Pike Double Practice

Saturday was a good rough practice, lots of punishment. The O team still only shows up around half the time it steps on the field, but at least our good moments are getting better. I know I started playing strong(er) D by the end of the day, but don't remember much else.

Sunday was marred by lower attendance, and I personally stunk up the field for one of the 3-pulls with 2 turnovers--one quail forehand into the wind and a huck to a receiver who was too deep. Then we split into teams based on which players we would or would not want to date our hypothetical daughter, and I was put on the upstanding team. After getting bodied up by a skinny O-line player in the first point while making an in-cut, costing us the disc, I turned up the heat. I played better defense, made a few bids on offense (not real layouts, but good efforts), and started moving the disc like crack in a bad neighborhood. Dishies, dumps, handler cuts, and one sweet forehand huck to Tous. That was fun. My team won the scrimmage by a fair margin.

Afterwards, lunch at Chipotle and a drive through traffic to Turkey Swamp Park, where I paced the fields to figure out how many we can fit for Sectionals. It's getting closer...

Home Lift

5 ledge pullups, knees tucked
8 SL RDL per leg at body weight
5 ledge pullups, knees tucked
8 SL RDL per leg at body weight
4 ledge pullups, knees tucked
8 SL RDL per leg at body weight
2x(12 bent over DB row, 30sec rest, 12 upright DB row) at 20lb

Hadn't done back/biceps/shoulders in a while. I anticipate lots of sprinting and plyometric pushups tomorrow, so I kept it (very) light with the hamstrings. I like how the ledge adds grip difficulty and the tucked knees puts more emphasis on controlled motion with a strong core. I also focused on stability and control during the SL RDL, because I'm awful at those "running man" things we do in warmup (basically SL RDL, but faster and without pausing).

PTW

Suicides on turf, with cleats:

4x200yd (0-15-0-25-0-40-0-40) with 1:45 rest
37.78, 36.41, 38.44, 39.19
3:00 rest
6x120yd (0-15-0-25-0-40) with 1:15 rest
23.87, 23.59, 23.44, 23.94, 23.22, 22.64

I am humbled once again.

200th Post

3mi bike ride

2mi jog
60mins yoga
2mi jog

I didn't time anything today, mostly took it easy but ramped up for the last mile of my final jog. First time I've biked in a long time, thinking about buying one to commute from Rutgers to my job. It would also be a pretty good way of getting around campus.

Pike Practice

9am-4pm in Princeton, so I made the drive down without meschaunce and cleated up. Throughout the warmup drills, I felt like I had lost my ability to throw, and was having trouble especially with hucks. During our scrimmages I felt a little better, and generally worked the disc well and played reasonably good defense--perhaps with not enough energy here and there in the longer points, but I'm putting a lot more focus into (O team) D. Practice was tiring, though...before checking the time at 2pm I thought it was closer to 4pm, and so was startled that we had put in so much work already. I could have put more effort into one or two of my punishment-sprints, but I worked hard in every scrimmage and drill. After a while we did that drill where a feeder gives little passes to a thrower cutting in a triangle motion, throwing to in-cuts and out-cuts for 20 passes or so. Once I did that drill, I felt much more on point and in rhythm with my throws, including hucks. During our final scrimmage (where we split the team in halves not O/D), I threw the disc away on the goal line but also threw a sweet huck goal and caught a couple too. Overall, a good hard practice.

Afterwards, BBQ at Kyle's house and throwing discs to crazy people laying out into the pool, sometimes three at a time to fight over the disc. Awesome entertainment, and aparently I need to practice more throws.

Work Sucks

and yet should not be an excuse. Nonetheless, I attribute my workout slump to long hours at my job. Good thing tomorrow is my last day, because getting in shape is a long-term process that requires a more constant committment than I have made recently.

That being said, track workout tonight. I just ate, so hopefully I don't puke afterwards. Either way, I'll post what goes down (or comes up).

EDIT
3x200m with 0:45 rest (29.9, 31.2, 31.1)
2:30 rest
2x200m with 0:45 rest (32.3, 31.5)
2:30 rest
2x100, with 0:30 rest (14.9, 14.5)
4x100m accelerators

I felt awful and out of shape. I did almost throw up after my second accelerator, but held it down. More running is necessary.

Pushups

No-time workout, tabata pushups: 20, 16, 10, 6, 9*, 8*, 6*, **

*girl pushups
**lower from pushup position on a 5-count, x3

Run, PPW

1.9mi in 15:50 (9:05, ~6:45)

much later...Pike plyo workout. I rushed through it, though.


So, I was not able to find people to do the SGW with at a time that fit within my work schedule. Crap. Gotta get ready for the weekend anyway, some way.

