Hardly worth mentioning...

0.8mi jog

Lift

Good Mornings: 8 at 45, 8 at 65, 8 at 75lb
8 DB shoulder press (right hand only) at 15lb
Dip-station reverse shrugs (resting on forearms): 3x8
Deadlift: 2x8 at 45lb, 8 at 50lb
DB snatch (right hand only): 8 at 40, 8 at 45, 8 at 50lb
3x8 bent-over row 50lb
1 farmer's carry (right hand only), 50lb

Finished the workout in time to catch the end of warmups at practice. I chose to not participate in the drills and scrimmage. Instead, I threw a bunch of backhand and forehand hucks into a miniature soccer goal, focusing on speed (I threw a fake before each throw). Probably 50 of each. Then I worked on short throws with a new kid for a while. Then I practiced screaming encouragement at my teammates.

Run

With DB.

3mi in 22:37

1st 1.5mi: 12:12
2nd 1.5mi: 10:25

It was cold, and I was wearing only shorts and a jersey. I also neglected to take a pre-game dump. But the run was about right--a medium jog for the first lap, picking up the pace for the second. My running partner lost full lung function near the end and had to quit, so I wasn't able to push myself as hard without him there (ok, excuse) but I put a solid effort into that second lap. Better preparedness for the weather, next time.

Lift

Squats: 8 at 45, 3x8 at 95lb
3x8 calf raises each leg
6 one-arm pullups with 80lb assistance
Single-rep DB snatch: 40, 45, 50, 55, 60lb
Hanging leg-ups: 3x12, 16, 12
Lunges onto a step: 2x8 each leg

I also tried some shoulder raises on the cable machine. It hurt my broken hand, so I stopped pretty quickly.

Lift

Good Mornings: 8 at 45, 8 at 65, 8 at 65lb
Dip-station reverse shrug (resting on forearms): 3x8
DB snatch (right hand only): 8 at 30, 8 at 35lb
Fly machine: 8 at 60, 8 at 70, 8 at 80lb
45degree extensions: 8 at body weight, 8 at +25lb

I also did one set of hamstring curls on the exercise ball. I was mostly trying to figure out what kinds of exercises I could do in the gym without a left hand, and without getting kicked out (I had to keep the cast hidden with long sleeves). I can't do regular deadlifts or RDL because the doctor said not to use my left hand to pick up or hold anything heavy, but I can rest the bar on my shoulders as long as there's not too much weight on it. The fly machine works fine, and tomorrow I'm going to attempt some tricep extension stuff. Bottom line is that I can still lift, as long as I am careful to not need my hand, and careful to not be caught.

Practice

I only ran, and threw hucks for the deep cutting drill. When I saw the dark team playing offense against a zone, I whispered to a wing (the guy who helped me break my thumb, in fact) to come off and let me sneak on during a stoppage of play. I went in, dropped an easy pass (my hands were FREEZING), played good D (my guy never got the disc) until the other team dropped it, then handled until we scored. Sweet.

My left hand got so cold from exposure (the cast doesn't help) that when I came back inside after practice, I couldn't extend my fingers without separating them. Physically unable to do something that is normally quite easy. It took me ten minutes to regain complete use of my hand. I need handwarmers.

Do it anyway.

Got my cast--fire-engine red.

3mi in 21:17

Lap 1: 10:57
Lap 2: 10:20

Pace under 7:06. I like it. I really pushed during that second 1.5mi lap. I need to take "Torture Me" by RHCP off my running playlist, though--that song made it so much harder. "Breathe" by Fabolous helped me kick it up a notch, though, and I finished strong with "Here's to Life" by Streetlight Manifesto. At one point I felt like puking, and by the end I was hurting in all sorts of places--calves, shoulders, shins--but thankfully my thumb didn't complain too much.

Snap.

5 minutes left in practice.

We're doing a deep drill. Offense gets a headstart on defense, the thrower puts something up and the battle begins. I've been throwing, but decide I need at least one battle before the day is done. I pick my matchup--arguably the most athletic sophomore--and cut into the front of the O line on the backhand side.

Disc in. I sprint. Disc up.

I read. I get position. I go up a fraction of a second too early to make the catch with both hands. Some contact. I go down, on my feet but into a crouch, and watch in slow-motion high-definition as my left hand reaches out to the turf to balance my landing, to absorb my impact.

Why does my thumb look like that? Why, hand, would you put yourself at that angle for landing? I see you touch down. I see, millisecond by millisecond, the angle between my thumb and hand contract in the wrong plane.

I hear a snap.

A crack, a shot loud in my ears as my eyes register the pain. I stand, and know something is not right. I feel woozy. I feel numb. I feel angry, helpless, violent, alone, and clichéd. Swelling, pain--it is familiar, but wrong. This should not be happening. I am supposed to be swimming, rock climbing, catching bullets, and preparing to be in the best shape of my life. I am supposed to have all the balls in the air.

