and it's a top 10 with in a top 10

Cars that failed the test Cimarron (worst Caddy ever, basically a Chrysler K-Kar), Pinto, DeLorean, 325i, and Caravan, Gremlin

6) Girls names basded on automobiles. (yes, I just skipped 9-7, you think i'm really going through with this whole process?) Corvette. Miata. Marquise. Lexus. Alero. Lumina. Actually, most of these are not as good. I just can't imagine burdening a daughter with the name Alero.


Special Mention: Invicta Black Prince Wentworth and Vincent Black Shadow.

1) Tonk Blartron Smith.

intervals

this morning, classic ski'd. in case you don't know, here's the wiki for nordic skiing. my kick wax was awful, and has been every time i've gone for about a week and a half, after about 10 other days of beautiful classic skiing. the conditions have been marginally harder to wax for, but i've decided that the main reason is simply not enough wax for the skis, or i weigh less than i think, or both. they are fairly stiff skis, and i am fairly light, for winter standards.

tommorrow, i'm going to try, more wax! crazy.

the ski was 30 minutes of drills with the students, and then, 30 minutes of just skiing, while working on various specific techniques for 90 seconds a pop.

then i came home, ate more, played guitar, and went skiing again. this time, a full moon skate ski. should have left later, as the clouds were far less of an issue than i thought they'd be. the apparently gray sky was actually a VERY thin layer of clouds, and it was good light for skiing. the track was icy after the warm day, which affected my technique: when it's that 'fast' it's difficult for me to commit to the ski, basically, i get going too fast for the dim light to maintain good balance and form. that said, the intervals were productive.

after a 15 minute warm-up, 4, 4 minute intervals. with 4 minutes rest. the intervals were basically uphill, then flat, then back uphill. then a 10 minute cool down.

Frisbee corner. If you do a winter training program, intervals are great. Do a month or more of just base first, then intervals for a month. If you are running (instead of biking), be extra careful to go easy, or better yet, bike or swim easy on your off days as running is higher impact.

then, a noodle/stirfry, and ice cream.

big storm coming, w/ 11 inches predicted for wednesday night, 2 feet or so for the storm. Thursday should be awesome skiing on the down hill side. Racing saturday. School is on the horizon. Garbage is getting picked up tommorrow.

That's all.

happy new years

friday, a brief ski that felt... awful... that night... food poisoning. they say your body doesn't remember pain. that said, at the moment said alien tried to burst from my stomach, i in fact remembered vividly, my last battle w/ the microbial beast.

so i didn't ski on saturday, ski'd sunday, for 7km classic, then 7 km skate, then helped host a clinic (note, i say host: we had real talented coaches that did the real teaching) that involved say, 7km plus 3 other say 1 km 'technique sessions', then home for dinner, and then back for another say 6 km? what's that? think it's a lot.

today. raced a leg in a 3 x 3 new years relay. so i'm officially calling it a rest day. passed on the 'new year's frisbee game, as it was, well, a rest day... and i'm sort of in training...

tommorrow (and all week) the plan is one day per week ski, some weights... we're expecting a big dump (say 2 or more feet) of snow later in the week, so, i'll probably go telemark or alpine on those days... if i do, i'll probably skip the weights on those days.

sigh back to school in... WAIT... oh yeah. one more week of vacation.

ate sauteed kale greens and black-eyed peas for dinner, supposed to bring money and luck in the new year. i've been remiss the past few years. we'll see.

played a little guitar, studied some french, might MIGHT go ski the full moon again tonight... weather dependent, i think it's cloudy...

today...

break has been good, lots of skiing. yesterday was ridiculous, 4 hours (in two skis) about 40 km... arms are toast... today, a 1.5 hour skate ski, probably like 15 km or a little more, steady, easy pace... then a 2 hour break for lunch, and back up, and on the snow for 15 min warm up, and 4, 4 min intervals with 4 minutes rest, and 10 minutes cool down. snow was abrasive and slow, and my form was OK... i'm at a stage where i reach a certain exertion level, and my form suffers, so i'm gradually working to improve my form, so that i can hold form to match my out put... it's ... delicate.

