1-0; 1-1; 1-2; 2,3,4,5,6-2; 6-3; 7-3; 7-4; 8-4; 9,10,11,12,13,14,15-4.
Eek - that's right, we pitched a shutout in the second half against a team that had largely given up somewhere around 10-4. A nice step up from last week's second half loss. They were a bit short-handed; Russ and Alan arrived late, and the rest of their men just couldn't stop the hucks. And their women (Mel et al) played well but couldn't match the speed combo of Lindsey, Ashley and Tyler (Beck sat out another week to baby her hammy). Doyle got a D early and had a few nice breakmark throws - his releases are, natch, 20 feet apart, making it hard to stop anything in the break realm - but otherwise did his usual bizarre act of staying back and handling instead of putting his height somewhere usable aka the endzone. I'll never understand that. We scored early, often and fast, almost exclusively on hucks as the bulk of their players were being very aggressive on under cuts and ended up paying the price. The 6:20 game was over by roughly 7:10; we got home in time to watch the Spurs game (or would have if I still had cable). Good to see 3BK clicking a little bit*, though not really that great to have a non-competitive game.
* - A little bit - we've got some guys playing some great D and being impressively aggressive / hustling all over the field, but we still have a whole lot of newbie goofiness about. A vignette - I call Lindsey and Mike at our primary cutters. Lindsey makes an incut, so I'm fully expecting Mike to make the corresponding outcut (or at least start it). His man guards him way under on about stall four, so I have a very easy deep shot to him; all he has to do is start moving. He waits until stall eight to even take a step, at which point I realize I've waited to long to activate the dump (because Mike has been open the last four seconds and just didn't move) , so I fire a big, loopy IO forehand downfield for him and get it off perfectly. It's just out there, thirty, forty yards ahead of him, hanging there and waiting to be caught. Mike gets on his horse and gets there with plenty of time - his defender is nowhere to be seen - and the disc is hanging directly above him. he inexplicably runs past the disc, then realizes it, then runs back and has *another* chance to catch it but runs too far the other way, and it falls to the ground. He misread a perfect throw - TWICE! Ah, well, it happens. But I have a nagging suspicion that it (and plays like it - there were plenty) are going to make or break us, and they're leaning toward break us right now.
I played well, throwing eight goals (FH huck to Ashley x 2, FH huck to Lindsey x 2, FH huck to Nick, FH blade to Lindsey, and casual backhands after catching hucks to Nick and Jeff) and catching four (two up the line BH's from Al, an endzone play flick from Mark, and a sky of everyone on a FH huck from Nick). Had one huck to Lindsey that Al's guy poached on (grrr) and a punt to no one, but otherwise no turns, and I made some D's, even when matched against the Yeti. Again, probably a little too much from me, but the opportunities were all there (and then some). The other three scores were hucks from Al to Lindsey and Nick and a huck from Stefan to Dave - so carry the one, and that's 11 of our 15 goals on hucks or hucks plus flips to the endzone, which at least partially explains the crazy short game length. Barely a workout, really, and hopefully Keith will be back by finals so if we run into them again we'll have a game proper.
And there ends the good news - in the "Nyet is physically incompetent" domain, let's take you back to Tuesday night, Sprawl practice. I left school at about 6 to get to Scottsdale by 6:30 and stopped by the grocery store for an apple on the way. The apple, bracket, "of death," apparently - about twenty minutes after eating it (and ten minutes into my warmup), my throat swelled up, and my uvula grew into a ping pong ball in the back of my throat. WHAT? Yeah - I attribute it to the apple; for all I know it was pesticides at SSC or what have you. Regardless, I couldn't breathe very well and more importantly couldn't talk (awkward for a captain at practice). I drank and drank and drank water, but my throat killed all practice long. I played hard but felt (unsurprisingly) out of breath and ended up having a pretty solidly crappy time. I drove home, and it continued to hurt through the night. By morning it was very sore but no longer swollen, and the whole breathing apparatus got better as the day went on, which was nice. But really, I have no idea what happened. This happened once before (when I came to your door) - the uvula specifically, I mean - in New Mexico over Spring Break (in what, 1998?). Then I attributed it to the dry air, but you would think I'd be used to that kind of thing by now. No clue.
Happy to be able to breathe again, I finished up my started-at-5:30 work and drove to school. On my walk to my office, I noticed my left knee clicking a bit. Nothing big or horribly unusual; I get weird sounds now and then. But nothing had happened knee-wise the night before; all the drama had been in my pharynx. It was a little weird. So I iced it during office hours for the morning and then tried a little light frisbee at lunch to make sure it was playable, and it was, didn't bother me in the slightest, just made a clicking sound.