Now, I have something different to look to. Doctor appointments. My second cast, maybe even my first surgery. Time spent feeling like time wasted. Pain, mental and physical. Creative training. Weaknesses to attack.

It's all about focus.

Run, Practice

2mi in 13:52

then practice, which was good until...

Brodown Stats

Del Y: 6 OP, 2 DP, 3 A, 0 G, 0 D, 4 T (-1)
Ge W: 7 OP, 6 DP, 4 A, 0 G, 0 D, 2 T (+2)
Catlic: 4 OP, 5 DP, 4 A, 0 G, 0 D, 1 T (+3)
Pitt B: 2 OP, 7 DP, 3 A, 0 G, 1 D, 4 T (0)
Pitt A: 8 OP, 2 DP, 0 A, 0 G, 1 D, 6 T (-5)

Total: 27 OP, 22 DP, 14 A, 0 G, 2 D, 17 T

Fantasy: +4 on Saturday, -5 on Sunday, -1 for the weekend. Good to bad ratio: 0.941

0.347 turnovers per point played
0.286 assists per point played
0.824 assists per turnover
0.118 D's per turnover

I'm going to push for plus/minus stat-keeping at our next tournament. I thought I scored a couple goals, and I thought I got more D's than that--but I guess they only counted it as a D if you actually touched the disc to cause the turn. When I look over the numbers, though, I start to question whether the statkeeper counted things fairly...

60 minutes of bouldering on the rock wall, then 20 minutes of throwing. Finished with throwing/catching bullet passes of varying heights, clap catches and one-handed grabs. It feels really good to force yourself to catch bullets, to grip it and rip it back to a trusted teammate. Catching is a practicable skill...

Space Bastard Brodown

Drove the minivan down to Maryland this weekend for my first tournament of the season with Rutgers. I had a car full of kids new to the team, old grad student as my copilot, and leadfoot gumshoe urge to book it down I-95. I had my music all planned out and made it without incident to the destination--first down by at least half an hour. Okay, so I had a few minutes' head start. In any case, I check into the hotel and hit the sack while the new kids traipse over to IHOP for a very early breakfast. It takes me a long time to fall asleep, due to excitement and loud noises from the new kids.

Up at 6:20am, ahead of my alarm by 25 minutes, I relax for a while until some captain comes banging on the door to wake the rest of us up with the news that our first round had been pushed up by half an hour. Luckily I had given my room a generous amount of time to get out the door after waking up, so we hurried over to Dunkin Donuts and hit the fields at 7:30am sharp. We were the first ones there--UMD hadn't even arrived on the scene yet. It was chilly and I had forgotten my hoodie, and I was too lazy to put on UnderArmour (which I would then have to wash), so I tried to stand still and ignore the cold while watching the guys throw around. I found out which field we were on and eventually we started warming up. I didn't want to warm up. The team we were supposed to play didn't show up until 5 minutes after the first round was supposed to start, so when they ambled up to the sideline I walked into the captain-captain discussion and said, "Either you give us everything we want (dark, pulling, from this side) or we're assessing you points." Response: "oh, in that case, sure, sorry about that." Boom. We give them another ten minutes to get on the line, and then:

Game 1 vs Delaware X starts off with us getting D's, giving it back, and getting D's again before finally converting. We went up by several breaks, then gave a few breaks back when we failed to connect on deep shots to open cutters (and a dump miscommunication throwaway). Del starts playing better, but they're plagued by drops and we start putting more pressure on them. We also start cleaning up our shots and put the goals together to win 11-7.

Then we had a bye from 10am to 4pm because they forgot that UMD had booked the fields for some homecoming rugby thing. Nice. We ate gyros and people-watched for an interminable amount of time, got some Cold Stone, sat around some more, then started warming up at 3pm to get ready for:

Game 2 vs George Washington. It started out with something weird. I forget what. I think it was us racking up a bunch of breaks right away. Then things got weirder. After we called a few picks during one point in the first half, one of our newer guys rolled his ankle and called injury. In response, a GW leader-type says, bitterly and half aloud, "you guys call a lot of shit." Sorry, next time we'll try to not let our injuries interfere with your offense. The game somehow became chippy at this point--GW made some questionable calls and used loud voices to contest reasonable foul calls. I remember my mark wrapping his left arm around me and initiating contact, then holding me back as I tried to pivot to the forehand side. I called foul, he said "contest." I said, quietly and politely, "hold on, I'd like to discuss this. You wrapped your arm around me and initiated contact, without giving me disc space, that prevented me from pivoting. That is the definition of a foul." Response from GW player, very antagonistic: "Are you done?" "...yes." "Contest." "Okay...coming in on 4, I guess." So they crawled back by a bit, but we were up 7-2 at half and, after a hellishly long point (made so by lots of turnovers from one of our captains...), we cruised to a 13-6 victory. I threw an AWFUL hammer turnover--it slipped out of my hands because i couldn't look at my target, because the sun was in my eyes, and I had some other excuse too. But I played well overall.