the intervals were on a gradual uphill to flat/uphill, so i was able to use V1 and V2...

i play it by ear... i'm generally inclined to make hay while the sun shines, treat the vacation like a 'camp' with as much skiing as i can stand, but i'm aware there are physiological downsides to going going going. like... uh, gone. but i try to go easy most of the time.

i don't know if i'm getting 'better' as fast as i could get 'better', but i know, relative to last year, that i'm skiing better, just by the vast increase in volume. my theory is that i'm trading 'training' theory (i.e., ski easy, moderately) for skiing fun, and hopefully improvement will continue.

in a year or so, i'll definitely have to train smarter, not harder... but by then, hopefully abillity will allow me to do similar work load with more appropriate effort (read, go easier)...

i haven't gotten around to grading all the papers, i'm only noodling on the guitar a little (my hands are always cold and tired), and no significant reading, in english, or french.

i hope that next week (next year) will be a 'taper week' with only one day per week skiing, when i'll have time to grade, and chill/relax and feed my head.

that is all.

and more...

christmas, skied (telemarked) for a couple hours. good snow up high, a little wet down low. yesterday, some crappy intervals (and in, i skied crappy)... like 4, 4, 3, 4, 4... today skied like 21 km... and now i'm sitting down for a few minutes and heading back up... to do like a 1 hour classic ski...

tommorrow, should be about intervals in the morning, and a more leisurely ski in the PM.

going to take some pics soon... for those of you who live where it's warm...

2 gnarly wrecks on the road up and back... should be safer going up at 3:00 pm though...

so, like 31 days?

29 days and counting...

tired this morning, but got in a solid hour and half ski at a very pleasant slow pace. the race was a debacle. i skied like $#!^, grip wax was same, etc. oh well. i'm inspired to start training in earnest now. where others will be ramping up over the holidays for holiday indulgences, i will be going fully macrobiotic, lean, wild protein, hunted and killed with my own hands, 1.5 hours of stretching each and every day.

and ice cream.

lots and lots of icecream.

tommorrow, thinking it's going to be worth paying to ride the chairlifts, so i'll do that for a couple hours, take a brunch break, then skate, and classic for 1.5 hours....

maybe this will be the year i get to 100 ski days... of course, maybe this will be the year i get up and dunk again. hmm.

today, threw in an hour of guitar, and juggled a little... over to some neighbors for some christmas eve dinner. peace.

according to the map it's 9.6 km, w/ 400 feet of rise... so i did that twice, in 40, and 37 minutes, (note, to who ever reads this, it's really just so i can figure out 'next time' what i did, how i did it, and how i was feeling. i'm aware that you, any possible readers, do not care what i had for lunch.

but if you do, you'd love to hear about breakfast.
waffles, yogurt, blackberries, syrup, coffee.

shit. i just realized that the $100 i spent at the store, did not include syrup.

for lunch... well i had an apple, a bananna, and 2 oranges around 10, then i had peanut butter and jelly on leftover waffles at 10:30(out of bread). this is a suprisingly good sandwich by the way. the buckwheat waffle is a strange color, but nutricious and delicious. at 11:35, after a ski team meeting where the head coach did the talking, and i just lamented the fact that i didn't have a spoon, i trotted down to the teacher's lounge where the principal and his wife had a big spread. i had chips and bean dip. returning to the classroom, i had pasta with fresh carrots, brocolli, and cauliflower. after a little while i had an apple. then, the ski, and at last dinner. a light repast of chips and home made salsa, and hummus and fresh veggies.

can you tell the fridge was out of meat? then to the store, where after spending a ton on groceries, i ate again, a gourmet meal of 2 corn tortillas, refried beans, a scrambled egg, and vermont cheddar, with a little hot sauce and garlic worked in there.

