Wrapped Up

The fall season is over. It has left me with a strange mix of feelings, and I'm still not sure what to expect for the spring. I've seen a lot of correlations to HS ultimate, and I suppose that some aspects of our sport are conserved over most of the teams within a particular level. The low percentage of interested players who stay, the inconsistency of committedness, and the limiting factors outside of the team's control are all disappointing, if not entirely expected. Namely, it sucks that the athletic admins sometimes forget to turn on the lights, so we have to cancel practice...or it rains the whole week before a tournament, so we come out cold and unpracticed at Delaware. Unfortunate.

But I believe in the team. I've mostly "bought into" the team strategies, although I do not agree with them 100%. I'm really excited about the strength of our freshman class, and I am secretly plotting to throw a club team together for the summer, in order to get more playing time for rookies and recruits. I think that playing together during the summer will build cohesion, and playing against club teams will make us better players. The question is, can I get enough of us together, scrape enough money together, to get to any club tournaments?

But for now, I've decided to take almost two weeks off for recuperation and time to study for finals. I'm jumping into a winter conditioning regimen that I designed, so we'll see how that goes. I'm going to try and snag a couple of the Watchung Hills players for certain workouts, because I'm hoping to include drills and some ultimate-specific moves in my training. I also plan to do Air Alert III, in an attempt to overcome my average height and substandard hops. My goals for the winter, though some are extremely ambitious, are included here:

Run 6mi in one hour, a sub-14:00 2mi, and a sub-5:45 1mi
Sprint a sub-60 400m, sub-26 200m, sub-12 100m, and sub-4.5 40yd
Increase throwing range: 75yds backhand, 65yds forehand
Improve vertical leap to 28"
12 consecutive pull-ups
Bench-press 135lbs