Roller Blading

Hit up the Florham Park roller rink with friends visiting from Germany. Hadn't been skating in years, so it was fun to strap some blades on and see what my feet still remembered how to do. Got about 90 minutes in before going for coffee and conversation.

Hiking

Packed up and did another 6ish mile loop before heading home.

Hiking

Hiked back to the car, dropped stuff off, then did an 8ish mile loop before stopping in at the camp store and then checking into a campground for the (extremely cold) night.

Hiking

Hiked maybe 2mi along the AT in Shenandoah National Park before setting up camp for the night.

Summer League

Biked 5k to the Jefferson Memorial then walked to Gravelly Point for a summer league game that got rained out. Also threw around for 10min or so before The Nothing overtook us.

Rough

30min SMR
Snatch warmup
Squat clean and jerk: 3x1 at 135, 155lb
Power clean and jerk: 4x1 at 165; 4x1 at 175; 4x1 at 135lb

Tapped out. Calluses on the hands close to ripping, bar's heavy, and it feels like I'm really feeling the cumulative effects of the last few days. Hit some cleans for practice but called it off after that.

First Annual Truck Stop Fall Classic

Played whiffle ball for a while, then a bit of knockout until my phone got broken by an errant shot.

Truck Retreat - Day 1

4 hour practice: drills, scrimmages, conditioning.

Afterwards we went for a swim in the Shenandoah, hitched a ride across it by grasping the side of some dude's jetski, then took turns riding a rope swing into the river. While trying to dyno for a knot in the tree where we climbed out of the river for the rope swing, I slipped and fell six feet or so onto the random metal ladder at the base of the river bank. Banged up from that but it was worth it.

Later the team grilled and chilled at a mowed-lawn campground in Front Royal, drinking games and shenanigans ensued. I also made friends with campers at the next site over when I saw them playing kubb, and it turned out that a couple of them played ultimate and knew who the Current were. That was neat. Another lady outside the showers also recognized us as ultimate players after she saw my Rutgers jersey. The sport is growing!

A-Reli

10 teams: the bottom 5 from the erste Liga, the top 5 from the zweite Liga. Wall City won the second league last year and were hoping to break into the top division by finishing in the top five of the Relegation tournament in Sauerlach this weekend. It didn't quite work out that way.

Apparently it's not a surprise to the other teams in Germany that Wall City had a competitive meltdown in what was arguably the most important tournament of their season. In thinking about what happened, why and what role I played in their season up to this point, I end up trying to find correlations to my time with Machine. This past year, especially, we ran train all the way until Sectionals. We made it to the finals of two tournaments, achieved an overall record of 20-6 before the Series and won even when we were missing key players. We felt confident, like it wouldn't even matter that there were only 2 bids for 19 teams. We weren't prepared.

After Köln, I knew that the team I had been practicing with could be a legitimate competitor. Even after finding out that we would be missing a few key players at the Reli, I felt we had a strong shot at finishing high in our pool and securing a spot in the first league. I figured there was an outside shot that we'd drop a game or two and have to win out on Sunday, but I didn't even really consider that it was possible we would lose every game we played that weekend. But that's what happened. After storming to a 4-0 lead against the other Berlin team, Yeahaw!, it was like we thought the rest of the game would be easy, as if they would roll over for us. They climbed back, took the lead and won the game.

We went 0-5.

10-12 vs Yehaw
9-13 vs Frizzly Bears
4-13 vs Bad Raps
12-14 vs Mir San Mir

12-13 vs Hallunken

Workout, Practice

Bench press: 8 at 115, 4 at 135, 5 at 125lb

One arm, single leg DB snatch: 6 at 40lb

One arm DB snatch: 6 at 50, 6 at 60lb

BB push press: 6 at 65, 6 at 95lb

DB push press: 6 at 40lb

Stair workout, College Ave Parking Deck (80 steps):

Every other

Every step

Every other

Every third

Every other

Double leg hop up 2, down 1

Every other

Every third

Every other

Double leg hop every step

Every other

Right leg every step

Left leg every step

Every other

Every other

Speed skater every step

Every other

Completed in 16:18

Practice was warmup, throwing, marking drill (painful after stairs), one-on-one cutting/defense drill, scrimmage. I looked off a lot of open vetern receivers trying to get new players to cut more aggressively. Hopefully they understand and step up to the challenge.