A New Philosophy

After a couple weeks of various illnesses in our house, I have finally been able to attempt to get back into shape. Right now, I mainly think about getting into shape. But on my runs, I can't help think about getting in shape to play ultimate. My philosophy to get in shape was to run. Whether it was hills or long runs or sprint workout or whatever, I was running...

There are plenty of reasons for this philosophy, but first and foremost is it is in my blood. All my siblings run (and all faster than me). While many complain about running 30 minutes, I am definitely more likely to complain about biking 30 minutes or lifting or other workouts. I actually like running

The second reason for always running is that is what 90% of ultimate is. YOu have to run to get open. You have to run to cover your man. Etc. Running is my strength and I have always tried to use this to my advantage. Many people like to call timeouts on long points. I always tried to convince people not to, b/c I knew my man was more tired.

This philosophy began to change in 05. Increased hours in the lab and increased hours of watching infants started to occur. I wore out easier and my knees ached a lot more (coming from bursitis/infection in one knee and repeat hyperextension in the other due to bursitis/infection in the first knee). To alleviate this, I began forcing myself on the exercise bike. I try to do this at least 1 or 2 times a week as a way to workout without the constant pressure of the road on my legs. This seemed to help as I had a pretty good nationals and more importantly I felt like I did not wear out. Something I definitely felt in 04 at natties.

My training regiment has changed even more in Montana. These days time is much more important to me. I no longer have 60+ minutes to spend on a workout. I try to fit in workouts in under 40 minutes. Occasionally finding time to go to the gym for longer. So most of my runs won't be more than 4 and a half miles. Track workouts will be shorter. A way to get around this is to get up early and workout then. Right now, it is pretty dark in these parts until ~7. I am still not very comfortable running around here in the dark. Also, I tried to get up at 5:30 a couple times a week and go to the gym. It turns out that I am not a great early morning person. I think I can do that once a week. But more than that and I am absolutely dead by Thursday evening/Friday all day.

So, everything is abbreviated and leads to more workouts during runs. Like accelerations or 5 minutes hard/5 minutes jog. Not bad, but not the focus of my workouts the past 10 years.

For example, last week was a week in which I would love to repeat as often as possible:
Sunday (my one longer workout day) - Track workout - 5 minute warmup; 1200 (4:20) - 800 (2:40) - 400 (76). 3 minute rest after 1200, 2:30 after 800. 5 minute cool down. The workout started out great, but the 400 hurt. Not sure if I will get to a 5:00 mile this year.
Monday - lifted for 40 minutes
Tuesday- spinning- 45 minute class
Wed.- 25 minute run
Thu. - 23 minute run
Fri. - off
Sat. - 22 minute run pushing a baby jogger. It is less strange running with no arms moving then it is with one. I would have never thought this.

This week differs from previous pre-season b/c most everything is scaled back a bit. My track workout is a little slower. When I did lift, I usually ran on the same day. And I tried to always hit 30 minute runs (or a total of 30 minutes if I ran twice in that day). All in all though, I am happy with it. Part of me is just estatic to get in shape, if I haven't said that enough.

Another part is I am preparing for a different role on the frisbee field. One where I am not a captain. Assuming I do play this year, I will not be attending many practices. I will not be travelling to many(any?) tournaments. I will be playing with 2 kids on the sidelines, in between games, at the hotel, etc. My energy will no longer be directed trying to be the best player on the field all the time. Only some of the time....

Pickup

Good evening. Life had been bz for us, 2 bouts of illnesses, march madness, work, and a brief vacation in a hot springs. But finally on Monday we played outdoor frisbee. For me, it was the first time since July and it felt like an eternity. For T-dub, well, I think she played outdoor a little bit last spring. But this was the first time she was playing "solo" for like 2 and half years or so.

It was fun. The quality of ultimate was actually pretty good. It helped that I was on the team with "Fast Johnny". Bascially, he goes deep faster than anyone else. So if you can throw it that far, it works out well. Luckily, I can throw a flick far enough. The backhand made it far enough most of the time.

Pickup feels very strange (Am I the only one to have this feeling?). I have played very little pickup in this century. Maybe 5 times total? Maybe less? All that I have played since 99 has been very structured. Practices, games, scrimmages, etc. All with guys, (occasionally with girls too) who I know what they are going to do out there. It is strange to get out there and not know anything about anyone. And have everyone running around. Little things like a stack that is stretched out over 35 yards. I never allow that on the teams I have played on, but I found myself 30 yards from the disc just standing there. Or when my man is fronting me and good thrower gets the disc, I start busting deep. Only I find 2 other teammates going deep. And another in the endzone. I thought this would frustrate me to no end. And I would not be able to play. Nope, I loved it. It was just great to play again.

I totally felt like a little kid out there running around. My legs felt great, that is what I worried about the most. I have had knee and hammy problems early in the season for the past couple years. Not that I am ready to declare that pain gone, but I felt like my legs were spry. I feel I had the same expression on my face as a smoker who started smoking again after stopping for 6 months.

Pretty soon spring league will start and we will see how the legs then. This morning though, they felt fine. Of course, it was just pickup.