PTW

10x(30sec easy, 60sec hard), total distance covered: 1410m
14 pivot-throws to a target, 14 soft space throws
4x100m accelerations
14 pivot-throws to a target, 14 soft space throws
7 backhand hucks, 7 forehands hucks (into the wind)

Nucci, Pike Practice

I picked up with the "MCUDLers" at the Nucci Cup. Playing bad Ultimate has not very much fun for me right now. I did enjoy playing against SoL, though--had some good break throws and played what I thought was good defense on one of their strong players.

Pike practice, though, was much better. I was just a little tight from Saturday, enough to make me work during warmups, and I liked the feeling. We basically did a 3-pull then drill, repeat repeat, then a scrimmage to 9. The O team lost all the 3-pulls, but won the final scrimmage. It rained pretty hard for about half of practice, but in short spurts that came and went every five minutes or so. I think the best part was that nobody complained--the weather was a welcome challenge, and while it did affect play (and the O still needs a ton of work) there were no heads hanging. The structure kept things competitive, and other than two throwaways in the same point I felt pretty good throughout practice (despite all the pushups I had to do). But I'm still trying to figure out how to make plays on offense, rather than being content to fall into a limited role as either handler or cutter--get the disc and do something dangerous with it, instead of just moving it when it comes to me or creating space for others. It's no good to be passive or timid out there with this team, so I'm looking to be more or a threat. I did throw some breaks and some goals, and boxed a guy out really well for a sky goal. That felt good.

Pike Track Workout

Mediocre times, but the track was wet and the sky was dark. Running alone sucks, but I forced myself to get out there anyway. I rounded up my times to the nearest tenth-second. Rest was walk whatever I just ran. For the last 100m I think I ran a sub-14, but I clicked the button twice so it kept counting.

100m in 14.3
200m in 31
300m in 47.7
400m in 1:11.5
400m in 1:12.4
300m in 48.03
200m in 29.4
100m in ?

Pike SGW, MCUDL

Before our MCUDL quarterfinals game tonight, I got together with some of the Pike guys for our weekly Small Group Workout. I was coming from my motorcycle class in Ocean County, so I showed up at 4:20pm, sipped some Monster Khaos, and closed my eyes to some music while I waited for the dudes to show up. They did around 5:20pm and we threw around for a while, me working on hucks with Bo, then we got into a warmup and ran through the workout:

3v3 handler motion/defense drill
(half of the) 4 lane cutting drill
3 games to 3 (or -2) mini, with punishment for losses (my team went 2-1)

Then, the quarterfinals game, Rutgers against Illuminati. We were actually getting the disc from them, sometimes from their errors and sometimes from a timely block, and our offense was running alright half the time. I threw a lot of break throws and some hucks, one really nice hammer goal, and I feel like I played solid defense for maybe 75% of the times I had to play D. I got one block after baiting a throw to the endzone--unfortunately, my Pike teammate Rainwater threw the pass. We ended up losing by a fair margin, but I didn't feel so down about the team tonight as I did at other times. Maybe I was just playing looser, not worrying so much, etc, but I'm starting to get back my confidence in my college team's future. Slowly.

After the game, we Pike guys reconvened for:
Tabata burpees: 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 8
Tabata marking shuffles (these sucked, I didn't know how / couldn't keep count)

Afterwards, we had some team bonding--including an hour looking for my keys on the field in the dark. Once we found them, Applebees and more team bonding. Good shit.

Jog, Pushups

So, at FCS I realized that I had been neglecting certain areas of my body in workouts. I feel like my legs are coming along fairly well, considering the injury--I haven't lost too much speed, and I'm trying to slowly ramp up to gain back the endurance that I lost. My upper body has been feeling soft, though. After doing so much strength work during the year, I've thought for a while that it is probably a good idea to tone up. Somehow I need to find a good strength to mass ratio, and the ability to be explosive throughout a tournament. I figure I will be able to take the punishment better with a hard body and greater work capacity. This also fits into my most recent epiphany about Machine: too many of us are soft athletes. Most of us are short, many of us ran in high school but few played field sports, and overall we only have a couple guys who can take and give punishment out there. I think we need to toughen up. I'll wite a more detailed post soon about Rutgers and how I think my role on the team is changing, but the best advice I've gotten recently is "lead by example." So I intend to.

The first task is to forge a stronger core. During our game against Los, I started cramping up in my side and felt like my ability to sprint had been compromised. Fuck that, I need my core to do everything in this sport--run, throw, mark, etc. So it's time to sack up and do work.

1.85mi jog/run
wall sits: 60sec on, 3x(30sec off, 30sec on)
20 pushups
20 crunches
15 staggered pushups (left down right up)
15 yoga situps
15 staggered pushups (left up right down)
15 v-ups
10 fist pushups
10 alternating crunches
5 close-grip pushups, 5 wide-grip pushups, 5 pushups
30 alternating crunches