Swim

200m IM at warmup pace
200m IM at moderate pace
200m IM in 4:05

Happy 21st Birthday to me!

Practice

Practice in the rain tonight. It wasn't much fun, but hopefully everybody got something out of it.

Lift

8 pullups (2 with knees tucked)
4 overhead squats, 4 back squats at 35lb
6x(deadlift, clean, push press, overhead squat) at 45lb
6x(deadlift, clean, push press, overhead squat) at 65lb
6x(deadlift, clean, push press, overhead squat) at 85lb
6 clean and jerk at 95lb
3x8 hanging knees-to-elbows
incline situps with 10lb medicine ball passes
12 turkish get-ups (6 per side) at 30lb

Pike Practice

In Philly. For some reason, I couldn't throw. I think I played decent defense, but I had a lot of turnovers--dropped an easy huck in the endzone, threw the disc into the dirt or defense, stupid shit like that. I tried to work hard and put in a lot of effort, but the focus of the practice was to stay focused, and I did not.

Frustrating.

Using this week to get ready--physically and mentally.

Stretching, Throwing

Stretched for 45 minutes with DB, then threw around in the light rain for 30 minutes. Focused on stepping out, hitting a specific point on the receiver's body, and pushups for any drops.

Practice

Practice in the rain tonight. It wasn't much fun, but hopefully everybody got something out of it.

PTW, Practice

8x(sprint 40, sprint 10, sprint 40yd)
rest
8x(jog 10, sprint 10, sprint 40yd)

Practice was good. I matched up with DB in the scrimmage, played good D but threw a few turnovers.

Recovery Swim

100m backstroke (untimed)
200m breaststroke (4:45)
200m freestyle (3:45)
100m butterfly (2:02)

Swimming 200m without stopping is very hard. My technique for every stroke deteriorates after 25m, and by the third 25 I can't put my head under the water for lack of oxygen. I persevere, however, and feel good afterwards.

Pike Double Practice

Drove DB's manual car down to Philly for practice without too much trouble. The BBQ on Saturday night was awesome, but I don't think I played well enough this weekend. Not enough energy, I kept realizing too late in a point that I had more in the tank. I was really angry today, and overall I think my attitude sucked at different times.

I realized today that I have only ever played containment defense [when I played defense at all, I ruefully think to myself]. I want to take the disc away from my matchup, to dominate him like I see my teammates dominating their matchup. I can tell when my teammates are thinking to themselves that I let them down, by the voices on the sideline and the reactions of the players on the field--that I failed, again, to make the great athletic play, failed to make the defensive effort, played without energy or heart, gave up. Today I allowed myself to get boxed out and skied three times in the endzone by the same player. I'm angry. If I had played perfect offense, I wouldn't be as upset, but I remember the bad choices, bad vision, the trying-to-do-too-much that I've fought to overcome. I'm also frustrated by teammates who show the same weaknesses, and I know that all I can do is support and push them--and I know that first I have to push myself.

So I have two weeks to do it.

Granted, I do believe I had good moments, good plays, periods--however brief--where I played good defense, attacked on offense. I just expect more of myself than I felt able to give these past two days. It doesn't help, of course, that my feet are killing me.

Practice

We had practice.

Afterwards, I taught the handler motion to two freshmen. That was cool.

Lift

I skipped power gym this morning in favor of getting enough sleep to recover from last night's workout/practice. Later, went to the gym with DB to swim, but the pool was closed. So...instead, we did a quick weightlifting workout. Neither of us brought a disc, so throwing was out.

8 pullups
4 pullups with 30lb assistance, 6 with 40lb assistance
2x8 DB hang pulls, 25lb
2x8 T-bar row, 65lb
12 back extensions, 8 back extensions with 25lb
8 BB hang clean + push press, 65lb

PTW, Practice

2x100yd, 3x80yd, 4x60yd, 6x40yd
For the 100, we had to sprint 80 and then back 20, because the field was short. We timed with a stopwatch, but remember to leave room for human error. Rest was approximately 45-60sec between each sprint.