tommorrow, either waffles with jam, or oats, the usual meal... but man, those buck wheat waffles are gooooooddd....

tommorrow is a classic ski day... and a big feed day, as the bread should be coming out of the machine now. the sandwich, will be turkey and salami with cheddar on home made white. i mean, i just can't deal with the low fat content of the turkey alone...

if you came from ultimate talk.com, and if you made it this far, here's a frisbee point.

a great drill for developing your throwing is to get a stack of discs (all you have). and practice throwing game throws to a space, and a target, then jog and get them. i.e., if you have 5 frisbees, fake a backhand to move the invisible mark, then pivot, extend and throw the same 'leading forehand' to a cutter 5 times. they will all land in the same place. next, pivot, and throw 5 hard flat throws to an imaginary team mate who is making a hard comeback cut. measure success by having the discs fly low, level and true on a straight line past a point where they would catch them...

wait. this is so bogus.

make a friend. play catch...

race a coming...

so since the race i've skied another say 8 days? So that's like 24 or so. have not gotten around to lifting, although i'm going to try to do some yoga tommorrow morning... classic race saturday... i think i'm just doing the 10 k, but there is a 20 k race... it depends on who i can talk into betting on what... not that it's outcome dependent... this type of bet, i usually bet way above myself, but i keep the stakes low enough, and it makes it more fun...

Some fresh snow dressing the trees for some great scenery, and a couple of amazing skis, scenery wise, whether it was getting lost. er... lost-ish. long story for a couple hours in the woods, or catching a couple of sweet sun sets w/ the sun and the mountains... well, you get the idea... every morning right now i get sunrise and alpenglow on the mountains in the distance behind school... school is very busy, basically it's taking as much as 30-1 hour of prep for each class of 85 minutes, not counting grading.

the grading is suffering. so am i, but the workouts go a long way towards clearing my head each day.

i've gotten back into the swing of plugging away at the guitar, and the french... the juggling too, although, i've a lot less time right now... luckily, i have little or no life...

started reading sideways (as in the book they made the movie from. haven't seen the movie, and i hear the book is good)...

that's all.

what i'm listening to...

this guy is a genius, if you didn't hear him on NPR this weekend, or at whatever hipper than me places you live...

www.jonathancoulton.com

i recommend (highly)

re: your brains

code monkey

the acoustical version of 'baby got back' is certainly nice, too... nice to hear such a true to the original source material of that other seattle legend, sir mix-a-lot.

nothing to do with frisbee.

yes, it's ski season, and you know what that means. what did i have for lunch. where, and how much did i ski. what am i reading. how is the juggling coming?

first of all, the overview. I spent 6 days in yellowstone over thanksgiving at a ski camp. We took 15 hs students, plus another 10 or so who are dually enrolled in a ski training program that trains for both hs races and JO's (junior olympics).

We ski'd 2 times a day, for an hour or so. The rest of the time was taken up, getting ready to ski, winding down from skiing, and eating. By the last 2 days, the desire to ski overwhelmed skiing, and i skied like 30 or 40 km per day. That took 3 ski's per day, over an hour sometimes.

(that was 6 days of nordic skiing).

Then I moved into a new house, about a mile from summit (my work). Accessible by a well plowed bike path, my studded gary fisher kaitai (1996) with the new fenders is serving me well. This has been a HUGE boon to my work, as it frees up over an hour per day. The house also has 17 foot ceilings, a true boon to the juggling.

I attended a 2 day clinic that a US Nordic Wax Guru, and general skiing stud, (and his wife is a Gold/Silver/Bronze medalist... all in the same event... can you tell me who that is), that helped somewhat. Then skied, tues/wed/thurs/fri/sat, including some epic full moon skates. I also spent a lot of time updating my HS Website: You can see what i'm teaching, if you like.

