duathlon number 1

i'm entered into a duathlon series... bike 12 miles, run 3. i'm not sure if either mileage is correct... registered and all on line, but was late to the start. i didn't wear a watch, as this was my first hard sustained workout of year. some thoughts though... i should have sipped a little more on the ride. i could have rode a little harder. aero bars would have really helped (how much, to be determined).. the run was ok but...

i started the run, and noticed 5 pounds of crap bouncing in my jersey... i was stilll carrying pump, tube, tire irons, cell phone... reached back, and pitched them... then the race director yells out, take off your helmet... duhhhhrrr... i also had a problem getting my running shoes on.

nothing like running after a hard bike ride.... that hurt. then i was running pretty good, then a side stich... ouch.

but i think i was OK. i was hoping for a 58 minute time. don't know yet what i ran.

i missed a city league game for this... mild bummer, but i've paid. i'll miss next week too. but i'll be at the tournament. this week has been a disaster training wise. sunday was a good 35 mile ride, then hill repeats, monday was a 26 minute run, medium, tues and wed i did jack. exhausted for no good reason (i think i'm sick), and i had hs graduation (i ride the bus with kids, and march in with them and stuff)... then today was sweet..

tommorrow i'll probably ride or run for some distance... saturday, i'll hike/ski, or bike/run, or MAYBE go run a half marathon, strictly as a workout... sunday will definitely be bike/1000 repeats...

next week, only guarantees are repeats, duathlon, and city league tourney. will probably work in 2 LSD workouts of 2 hour bike rides and a 45 min run...

go pax.

good weekend...

3 hour mt bike ride yesterday, tons of climbing, then a 30 minute run, moderate pace.
today, a 35 mile road ride (about 2 hours-ish) then a couple grad parties for kids / parents, then a run (10 min warm up, 3 hill repeats... the first one was up the back side of the measured hill, so who knows definitely a little shorter, but 3 minutes, the next 2 were on the regular hill 3:15 and 3:20 which is pretty good compared to earlier this year (4, 3:45, 3:30) I probably should have done 1 more, but i was pretty fried, and the leg was tight from a bike wrek tuesday...

tommorrow, bike (and frisbee), tuesday, 3-4 1000's (or like 3:30 timed repeats on flat, hard effort) (and frisbe), wednesday, walk (and frisbee), short bike thursday, hard bike and run (And frisbee)...friday, rest (and frisbee), saturday, go big somewhere, somehow... maybe hike South sister to ski...

pretty good weekend...

lessee, friday, some dutch drilll... not super soothing after a brutal bunch of points thurs, but...
saturday, got up and ran for 45 minutes, oh, probably 6 or 7 miles
then a 32 mile bike ride, then some chinups/pushups/dips...

today, a 45 minute hike and then a ski, then a 1.5 hour mt. bike ride...

tommorrow, tbd...

league night...

season wrap up will follow shortly...
we played the ony undefeated team tonight: we had one loss, the night i wasn't there, and we came out lucky. my preference, in an upwind downwind game, is to protect the breaks, so take decent long shots down wind, avoid anything that might turn it over on our own goal line...

we have 2 games every thursday from here on out. since that immediatly follows a HS practice, and i was tired after playing, and running mile repeats yesterday, i was significantly less than enthusiastic... but i went.

we had tons of turnovers RIGHT on our goal line, even my first flat out, breadbasket drop of the while, but i think we protected the break on that one... i played 18/19 points, had an actual layout block, and on game point, 1 hand block and 2 solid pieces that caused 1 turnover, and should have got at least one more... but we gave it up. bummer.

the lowlight, other than the drop... my team mate throws the first pass to me, it hangs, i circle under it, i'm stationary, i hear the d running down, i jump straight up, catch it, and get PLOWED by a current or recent grad U of O player... i get up, and said something loud, and profane. he said, i shit thee not, 'but i'm not contesting the foul.' i'd love to see video. basically, a player sprints 70 yards, and tackles the punt returner. i'm pretty sure this is discouraged in ultimate, and the other teams reaction was priceless... i get levelled, their reaction is, 'whoa luke, don't get so fired up, it was an accident.
truly, i went straight up, from a position i'd held for a full second.' irritating. there was also the full complement of lame complaining, etc... i pretty much just yawned my way through it...

but, given my lackluster mindset going in, i played pretty well, my ho' d was legit, i had to actually make some diving catches and stuff, stopped some goals up high in the endzone... ran better than i thought i would...

still, sore, tight calf, tight hams... we won the second game 11-9, and i took 2 points off that game... i played like 5 hours of ulti today... too much..

