Warrior Alumni Game

Got together for the annual alumni game against the current Watchung Hills team, and this time a few of the older guys made it out as well. It was great to see such a large turnout, and the current coach shared a warm welcome with kind words about how much it means to have the alumni come out and care about the team. The game itself was fun, despite being played on half a football field (cut the wrong way, since a bunch of jock high schoolers were playing half-field football) covered in at least an inch of compacted snow and ice. Eventually we mixed it up, naturally after demonstrating our dominance (daddy strength in full effect).

CF908, Alumni Game

Home for Thanksgiving, so I rolled through Crossfit 908 for a workout.

EMOM 10:
1 power clean, 1 hang power clean, 1 front squat
--2 at 105, 115, 125, 135, 145lb

5 rounds for reps:
1:00 slam ball 50lb
1:00 wall ball 20lb
1:00 rest
Total: 86 slam ball, 97 wall ball, 183 reps total
Rounds: 18/22, 18/20, 16/18, 16/18, 18/19

150m waiter walk per arm (45lb kettlebell overhead)

2 hours ultimate: alumni vs current high school players, then pickup

IR Track Workout #1-2

800m warmup jog

3x(400m, 1:30 rest) in 1:15, 1:16, 1:18
400m jog
3x(400m, 1:30 rest) in 1:19, 1:18, 1:16
400m jog, 400m walk
3x(1:00 run, 100m walk) for 300m, 330m, 315m

400m cooldown

I drove to the high school track dreading this workout, and just as I was about to warm up I saw another guy getting ready to do his own workout. It happened to be Mike Porter, a Rutgers alum and coach of the Watchung team, so I asked what he was planning on doing. Apparently he ran a 50k race two weeks ago and was looking to do some 800s, but thought they'd suck and so he was willing to hop in on a few of my 400s. Despite assuring me that he was in no shape for "speed work", he didn't trail by much. He said he ran a sub-19 5k earlier this year, at 43 years old, something he hadn't done since he was 19 or something. He's crazy fast for a guy in his 40s and it was nice to have somebody breathing behind me to take my mind off how much I hate 400m repeats.

So he ran the first set with me, skipped the first two reps of the second but came back for the third. He also called out split times, which was helpful because I'd forgotten my watch. The times are actually approximate because they were his own, I was slightly faster on each one.

Instead of doing a third set of 3x400m, because I was heaving and ready to quit, he started to tell me about Jack Daniels (no, not that Jack Daniels) and running economy. It helps that Porter is also a cross country coach. Apparently a stride length that is too long means that you're wasting energy with inefficient movements. It's physics. Porter convinced me to test it out so we did another three 1:00 sprints and counted strides. I hit 170, 200, and 186 strides per minute for each of the respective sprints and saw a pretty significant increase in distance covered (though sustainability was an issue). I'm gonna keep playing around with stride rate to find out if a faster turnover is helpful on the Ultimate field.

Warriors Alumni Game

Biked 3.8mi in 18:30 to the middle school turf field for an alumni vs current Watchung Hills game. It was good to see some of my old teammates, but I was the oldest guy there and the only one from my graduating class. The current team looked pretty good, with a lot of freshmen and some skill, but they only scored once or twice during the "official" part of the game. When we mixed teams up things got a little more competitive, but by then it was getting late in the afternoon and the girlfriend wanted to get back home for some Thanksgiving leftovers. I played a few more points and then cut out early with her.

Nucci Cup

I was big pappa on Saturday, driving a minivan full of high school kids down to the fields with Lu as my copilot. We got a band of Machiners together with some additions--notably Bo Li, Eli from HP and the 3 'chungers--coming in as the 3rd seed of 6 in the B pool, 8th of 11 overall. Our first game was against Big Floppy Clocks, a team I faced at Philly Invite with a very different kind of pickup team. We went down several breaks in the beginning but somehow climbed out of the hole and pulled off the upset 13-10. Same story in the second game, 13-10 against Bear Proof though it was close the whole time, rather than a comeback victory. Next up was Gender Bias, a fun team of MSU and Ramapo types that we underestimated in the first half, letting them go up by 4 or so before we got our heads on straight and took over, winning 13-9. I was surprised early on against the Peters' team "YFOIFI" (You're fucking out, I'm fucking in) when we went up by several breaks, and I expected them to answer back with a big run of their own because they had some really good players, but maybe because they had low energy we were able to cruise to a 13-7 win. Finally we played Sideshow in our 5th of the day, our 3rd in a row on the worst field of the generally substandard grounds of Quakerbridge Road, and I think we just ran out of gas. Way too many poor-decision hucks and dumb turnovers, we went down by a lot and crawled our way back to an 11-13 loss. 4-1 on the day, setting us up for a quarterfinals game on Sunday against OLD SAG. The game was exciting and intense on both sides as they held the lead for pretty much the whole time, going up by a few early on but keeping us at bay even as we fought back and tied it before the cap went on. There was some silliness with the cap rules, giving us another shot to tie the game when they were up 12-13, but we just couldn't force the turn and they put it away to hand us a 12-14 loss. I was proud, especially because we were playing with only 3 subs for the whole game. It was probably the most fun game of the weekend, too, as our next two were big blowouts that we controlled the entire time, 15-2 against a much depleted Gender Bias and 15-3 against Big Floppy Clocks, who somehow had lost all throwing ability overnight I suppose. We bagged our last game for a 5th place tie, and I think it was a successful weekend overall--we were able to come together well, learning to flow despite being a pickup team and using exclusively ho-stack, an entirely new offense for 75% of our players. I had fun and I saw great potential for Machine coming up this year. I can't wait for school to start again...