Game 3 vs Catholic was right afterwards. They were a bunch of nice dudes, but we were rolling at this point and let up only 2 points each half. Our deep shots were connecting, and we got back the few turnovers we had. I threw another awful hammer...actually two of them in this game. But I had some really sweet hucks, and ran down a few for goals as well. Like I said, we rolled, 13-4 win. Done for the day, ate at a Chinese buffet, then chilled at the hotel. I watched Chris Rock, then had a two hour discussion with the other team leaders about all kinds of team shit--something we had not done formally yet, which I think really helped us to work through some things and provide a space for working out more in the future. Went to bed at 1am, and had only slightly less trouble falling asleep this time.

Up at 8:15am before the 8:30am alarm, quickly showered and packed up, checked out and hit Dunkin Donuts, got to the fields and warmed up in the wet grass behind the endzone of the fields being used in the day's first round. That's right, we had a first-round bye on Sunday because of the field screwup on Saturday--how cool is that? Anyway, we get up and ready for:

Game 4 vs Pitt B, in which we have a few problems with matchups but overall played more consistently than they did. We exposed their lack of experience and took the game down 13-6 to win the pool. The field screwup meant that our pool win put us into:

Game 5 (Semifinals) vs Pitt A. We gave up a bunch of breaks to start after taking a lot of deep shots that failed for one reason or another--new player dropped it in the endzone, some Pittsburgh goon jumped over six guys for the sky-D, or we got boxed out by the short handler we underestimated. Our handler motion was stagnant and were not putting any emphasis on in-cuts, so huck after huck got ate up and Pitt had the patience to grind it out until somebody got an unmarked throw to a streaking receiver. I was impressed by their composure, frustrated by their overall height, and unreasonably adamant that my teammates stop hucking it deep. Some of our shots eventually worked out, but I for some reason wanted us to only hit in-cuts for a while, just to change up the pace if nothing else. But we got dominated top to bottom, and lost 3-15.

So we bagged our 3/4th place game. I floored it home to see my lovely lady, so long absent and angry at my insistence on attending these damn tournaments every weekend. I was proud of my team this weekend, though--pleased with our performance in pool play, dissatisfied with our semifinals showing, and happy we got out of there before CHS tried to con us into playing some shortened game while Pitt A dismantled Pennsbury. (15-3 says the score reporter) I feel like I played very well on Saturday, well enough against Pitt B, and comparatively well against Pitt A--meaning they were stronger opponents and so I should have adjusted my decision-making process, but my effort was there and my defense was not poor. I think I played well defensively most of the time, but still got caught with my pants down too often. There is a lot of opportunity ahead, and I am hungry for more.

Practice

Pretty good practice. Had a couple nice deep shots, trusted the new kids, got to run around a lot. I got some D's. I skied alumnus Pete Holt, and that felt pretty good. I celebrated like a jerk, though, wiping the disc on him as he complimented me. oops. My team won the scrimmage, but the last couple points dragged on for a while because people couldn't catch in the endzone. By the end, I stopped playing good defense--I was getting tired. DB faceblocked his old HS captain, who was throwing a big huck to me. He said it took him a while to remember his home address--not a good sign.

Tournament this weekend!

Climb

Climbed the rock wall tonight at the College Ave Gym. Well, mostly I belayed for DB, but I also got to try two different G1s, and made it up both on my first try. Nice.

Practice

Felt good tonight, got in a groove starting with the warmup and rode it through practice. Not everything was perfect, but I felt up to speed and confident in my choices. I played good defense, too--got an interception on an alumnus, then threw the 30yd backhand goal to the casted-up captain. Missed a deep huck over my shoulder because I couldn't track it, and even though it wasn't a good throw I'm starting to get really frustrated when I miss those. I missed one at Regionals, and that cannot happen.

Two goals for this season:
Kill Mode (aka takethediscawaydefense)
Focus (in choice, execution, and effort)

Swim

100m free in 1:26
3:34 rest
200m back in 3:23
3:37 rest
300m free in 6:00
4:00 rest
200m breast in 4:38
1:22 rest
100m fly in 2:06

Total: 900m in 28 minutes

I think those rest times are correct. I'm confident in the swim times.

Regionals

One season ends.

Focus shift:

Go.

Practice

Focused on getting up to speed. Threw lots of turnovers.

Practice

Threw lots of turnovers. Got up to speed. Stretched afterwards.

Stretch, Throw

45 minutes stretching / bouldering on the rock wall
30 minutes throwing in the gym, focus on accuracy