so we're probably in 4th of 8. for the tournament, if it's run under normal competetive guidelines, it might be worth our while to move up to 3rd to make a slightly easier quarter... but the 4 semi teams have all beaten each other, and the past 3 years when i won (granted as a captain, different from this year) normal competetive guidelines were out the door, (ex, last year, as the 2 seed in a 9 team tourney, the pools were 1,7,9... 2,4,5... and 3,6,8... so we played 5,4,3,and 1 to reach the tourney... i'm not sure, but i think that's no particular type of legit 'snake'... so, anyway, i'm not too worried about it...

later...

fdaasdffad

monday: shitty day of school. no reason. the lesson plans were adequate, but uninspired. my lectures were good, but uninspired. we're out of copies at school. no more copies. one month of school to go, no more copies. kind of a hassle.

practice was fantastic. so, i got that going... warmup, handler drill (trident), goto drill (gladiator), throwers choice (huck or under with an audible), review of our stack endzone, and our arch endzone. good scrimmage, w' a side game of soccer. i sprained my anle mildly in soccer...

went for a 30 mile ride (road) after that, steady pace, 20 miles per hour, pretty good....

tuesday: run, stretch, (i will only do a seated stretch when it's WARM so that we're not sitting around cooling off), and it was warm. gladiator only, then our 2 stack plays, 1, and I - 5, then, our new play, shotgun... nothing special, an off the back play... then scrimmage. i covered a fast young dude brando who had no back down in him: he made some good, no, great plays, and will no doubt be a star in the next 2 years...

then a 90 minute ride, probably averaged 18 or 17 mph... that is significantly slower than 20 mph, but winds, etc...

tommorrow, match play vs. sisters.. in our league, we're 2-0-1, and at the top of the table vs. bend, who is 2-1... this weekend state... if everyone shows, we should hold seed at 4th, but, bend could beat us, or chs jv (just being honest)... i'd love a 4th place finish, but, well, we're 3 weeks away from peaking... and, we'll see.

sisters is a vulnerable team, and it's nice to have a tune up to work on our plays...

bend, the other local team, is all seniors. it's a huge advantage for all your players to be late pubescent... i've got a variety of short pretty fast guys ripping around, w/ great girls, and knowing the guys will all soon be tall fast shredders...

our offense is simple, and sweet. it's about 1/4 of the great NY playbook, w/ a nice endzone flatstack alternate, and 1 good zone. will we execute? i spend so much of my practice amazed at how close we are to GETTING IT DONE... we'll see if it works...

now i'm watching poker... and sending out about 20 emails about state...

ciao.

practice is coming together... but of course ,we have state in a week, and we're a month from peaking. can't be helped, too short a season.... too soon a season... but the long term goal of producing frisbee players who understand 'how to throw, when to throw, where to cut, etc...', well, that's improving.

watched idiocracy. great movie. highly recommend... good satire.

today, skated... like... well it would have been 32km if we'd done the full laps, but we for sure cut out 6 or 8 km, so, say, 20-25km?

then, biked, like 18 or 19 miles on the mountain bike?

tommorrow, either a longer (30 plus) ride, or i'll chill and grade.

i threw in some guitar for a couple hours today, and watched the san antonio vs. phoenix game. pretty good.

stuff..

lessee... monday, rest (sick day), tuesday, still not well, but played 'dutch drill w/ kids in 30 mph winds)...
wednesday, practice. promised them scrimmage, so after running, stretching, handler cut drill, goto drill, and huck drill, let them scrimmage.

oh: i have a drill i really like. 3 cones in a triangle, in the middle of field. point is downfield. each player has a partner. you are on one of the two base cones, and your partner loosely forces you to the line. we have two hand signals (deep, or under), and the cutter is fronted by defender who is not supposed to look at signal. defender fronts. player cutts, deep or out and in. player has some lattitude, and can modify cut: goal is to teach throwers to make good decisions. defender is not supposed to see who the thrower is, so while it is kind of fake that way, it basically gives players opportunity to make game like decisions (note, this is a high school drill)...

similar drill: no defense; call cutter to make an out cut, or out and in. i associate a mild penalty for this: if you keep trying to huck, and you can't, you become a perma cutter... and the line can make the thrower become a cutter if their 'huck' sucks... i.e., you are in line, i call huck, i float one up and you have to wait for it. the line goes...'go cut smith, that throw sucked'...

today, run, dynos, drills (which we did till someone caught an overthrown layout, again, different focus for a high school team), goto drill, 15 drill (named for our huck play calls), scrimmage. got into it with the baseball team, who decided to play golf through the back of our huck drill... their coach backed down right away, but i made the point further by throwing into their golf game... i'm a loser... then scrimmage... increasingly good performance, but we're going to suffer at state next week, we're still mid season, i mean, we have 3 weeks of league play after states...