Then I took Sunday and Monday off to concentrate on a tight IT band (my poor skating technique aggravates a general tightness), before skiing Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Friday. (We go up after school, about 18-26 miles, dependant upon venue.

Today was a race, a 10K. I skied it in 37 something, 7 minutes faster than last year at this time, 35% off the winner, about 15% off where i'd like to be in the next year or so. It was also about a minute faster than my spring time on the same course, on what was slightly slower conditions for me. I wanted to go 36, but I blew my splits (my bad, lack of experience in race tactics (maybe the big minute or two), questionable wax / base prep (worth seconds, not minutes), and fatigue from lots of skiing, and a bad night's sleep from a good deal of work related stress. Last year in this race, I was the 'overall most improved skier in bend.' To repeat will be difficult. The race is filled w/ sandbaggers, and a comporable 15% improvement will be 5.4 minuntes, and a really difficult 5.4 minutes. I think I can approach that w/ improved technique (drills and video), longer slower days that the improved technique will allow, rest and intervals in the last 3 weeks prior to the race, and an effort to nail the wax and base prep.

So, 16 days of skiing (and like 24 'ski workouts'). I'll either take sunday or monday off as a rest day, and start working out again (i stopped lifting for yellowstone, getting use to skiing stress, and a mild back strain from moving that i didn't think squats/hang cleans/ and dead lifts would really help.

I'm racing a classic race in 2 weeks (10k) and maybe a 5k in a week. It's tough for me: as a relatively new nordic skier, jumping into longer races is tough. The 5 K should be more my speed: at least it won't kill me. I was wrecked today, barely able to keep on my ski's for the 1 or 2 k ski back to the lodge after the race.

In other news, I bought a new waffle iron, and a bread maker. This may cost me getting that digital camera i had my heart set on, at least for the next month or so. I also bought a new guitar (a cheapie) as i was using one belonging to a housemate at the old place. Right now there's a 'bananna / wheat' bread cooking that looks, to my uninitiated eye, to be going swimmingly. Tommorrow may be french toast.

Oh, and at my house-mates insistence (an no real resistance from me), we got the cable internet w/ the cable and the sports package. Hello, english premier league soccer. Tommorow, I think Chelsea is playing Arsenal.

I've done a poor job on the french with the move, but look to get back into it tommorrow....

Um. A buh, A buh, A buh, a that's all folks.

for monkey face...

count, is that you? you can do better than that.

here's one for jerk face alex commenting on my previous post.

'i'm considering which offense to use for my high school team this spring.'
i think i'm going to implement a 2-1 4, with my best player in a german stlye feldrunner iso in the middle. the deep pairs will work to create space for the quick strike from the feldrunner. Also, by placing my talent back, w/ scorers up front, the transition from zone to man will put my best players in an advantageous position, possibly w/ a 3 on 2 initial break, and covered by teams often less skilled deeps/wings.

the intent is to develop dynamic flow and opportunistic breaks creating rapid strike and and secondary break opportunities. the negatives are perceived to be the same as with all high school offenses. skill inequities that can lead to break downs, especially when developing players are given the disc in 'power' positions.

see, i just made that up in like 1 minute. but it sounds just as real as anything else out there. it used the words dynamic, flow, opportunistic (2x), rapid, break (3x!), strike, offense, and w/ a tribute to crazy frank (power position). that just sounds like something he'd say.

but if you get all moist and squishy thinking about stadler and waldorf (alex and jim) prattling on about their quarterfinal escapades, why by all means frequent their sites. or if you want to read about timmy handing over the america's cup to pottsy and the rest of the australians, go for it. i'm a literary genius, dammit, and if you are too dumb to get it, don't come around here wasting my time again. I mean, did you even LOOK at the first letters of each line of that post you so cavalierly dismissed due to the puniness of your brain?!!! did you!

on and on...

