A week in my (athletic) life: Monday

Monday sports starts with noon ball (hoops) at Tysons. It's a bit crowded today so as I sign up at the board I know that I have a couple of games to wait. So I warm up with 10 minutes on the bike, first 2 minutes warm up, then alternate hard for a min and recover for a min. Then I do a few abs. I still have some time to wait so I grab a ball and shoot around. I'm trying just to get warm and get my shot feeling right. My body doesn't feel so good. I've had issues with my achilles on and off for years, and even though it's been pretty good this year, in the past week or two it's been flairing up. So I do my best to get it warm but it doesn't feel great. When I finally get on, I'm on a pretty good team with 2 young strong offensive players. But it's not a great showing by the kid. I defer to them too much, and after all that work on the jump shot I spend most of my time feeding the studs and playing D. And to top it off, we lost. I think I probably stuck around for another game (or maybe I didn't) but nothing memorable. And my achilles feels like shit and I end up icing it at the office something I haven't done in months, maybe even a year. The worst part of noon ball, especially on a day like this is the time around 3 or 4 when I decide to get up from my desk and it hurts to walk and I feel like I'm 50 I'm so stiff.

Monday sports ends with a 9:15 reverse coed vball game. When I get home that night I'm beat and I actually fall asleep on the couch so at about 8 when I'm getting ready for the game I feel completely groggy. Tonight, we're playing the best team in the league. These guys have been dominating the league for 5-6 seasons. League matches are 3 games to 25 and I don't believe that we've ever even taken one single game from them, and our team is pretty good. So far this season they're undefeated. We've been having a good season, this particular team has been together for 3 seasons I think and when we're on we're on. Well tonight, we were on. The team we're playing is dominated by one player, Jason, and he's awesome. He's probably 36 or so, played at George Mason back in the day. Lefty, with crazy skills and he can hit from anywhere. The rest of their team is good too, but whenever they're in trouble they just set Jason from just about anywhere and he does his thing, and they play mad D. But tonight we came to play. Achilles or no, my legs feel pretty strong and I'm jumping and hitting hard. Chris, the other guy hitter on our team is 6'5, can jump, and just nasty when he's on. The girls are playing well too, and more importantly, we manage to dig Jason a couple of times, get them to shank a few serves, and get a few blocks. The first game is close, but we come out to a lead. We've done this before, but always when it gets close they turn it on and end up coming back. Tonight they start to do so, and I worry a bit, but we hang strong and win the first game, something like 25-23. The second game is close, and again they come back, but this time they do manage to come all the way back and win. My legs still feel pretty strong. Volleyball is a weird sport, not a lot of long running, but many short bursts of high energy movements. The key to knowing if you're in pretty good volleyball shape is if you can recover from a long rally. You jump for a hit, come back, get in defensive position, maybe make a sprint for a dig, jump for another hit, get back low for defense, run to cover a hitter, then the point is over. You're breathing hard, but on the very next point are your legs too tired to jump again, or do they still feel strong? Tonight, at least up to this point, I still feel strong, and I think that my workouts maybe paying off. The third game is tight again, we come out to a lead, but they come back. Now fatigue, perhaps physical, perhaps mental starts to set in. You have to play hard all the time against that team and it's tough to do for 3 games. We start to make more mistakes. We hit a few out, we shank a few serves. We're up to 24-24 but you have to win by 2, and we go back and forth. But amazingly, for once they're the team to cave. We win a long rally, and Tamara finishes them off by getting them to shank a serve for a 27-25 W. We just beat them flat out! Feels good, though the real key will be to see if we can play that way in the playoffs. On a side note, the gym was hot, and as we walk out I ring my shirt out, and shit you not, it sounds like I'm pouring out a glass of water. Nasty, but no one can say I wasn't working!