then, league night, against a weaker team, but we had 7 players... one point of 2-3-2 zone, then switched to a 1-3-3, then modified the 1-3-3 so that it was two middle players who trade out on the mark, the other drops... so it's a 1-3-3 but the 1 changes... it was effective. i think it's a natural modification to the 1-3-3-, but best done by smarter teams where when the marks can change without giving up the middle...

so we win,13-4, and the switzer v talbot game goes 13-11 switzer. this puts us at the top of the table, cuz when we played talbot (loss) i wasn't there, but we beat switzer when he wasn't there... so... i think we are #1 by tie breaker... better to be lucky than good...

personally, tried to tone down the huck game. i had one turnover, up 8-0, where i called a team mate out of bounds, bad move in hindsight: he thinks he toe'd in, so i apologized for second guessing him, and noted that i was inclined to be generous, given the lead... i turfed a swing up 13-2, ouch, threw a bad hammer that dropped at the feet of my receiver (i believe QB always takes Turnover, but, come on)... other than that, thew at least 8 of the goals... so, ok... nothing special...tried to be a set up guy for the game, but did throw a couple bombs late to put it away.

frankly, i feel a combination of a step off, a step slow, and that i'm reading the plays a step too fast (i.e., i make a jab step cut that seems money, but no throw... so i end up directing the stack, and making opportunistic cuts...

other than that, lame week. no weights, basically a 'taper' week. this weekend will be a bigtime cardio weekend...

oh, wednesday, after practice, did go up to mt. for a 1 hour hike, and sweetest corn skiing EEEEEVVVVVVERRRR....

sdfgsfgsfgsfg

ok, ok bear with me, more ultimate to happen

today a 2.5 hour roadbike ride, in shorts and a tshirt, a far cry from getting out of a car in 11 degree temps yesterday... then i ate twice more, then a kayak... first ever... lots to learn... it was tippy, i didn't tip, but it was fun...

this week, we're supposed to have 70 degree weather (if you read this, you know it was ridiculously cold last week. welcome to central oregon)

i'm splitting all practices now: varsity plays v. varsity for 2 points, jv v. jv, i let a couple players swing, to figure out who will move up to varsity, and to let defender/cutters get handle opportunities.

we're pretty much a Vertical stack team, but we've seen enough Horizontal stack to at least have a defensive concept... Tommorrow, intro to Arch Endzone... thanks to idea from boston... Jim, or Al, or someone, love to hear from you sometime about how you used it... (you did say you used it, eh)...

constant individual throwing work w/ camera, some 'freeze play' in scrimmages, that's all we'll introduce. 2 weeks until state. way too soon for our wintery weather... and our new team...

things i've not addressed to my liking: ZONE (basic intro, but not enough nuance), more play...

things i'm working on... running to endzone so that comebacks are shorter, moving stack down field to be ahead of the play, but still leave room for huck: what I stress is the habit of players to stack too far from disc, but crowd thrower during flow... trying to teach close stack, and stretch field in flow...

the team suffers from losing a top sophmore to an ongoing achilles, and two 4th year seniors (one to early graduation, one to shoulder surgery in preseason). I had no idea how much their loss would affect the team, but, that's life. it's just a game, and the other players are stepping up.

Hopefully, we can come in 4th again, and maybe MAYBE improve to a higher seed over the next 2 years. Hard to say: the teams on the warm side of the mountain have more opportunities for quality comp, and a longer 'growing season'...

that's all.

asdfghjkl

friday, coached only, weather said 40, w/ 35 mph winds, felt 20. cut practice short... flipping miserable for da kids...
today, lessee, at mountain and using tele gear before or close to 7, climbed i don't know 2000-3500 feet vertical (repeated laps, and too much math for right now) to ski 2 runs of EPIC knee deep powder with no one around... then 16 km skate, 8km in like 30min, 8km in 26 minutes, total cardio like 2.5 hours, then biked around to look at stuff, drink a cup of coffee, brief unibike stint, lifted weights (squats, vertical row, millitary press)... in garage, so fairly light weights, tried to be explosive...