slow week... exam week, or was that last week, so, today, 45 minutes biking, 20 minutes running, 20 minutes frisbee
yesterday, 35 minutes running and throwing in a 40 mph wind, lifted weights (squats, hang cleans, chinup, bench, abs)
tues, 30 minute run, and a 'core-circuit' of balance and ab work, and 45 min biking,
mon, bike, run, weights... nothin' special
sunday, roller skied for 1 hour, biked for 40 minutes, unicycled...
saturday, biked to school, rollerskied, lifted weights,
friday, rollerskied, biked, unicyled...
thursday, 7 mile run? biked.

so nothing hard or fast for days... lots of juggling, some french learning, plugging away at the guitar (some improvement). As far as my 'hidden talent goes' i guess my best bet is to wait until i'm in the company of strangers, and pretend to be seeing a frisbee for the first time...

tommorrow, last day of the week. duh. Saturday, first dayon snow. Sunday, 5:00 am for yellowstone for a week of 2 a days on snow. This is my frisbee worlds now. Uh, but I'm not reallyl in the quarters... but i hope to just be better/faster/stronger than last year...

new skis, some waxless classics (with these fish scales) for knocking around or for days when it's exactly 32 degrees and hard to get the kick wax right... a new pair of classic waxables for races(softer than my old ones, might be just right), that's all...

push it along.

congrats jim on the 200'000 hit mark. i'm at a lowly 35K or so. you'll be glad to know, a student asked of a disc w/ a visored playor: is that 'Jim'? i said no. i should have said 'no, jim neither wears visors nor dives.'

so thursday was weights and roller skiing... and friday was a trip to eugene to preview the course... we warmed up the kids, and i snuck in a workout... over 8 k, i got 3 miles at around 18after a 2 mile warmup... that's fast for me.... on saturday, between watching 1A races, i ran another fast 8K, including a 'race' against a team captain... we ran the following times (like, out of the car, no warmup)

5
4.5
4
3.67
3.303 (this was actually a short 'k', and scott declared victory).
3.7
4
4

so i lost the race, which turned out to be 4.7 when scott goes: 'i win'... i got my 'best 5 k' at 19:10, and a total time of 32 for the 8 k...

so two really snappy workouts... and a nice time on the state course... so i'm calling my pr for the year 19:10... i think i would have gone sub 19 if scott had held it together... but next years goal is sub 18... i've already started organizing a 'race'... the friends and family on course race... there are two options... on friday, we run, or better, on saturday, we run during the 'open course' portion... friday would be no one in the way, but i'm inclined to make it saturday, and you have to weave through the various people there.... here's the plan, kind of a white elephant prize, you bring a prize, and LAST gets first pick, FIRST gets second, and then NEXT TO LAST, then SECOND, and so on... the pool will be coaches, family friends, etc. You have to understand, there were 11 athletes families there, then another 30 kids and their families who came to support: XC is big at summit... could be a fun 25 or 30 person run... with brothers, sisters, moms, dads... should be cool... i predict 5th or 6th for me... ideally it will be an event w/ a bbq at the field site (if it's friday)... i'll let you know...

uh, sunday, 20 miles of biking, 40 minutes of roller skiing, read french for 2 hours...

today, monday, 1.5 hours of frisbee coaching, 40 minutes of biking, lifted weights (squats, chinups, benchpress)... uh, i'm tired...

bye.

ps. girls were 5th : if our 'frontrunner' (the girl w/ the broken femur) had run, they'd have been 2nd, and the presumable order of finish would have been, gradewise, 10,9,9,9,10,12,9,11... of course, wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which fills up first, but it seems to bode well, that 9,9,9,10,12,9,11 bodes well for next year... and hopefully lacy comes back strong as all medical info seems to suggest...

the boys... well, we didn't qualify a team but one freshman went (17th) as the top overall frosh, and our other boy went 17:50 after a season of struggling w/ asthma (a big deal to a kid who's never had it)... so we'll see. i'm happy w/ the work of all the athletes, down to the slow fat kid who made every race... and hopefully they'll improve over the year.

and play frisbee.