Practice

at the Municipal fields with the Watchung kids. I think there were 7 of us at first, eventually 11 or so and we spent a good deal of time in the beginning tossing or trying to sky for jump balls. Then some thrower/marker, some ho-stack handler motion, some 5v5, and some one-on-one cutting defense. Overall a low-key practice due to lack of numbers, but got some decent work in for myself. Very tight from yesterday's workout, gotta stretch out for this weekend.

Biked to Practice

6.5 mi biking

2.5 hour relaxed HS practice

5.5mi biking

Pickup

Still not feeling better, but it was too nice a day to pass up some pickup so I decided I was well enough to play. We had enough for 7 on 7 at the high school turf field, and split up alumni vs current (but we had to give them one or two at a time). It was fun--I didn't have much energy, and I am VERY rusty (which was made worse by the stiff wind), but I got to run around and throw a few goals. Get a sky D in the endzone. Make unforced errors. It's embarassing how out of it I am, and depressing to think about how long it will be until I can play in good conditions, and with my left hand at 100%.

Guess that means I should start playing well now. Why wait, right?

Alumni Game Part 2

So today was the real Alumni Game, so each team came out in greater numbers and with more fire to win. The day was warmer but windier, so it was fun to see how exposed many of us were (by the wind, not by lack of clothing--it wasn't that warm). One of our alums is coming off of foot surgery and could barely jog, which is no excuse for screwing up the first pass of the game--we let off a break to begin, then somehow went up by a few before giving up most of the lead. After a while we made up the score and then finished out the game playing zone D and better O. Notable moments...I got handblocked by my favorite kid from the class of '09, I handblocked the upstart kid brother of one of the former captains, and I enjoyed the game with players old and new.

Alumni Pickup

7 alums and the coach showed up to play 10 or so of the current team. It was sort of close, but mostly because nobody warmed up and the alums took a very long time to stop turfing and dropping. I skied a couple times on defense, but I was dropping most of what was thrown to me. One hand in the cold is hard, especially when the disc is coming to your ankles. I had too much fun, I think I'll be serious for the post-Thanksgiving alumni game.

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

5v5

Moving up again, to 5v5 this time, almost a full field. It was a "practice" for the high school kids, but really we just threw around for 10 minutes and then scrimmaged. I felt strong, but my competition was fairly low aside from Lu Wang. Two of the new captains picked teams, and I felt that they were fairly even. They had the height and more individual talent, but I feel like I brought some cohesion to my team. Plus, Andrew was with us, and he's pretty quick and very skilled--glad he's coming to Rutgers.

There wasn't much team defense, and some of the younger kids just don't have the experience to play hard man-to-man. I do think I played excellent D on Lu, though--very physical, I put pressure on him and didn't give much up. I dropped one pass, but otherwise I played good team offense. My goal for the scrimmage was to be a non-leader on the line by making sure the captain told us what to do on O and D each point, and to do exactly what was asked of me strategically. I think I achieved this goal. It feels good to move progressively closer to real Ultimate. I can't wait for Chowdafest this weekend.

60mins yoga

Alumni Game

The Watchung Hills Warrior Ultimate Alumni Game. We had a great turnout from the alumni, including all the primary seniors from my freshman year. Some notable alums were missing, but we had 12, and that was plenty. The '06-'07 team was missing one starter and another strong senior defender, but I doubt it would have made much difference. The alums rolled to a 7-1 lead, then took half 8-3. We won 15-6 I think. The outcome was never really in doubt, although there was some seriously bad Ultimate played at the end of the first half. I put up a lot of shit, throwing deep basically whenever anybody ran in that direction. Some were complete, some were to open receivers whose defenders caught up and made the D on the older, slower alum, and one or two were just shitty throws. Several times, I put up a nice throw to space and the alum cutter just didn't run it down.

I played good defense, but make a lot of poor decisions on offense for the sake of having fun and seeing what would happen. Once the other alums yelled at me for that, I played slightly more conservative and looked off some open cutters, wanting to make sure I didn't turn it over on short passes. Overall, I didn't play well, but I had fun. At the end of the game, I felt kind of let down. It was good to see the guys, but I don't know how many of them actually consider me a friend. They're cool guys though, much love and respect for them. I still can't wait to play real Ultimate, though. I feel like toning myself down, becoming a role player. I need to stop talking on the field, stop talking smack, stop being a jerk. I'd like to let my game speak for itself for a while.

Workout: 1 game of Ultimate (played 15 points?)
10 reps bench 90lbs, 4.5 reps bench 110lbs