'yes, laugh..

now meal 4, grading tonight, tommorrow, i'll bike, and paddle, might... MIGHT run some mile repeats...
need to throw too...

afggfgagf

Good day, up at 5:30, 30 minute run, up to school, AP test prep for the kids from 7-8, taught, coached from 3-5... pretty good... then, I missed my ride to go ski b/c i was coaching, so i went to league night, i was soooo slow... but i busted out some goals thrown, and had one highlight high layout catch... so kind of fun... that said, we went , 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 5-3, then they pulled ahead to 7-5, 7-7, 8-7 us, (half), 9-7, 9-9, 9-10 (and for some reason they start to implode, lots of calls, arguing with each other), 11-9, 11 all, cap on due to dark, game to 13, i get scored on, 11-12, i think i threw the 12-12 goal, win 13-12. I played all 25 points, unfortunately, basically jogging most of it, occasional timely hard 'd'... i'd like to think it led to the 3 two point runs we made... threw like 6 goals, caught 1? Not too bad...

coaching...

throw, run 1/2 mile, marking drill, run 1/2 mile, swing drill, run 1/2 mile...

new version of the line drill. instead of the usual goto drill, cutter runs 20 yards, plants and cuts, then catches the come back... i'm trying to teach that they need to run down field, towards the endzone, past the play.

then, a fun drill, pair marking, the mark is a basic force forehand or backhand... not a 'hard flat mark.' defense must front, thrower signals with hand deep or under, run it. short scrimmage, better focus on running the 'o', finally getting kids to try to overthrow cutters in drills... coached a couple kids on throwing. Big, BIG fan of video for teaching.

One girl, who's throws tend to be a little outside in because of arm/had position, so i'm showing her, outside in, inside out, and her question is, why didnt' you show me this the first time... a year ago, and the question is, well, i show everyone how to do the basics, but you are good enough to understand what's going on. that said, teaching people that a little hyzer helps so much is easy for some harder for others.

But w/ digital video, reviewd immediately after throwing, progress is so quick...

stuff

Frisbee:
We went to Eugene Sunday for the State Tournament. We got whomped. This is the single gender state, and we went over with like 14 guys, and 9 girls... Missing a few key players (and of course the 2 injured starters for the guys), it was a great learning experience for the kids. Chuchill, South Eugene, and Crescent valley are talented, have a system, and execute on the goal line.

The lessons I was able to highlight for the team, are the value of the short passes, and executing on the goal line. Basically, when I get outside to practice at 3:00 or so, I usually find the kids lofting a variety of fun throws (chicken wings, bad hanging mid range throws, etc), and they are starting to see that that is time that they could best use working on realistic practice throws. They are in good spirits: They see the progress, and are consistently willing to work for it.

We have a basic offense in place, vertical, short stack, a couple of basic sequence plays, and a simple endzone w/ a 3 basic options, all of which we are increasingly using in practice.

The team is young: I have a group of 25 freshmen and sophmores, so the future looks bright.

The biggest challenge for our team is geography and schedule: here in the high desert, snows continue. High winds are common, and our season doesn't really start early: the valley teams play longer, but most importantly, they have several quality teams that get to battle it up on a weekly basis as close to year round as they want...

There was a nice article in the local paper this week: Apparently it was mostly Summit until the editor made them change it to an all city thing, which I think is for the better. It's actually a pretty good article, no dogs, no frolf.

In league play we're 2-0. This is after getting pummelled as X/Y teams at the kickoff scrimmage/tourney. That lesson took hold, and the team is picking it up. We Won 13-3 scoring several tough up winders in the first game, then, the B-Team (w/ a couple swing players), lost the first half 7-5 of game two, and the 'A' team came in and swapped points to 9-7 when i made the risky move of having them call time out on our on goal line going upwind. I just told them to relax, and calm down, and they scored the upwinder, and the next 6 to win the game... so they outscored Bend High by 8-2, including several nice goal line executions.

Personally, Sunday, the tourney, monday, weights in the AM, skills and drills with the team, and played 2 points during the 20 minute scrimmage, then a 95 minute bike ride (road). Today, ran for 30 minutes in the morning before school, then a 90 minute mountain bike ride.

more...

Lessee... thursday, was league night. I was pretty happy, caught 2, threw, like 6, had one turnover (it looked like a pretty straightforward foul, but, i was 5 yards deep in the other endzone, so, who am i to say, the receiver, over beers said he thought it was a foul, but he should have had it, and we were up a bunch... so...), couple opportunistic d's, but no great man to man d... probably played 12 of the 20 points...

friday, i went for a 45 minute ski tour, i guess, imagine, 45 minutes on the elliptical machine, with scenery, and a sweet ski down... i think, using the video, i've got a pretty decent 'technique' for teaching the long backhand... that's kind of cool...