Fast forward to post 3BK rout - I took off my knee brace, and VROOP! (Sorry, but there is no language in our lungs for such a physiological phenomenon). Knee goes from human-style to softball in a blink. Drove home, and it progressed to men's softball. Ice, ice, ibuprofen (buh-duh-ddduh, ddduh, Vanilla) in the night and the morning, but after my walk to my office the next AM, it progressed to GRAPEFRUIT LEAGUE. So since then, the sweet tunes of Robert Van Winkle have been dotting my brain as I do nothing but ice and elevate and try to get this thing back down. There's no way I'm going to be able to play in the ASU intramural tourney I was supposed to play in this weekend*, and with the last league game, Sprawl practices, league playoffs, and Uoma Donna (and Genevieve flying in!) all coming in the next few weeks, this was a bad time for something to go wonky. And Daweena in Utah in about a month taboot. UGH.
* - Which is probably for the better, as I'm guessing we could have easily tooled on the non-club Ultimate players on campus, and there's always the chance that a juiced up frat boy would have ended me for spiking it on him. Ah, well.
I mean, knees aren't supposed to bleed! I mean, sure, MY knees are routinely swollen. But this is a bit over the top, and I'm a bit worried that whatever meniscal nastiness that has been giving me trouble over the past two months finally gave way. It doesn't really hurt, though, other than the discomfort from the joint not articulating correctly. I guess what I'm saying is that it could be bad, could not, and it's just frustrating - here I am, light as ever, in great shape, doing all the right stuff, stretching and icing and lifting weights and doing plyos and yeah, shape of my life, and random uvula and joint spaces just don't care. Color me a serious man, I suppose, but this is BS; I'm not doing anything wrong and am taking all precautions and I'm still staring down a trip to Tucson next weekend where I'll just be sitting on the effing sidelines. DAMMIT. And I get in this solid of shape, only to see it melt away due to an injury in the month before Daweena? WTFTTM?!?!?!?!!!!?
Alright, end rant. I'm just tired of it is all. Hopefully the weekend off will do me some good. It is frustrating in the body maintenance domain* - but I'll get over it and hopefully be good to go, at least by next Tuesday / Wednesday. If it's still bugging me after the weekend, I'll make an appt. with the sports doc. Sigh...
* - I'm consistently weighing in the 166-170 range at the gym after workouts, which was pretty much my original goal, so I'm trying to recalibrate my eating habits to stay at this weight. So when a game turns out to be half a workout, it throws my calorie calculations all out of wack, and when there's the sudden potential to not be able to do any real cardio workouts for the next week or so, the OCD in me gets activated. My basal metabolic rate is ~2300, depending on which website I use, so I've been gunning for that plus some extra calories to account for workouts. But I continue to have no clue how much an Ultimate game *really* burns, not to mention I am now mired in the habit of not eating as much (with the possible exception of Friday night pizza / mojo fests), so I have to be careful not to start losing muscle mass. Speaking of, up to benching 205 on the machines at school, which has no translation to real world weight, but it's more than I could do, so... yay. Anyhoo, yeah, Nyet the Lesser indeed. Sorry to be discussing the weight loss so much; I know it's a sensitive topic for some peeps, and it's easier for some than others. I will say, though, that I've worked pretty hard on it, with lots of hour-long sessions on the elliptical, lots of thumb muscle work pushing plates away, so forgive me for being a little pissed that the universe is rewarding me with genu-citrus. I would rather not have this be the undoing.
Getting back to the point - 3BK is 5-3 (5-1 in division) with a +24 point differential, good for third place for the time being. That's a guaranteed above-.500 record for the regular season, and eyeballing the standings and remaining games, it looks like we'll lock up the 3 seed with a win next week and fall as low as 5 with a loss (though the 4/5 seed distinction is meaningless). That game next week is against Tom "8th Round" The, Pat, Jose, Jim, Lexi et al, the Black Smoke Monster, and knee-permitting I aim to take it to them. It would be good to grab a 3 seed and get one of our pool's three lesser teams; also, being 4 or 5 means playing the other side's 1, which is looking to be Griesy and Big Nate's squad - obviously you gotta beat everybody, but it'd be an easier path to the semis to face the 2 and 7 from the other side instead. So wish us luck. And maybe all that means is wish me better knee.
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