The funniest thing is now what we bring to pickup. Seriously, it was like our car was packed for a weekend of ultimate. Baby jogger for one kid. Pack-n-play for the other. A bag of our stuff. A little cooler. A bag for the kids. A chair. I used to make fun of who we become all the time. We tried to leave 5 minutes before the game ended. But we still were packing our stuff up as everyone else removed their cleats and made dinner plans. I just laugh at us. I wouldn't trade it though. I hope I find a good balance with family and ultimate this year, both of them make me a happy person

upa rules

Two posts in 2 days, I am staying up too late. I have been reading the new uparules.blogspot.com since I did not follow any of the developments over e-mail or during the voting (I was not a upa member last year, so i never even bothered to look at them until now). So far, the best addition to the rules is the disc space rule. Basically, I like that the thrower gets at least 2 extra seconds if the marker invades disc space early in the count without having to stop play.

There are 3 major violators (I think) of disc space when you are a cutter. First, the good defender who either gets the d by not hitting you or just misses ds (ie lays out and just misses the disc as you catch it). This violater does not bother me so much b/c the good ones know when they can go for the disc and not crush you. If you do catch the disc, they will be recovering out of the way.

Second, the really bad defenders who can lay out. Basically, these guys just lay out when the disc in thrown to you and they are close often times catching your knees or pushing you out of bounds or ending up in your business. Commonly, these defenders attempt to go through your back or legs to get the disc b/c they might have a chance to get the disc. Even though it is through you. I complained about this wrt to natties 05 and Todd Owens got injured. Also, one of my *favorite* players from college/club in the midwest ended up in my legs 5 times over my career. Anyway, if you take that abuse, at least you should be able to do is get 2 extra seconds while the guy gets up off your legs.

Third, the purposeful bump every time you get the disc b/c you are dangerous. This has not really ever effected me. The worst examples of this are when the cutters are really fast (and usually small). The extreme case I saw was with Alex Masulis. I loved playing with Alex and it is unfortunate he is a big city with no frisbee. He is arguably the best cutter I have played with, but anyway I digress. He is small andfast and can throw and jump. So he is an excellent target. I will not name names, but during a game in which we were doing well against a big name team they employed a pretty cheap philosophy. Everytime Alex would get an under (which if you have played with Alex, can be very often), this defender would lunge into Alex. Part of our success early in the game was Alex getting unders and either jacking it successfully or getting rid of it quick and getting open.

Anyway, this really hurt us. If he called a foul, play stops, slows down the flow, and more importantly slows down Alex. If he did not call a foul, he loses a couple of seconds. And at the very least is off balance early in the count. I guess 2 seconds is a decent amount of time back. In retrospect, we should have addressed the issue with the opposing team's captain b/c it was fairly obvious it was on purpose. But I will admit to being a bit intimidated to bring something like that up (which is another issue in itself).

So yeah, i like the 11th edition rules so far.

I figured the title thingy out!

Hi, I have nothing of any ultimate interest to report. My mind has been boggled by kids vomiting and vaccines (both for my kids and for the world). Today though I signed up for an ultimate outdoor 7-on-7 league with a draft and not just a stacked team of friends for the first time in 8 years. Not since Tdub and I captained a team back in A-squared have I played a co-ed league with a draft. And I am looking forward to it. I think I miss competition. Not in your face, win or die type competition. Just the type of competition you find in a pick-up bball game. Heck, I found myself excited about the possibility of playing softball for work.

I remember my freshman year in college. For the first time since I was 6 or 7 (I forget when I started playing teaball), I was not involved in a competitive activity. I decided that I did not need sports, but I wanted to stay in shape. So I took to running, but I thought there was no point. I found it hard to motivate myself to just stay in shape, even though it was good for me. Of course, as many freshman do when it comes to this, I turned to other activities that may or may not have been legal for an 18-year old. By the end of the year though, I found that I did not really care about anything. Not that I did not care about sports, I just lost motivation.

I went home that summer with the thought that I would try to get in shape and walk-on on the cross-country. To avoid embarassment, my times were not good enough to run on the team. But I had some friends on the team and was starting to get in shape. Of course, I did not really commit to this because the whole time I was running I thought to myself I am not good enough. And so I never was getting into great shape.

Late in that summer, I was at lunch with some friends when a guy from the ND frisbee team met us at lunch (I worked at ND during the summer). After throwing around and not going back to work for way too long, he talked me into coming to a practice they had. And I loved it. It hit me, this was just the type of competition I needed. I still wanted to win, but I had grown up about it or something. I did not have the pressure on myself or maybe more importantly I never thought I was not good enough. Because I was really doing it for fun. That was a great feeling and I look forward to that in April. I look forward to having fun and running down some frisbees again (of course in between, I took frisbee way too seriously, but that is another time) while trying to squeak out a win.

The weather has been beautiful here, a little colder, but better then most places in the country these days, that is for sure. The last week, the sleep schedule has been off so no early morning spin classes. And barely any long runs as it seemed like I had my first survival week of a working parent... But everyone is on the rebound it seems, so hopefully this week gets better with sleeping/running/life. I got the new Shins + Lucinda Williams over the past 2 weeks. Not too bad, I have not really been able to really listen to them, just here and there. The new Tragically Hip has been on the radio lately. Good stuff. Special mention to the radio here, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Easily better then anything in Minneapolis, I think. Maybe because my expectations were so low.