this morning, 24km of skating, then 30 miles of biking, ate breakfast twice (oats, bananas, raisins, yogurt), frenchtoast w/ bananas, more bananas, chips and home made salsa, beans and rice, and a burger fries and beer for dinner...

tommorrow, full day coaching, leave at 7, back at 7... should be fun.

no golf, softball, or sprinting yet...

asdf

uh, last week, ski'd thursday and friday, biked, once maybe? ran a bunch, lifted twice, pretty good... this saturday, ski'd, then ran mile repeats (1.3 miles to park, 2 x 1 mile w/ 3 min recovery, ran .25 mile to library, picked up tax forms, ran home, so w/ recovery jogging, maybe 5-5.5 w/ the recovery jogging between runs).... pretty good. the ski was fantastic, the runs... i think i ran the repeats at 6:30 pace, which was pretty easy, compared to 6 down to 5:40 ish last year 'in season'... and the effort was 'moderate' so i think i'm pretty fit, if not run specific prepared... i did taxes the rest of the day... so i missed the first day of the gandy goose... uh, plus it was 43 and raining, and i'm a wuss, and etc. fully prepared to go out sunday, i woke up w/ a norovirus, or food poisoning, or something... i slept/slept w/ tv on/ returned to sleeping allday, and finally went to sleep at 8 pm... blech. they managed to pull it off with out me...

the full grooming season is now over, with partial grooming wednesdays and saturdays... i'll make an effort to hit both...

last fridays 1 day tournament was an eye opener for the team... i split them X/Y, and as you can imagine, the talent is pretty accross the board in a one month hs season... kids got whomped... mission accomplished. the whole team has buy in to a varsity/JV split from here on out, which would not be the case if I'd done it arbitrarily... so, that's good. i'm missing 2 clear starters (one surgery, one prolonged achilles thing) but the varsity should be OK w/ a couple weeks of practice.

monday practice was pretty good, exhausted, I couldn't even jog w/ the team (dehydration/muscle cramps)... but much better focus at practice... the 30 minute scrimmage was mixed, but the last 10 minutes i used a 'freeze/discuss' to stop play when everything went to crap (clustering/need to break, etc)... and it cleaned up quite a bit.

today, i wanted to stretch my legs after 10 hours of bustin' it at the office (3 shows daily, all different, stay for the veal)... so i ran 10 minutes, then did 3 hill repeats of 4, 3:40, 3:30... legs were a little tight, but lungs and cardio felt great. exact same time i ran 2 years ago, 'in season', so, I think it would have been no problem to crank out at the least, 2 more 3:30's..., if not faster... pretty happy with fitness, if the legs aren't specifically run trained...

tomorrow, i'll coach, then go for a couple hour bike ride... maybe ski if the opportunity arises... thursday is league night, i'll try to make it... frankly, i'd prefer to run a few 800's first... league lasts for 10 more weeks...



funny story, made short, thursday, i grabbed my skis, went to mountain, put on skis, and only then realized that i had the wrong poles. wrong as in they weren't mine. i'd grabbed the wrong ones out of someones car the sunday before. these had no straps (which are sort of key to nordic skiing, totally key to proper power application and recovery phase), these are this kind that clip to the special proprietary glove (which i don't have)... so that led to a series of stroke, stroke, stroke, leave the pole stuck in the snow...

that's all

Sup

The Planet Earth thing on Discovery is indescribably good. If you've not seen it, you're missing out... scenes are incredible... breaching great whites, seal vs. king penguin... so cool...

What's up: Trained my butt off this weekend.

Saturday, AMAZING ski... pouring rain, slight slush, but fast, fast, FAST. covered a ton of ground in 1.4 hours, like 20 km (so not race pace, but super fast, considering it was all 'zone 1' (60-70% of max)... then 45 minutes of running and core and weights, then 1.25 hours of riding at zone 1, then another 30 minutes of biking to have dinner w/ friends...

Sunday, ski'd an hour plus of crust cruising... skiing around in the wilderness, including this big frozen lake... very fun. The aesthetic was a 10. My skiing, less so.I was skiing horribly though, hay fever? don't know... fatigue mabye... just wasn't feeling it... so i ate a bar, and ski'd another 15 km ish easy... on the trails. then rode for 1.75 hours, again, at zone 1, then went out to pick up play to throw for a cool down...

Weekend totals:
Zone 1 cardio, 6 hours
Zone 2 (run) 30 minutes
Weights: 30 minutes
Threw.

Reading Will Durant's history of civilization (10 volumes, 9 zillion pages)... just started. kind of fun.

This week, focus on zone, and flat stack. and we have a return of winter weather... so HOPEFULLY some afternoon skis after practice.

Uh, that's all.

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.