DB's 100 Times: 14.31, 14.53
GP's 100 Times: 14.40, 13.66

DB's 80 Times: 10.22, 10.53, 10.56
GP's 80 Times: 9.87, 10.31, 10.03

DB's 60 Times: 8.00, 8.00, 8.00, 7.81
GP's 60 Times: 7.56, 8.03, 7.50, 7.41

DB's 40 Times: 5.34, 5.78, 5.65, 5.63, 5.72, 5.41
GP's 40 Times: 5.47, 5.34, 5.53, 5.60, 5.31, 5.28


Practice was a mix of drills and throwing, so I took advantage of the opportunity to hone skills. My goal is to throw every day until Regionals--18 days in a row.

Recovery

Afternoon:
20 minutes stretching, pushups
12 minute jog (start slow, build to fast)
8 dead hang pullups
8 DB overhead squats, 10lb

Evening swim:
200m warmup (50 of each stroke), stretching in pool
25m legs only, 25m arms only
8x25m (50 of each stroke) with rest (treading water)
25m water-running (propel yourself by pretending to run, don't touch bottom)
25m freestyle sprint

Power Gym

Early! with a turnout of nearly 12.

The trainer put us through a fairly intense warmup of lunges, plyometric pushups, single-leg squats, and squat jumps. Next up was 2x(10 deadlifts, 10 jump shrugs) at 99lbs. Ladder drills came next, and finally a bunch of single- and double-leg jumps for distance. It was a pretty good workout, but nothing too strenuous--presumably because the trainer is getting a feel for what kind of condition we're in and getting us to learn the movements. For fun, when we were putting the weights away, I clean-and-pressed my 99lb and tried to do an overhead squat, but couldn't quite lower to parallel. Maybe with a little less, and with a spotter.

First Practice

Late night, lots of newcomers. Throwing, warmup, throwing, drills to practice throwing to space for cutters, semi-organized scrimmage, throwing. I liked the atmosphere, and it felt good for the size of the group. I see a lot of potential, and hope attrition doesn't take too much of it away.

AM Practice

At pre-breakfast practice this morning for Rutgers, I warmed up and then assisted in the drills, but declined to do anything more than throw. I was feeling a little beat up from the weekend, and just wanted to work out a few kinks. At the end of practice, however, when we did 3-man marking drill, I got cracked in the knee by a backhand fake, right where my tendonitis presents. It hurt.

Ouch.

Heavyweights

We played a couple good games, a couple games not well. I'm not very interested in explaining the weekend or even talking about it very much, except to perhaps recall some of my highlights and lowlights. I turfed a forehand that should have looped through wide-open space to Ellis in the endzone. I got a block in the endzone. A teammate hesitated to throw to me for a goal, and when he finally threw it my defender layed out and D'ed the disc into my face. A (Machine or BAT) defender threw himself onto my back, but I caught the pass and moved the disc. A (Los?) defender fell into a heap at my legs, kicking my achilles and getting in my way, but I finished my cut upline and threw a goal (or, at least, we scored within ~2 passes, I forget). I threw a few forehands into the wind over the heads of my receivers. I dropped a pull. I boxed out a Machine player very well, for a goal. I tossed the disc up in a nonchalant semi-spike, and got some dirty looks from the opponent sideline (I intended no ill-will or disrespect, honestly). I struggled at times to feel like I was contributing positively to the offense. I doubted at least one of my teammates, and felt justified and yet bad about it. I had a nice forehand huck in our Pike-v-Pike scrimmage at the end of Sunday. I ended the weekend wondering where we will take this team, but even more hungry to pull and push because I know we can be better.

I also had fun getting out of the parking lot...

Watchung Practice

Showed up for a practice with the high school kids tonight. There were only 10 of us, but we did a few deep drills and some sprints before calling it quits. I got to practice my bad hucks, which was fun. After 3 guys left, there weren't enough to do mini--we would not have been able to satisfy the first rule. Too many complainers.

5x40/40yd sprints