The 48 hour athleticon came to a grinding halt at about 7:45 last night. After four hours of morning hot and humid frisbee and another 3.5 hours of hotter and still humid frisbee, my various body parts went on strike. I wasn't tired, actually, I was just cramping in all of my leg muscles. Seriously. At the end of a grueling day, if I haven't gotten enough electrolytes and water, I'll start getting a little cramping in my calves. But this was nothing like just that - I had slammed gatorade twos* all day, eaten several clif bars and granola bars, drunk a gallon and a half of water, and between the double header I had loaded up on calories and fluids, but it just didn't matter. I was just entirely depleted, and in the end of just the second game of the hat tournament, EVERYTHING started cramping - the worst was when I lunged down for a forehand and my freaking iliacus (or something in there - one of my hip flexors) gave that little flutter flutter cramp. I was in pretty bad shape, and if you've ever been in this state, you know that it's not done when you stop playing; when everything's cramping, taking off your socks is an exquisite torture.
* - Seriously, drinking too many gatorade twos and then continuing to drink them while feeling utterly nauseated has left me with a nice little Pavlovian association. Keep that sickly sweet stuff away from me for the next few days, please.
Before the body meltdown, the tourney had gone okay. Our team just lacked cutters, really, and though we did a fairly good job of taking advantage of some of our women matchups (we had Hayden, Angel, Lexi, Sarah and Carly, so a pretty good female set), we just spent a lot of time alternating throws between Russ and me (or Paul and me - we rarely had all three of us on the field simultaneously, usually having a lot of brand newbies as our cutters - not good). In the first game, i had a couple of fun showdowns with Big Nate - I poached off from fifty yards away to try and run down a huck to him, but just as I started to lay out for the D, he stepped (or rather slammed) into position to make the catch and sent me flying. Ayee! I got him back later, though, beating him deep for a score, so the Nate/Nyetverse is still in balance. The rest of the game - actually screw it, both games - are not worth accounting for, as we had a pretty fair amount of fun despite playing terribly. I had a whopping two turnover throws on the day (and got eaten alive by a lazy forehand that got wind-gusted - pretty much had a disc headed for my face that hit me in the thigh because of the wind. Awesome). One was a hammer that would have been fine except that it slipped out of my sweaty-as-hell hand and ended up being a hospitable pass between our young guy and two defenders. Hayden, natch, gave me a lecture on high percentage throws and Carly chimed in with her own moronic commentary. I let them both (and especially Carly) have it a little bit and feel mildly bad about it, but seriously guys, that was a nice entry in this week's "define irony" contest. I will try to take the high road and not offer return commentary on the numerous floaty crap hucks I see this week (and have seen all season). Ugh.
But that (other than the cramping, yikes) was the only negative part of the tourney, otherwise had a good time and cracked a lot of jokes with everybody. Lots of other highlights: Paul D'ed Genevieve (and much heckling did ensue); Kevin hatch beat his son deep; Skunk called 1,2, stall on me as a joke; etc. Fun times. Back to the cramping - I hobbled my way back to the car after our second game, and used my salt depravity as an excuse to get way too much Wendy's. French fries and such hit the spot, but didn't get it done - I came home, sat on the couch and proceeded to watch my calves wriggle like they had worms beneath the skin for the next hour as I continued to pour water and gatorade into myself. Beck came back from Mojo (where everybody knows her name...) and nursed me back to consciousness with some more drinks and beef jerky, and I crashed to sleep around 11...
...And then we got up at 5:30 to get ready to go hiking. WHAT??!?!? Yes, I had committed to going to Prescott with D&C&Beck for a hike, so I fought through my condition to get ready for a drive and hike. Like I told Dan, it was like having a hangover with none of the benefits of having been drunk the night before. But I pressed through - a little Smacdonalds en route helped with my continuing negative salt balance, and we made it all the way to Prescott (elevation 7,000 feet!) for a fun hike. Only the one Beck has found on the internet had a big sign in front of its entrance: DO NOT ENTER! FIRE HAZARD! "That's just for amateurs," Dan said as he rolled us through anwyays. And lo, there was not just a fire hazard, but a real life controlled forest fire, complete with firefighters who probably thought we were some of the bigger idiots on earth. We backtracked and found another hilly trail and went for a mediumish 5.7 mile hike that included about 1000 feet of up and down. I give myself kudos for pressing through - my hamstrings just felt trashed, so climbing was tough - but we had a good time hanging out and enjoying mid 70s weather.
We stopped by Christina's Garage (Catholic Girls?) in Prescott on the way back and grabbed lunch at the Prescott Brewery. The little town was having some sort of festival that necessitated its citizens to dress in chaps and shoot guns a lot; some kind of family fun "historical" event I suppose, but it gave the town a wacky vibe. Food was very good - D,C and I got burgers and Beck got a ridiculo-plate of nachos, and we all got our salt back on track. Good stuff, and we were recharged for the rest of the drive back to Phoenix (which of course ended up taking way longer than it should have. I love 17). We got back at 5 and all I wanted to do was fall in the pool and lie on the couch: no ultimate or pool-partying for me, sorry to all I've offended.
So a valiant effort if a failure at the 48 hours of athletic activity. I have a glandular problem: I sweat WAY too much. It's bad, and it seems that at least in these extreme conditions, it's more than I can accommodate. The high was 109 yesterday and it was a bit more humid than normal, and this equated to me losing who knows how much sweat - given the amount of liquid I consumed, I honestly don't think twenty five pounds of sweat yesterday is too outlandish of an estimate. Gross. I might have to beg off these summer hat tournaments in the future; it's just a bit too much (though really, I think the softball friday night may have been the straw that broke). I'll stick to the more human 105 degree practices from here on out.
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