Beach League Week One

We started off ultimate Frisbee beach league this weekend down in Santa Monica.  The weather was wonderful, too.  Temps around 70.  It was sunny when I first got there, but the fog rolled in for the second game only to have the clouds burn off before we left the area.

The draft for teams happen earlier that morning, so I found out who was on my team after I’d arrived.  I’m on a team with guys who play lots of beach ultimate together on a regular basis.  Since a lot of a league like this is how quickly you develop chemistry, it’s a huge help to have that built in already.

And that may be one of the reasons we won both of our games.  They were fairly far apart, too, with us finishing around 13-7 on both.

Did you catch that?  We won!  In case you are wondering why I’m so excited, my team this year has double the wins of my last two beach league teams – combined.  Yes, the first year, my team only won one game and last year we lost all of them.

While there are quite a few people who have played together before, they were just throwing the disc to each other.  I was more involved than I normally am, in fact, getting the disc several times and passing it on successfully most of them.  They were making the best/smartest throws no matter who they were throwing it, too, which is actually a huge help for a team as well.  And everyone seems very nice.

Really, it was a very pleasant day all the way around.  But it’s hard to go wrong when you are on the beach.

Church Cookout

When I was talking about my weekend earlier in the week, I left out one thing I did.  My church had a cookout on Saturday night, and I crashed the party.  Okay, so crashed isn’t quite the right word, but you know what I mean.

I showed up late since I came from the St. Pat’s Hat party, but there was still plenty of food.  I talked to several friends before settling down by the campfire and talking to one couple for a while.  Our pastor brought out his guitar and we sang a few songs as well.

It was a nice, quiet evening, and I really enjoyed it.  It also made me feel a little better about skipping church the next day.  But only a little.

I left after a few people started to leave.  It really cooled off when it got dark out, and since I only had clothes for running around playing ultimate during the day (aka shorts and a tank top) with me, I was starting to get cold.  Plus I had to go home and get ready for day two of the tournament.  Still, I’m really glad I stopped by for the couple of hours I was there.

Word Association for March 25th

Time to slip in this week's word association.

1. Ringtone :: Song
2. Slab :: of Meat
3. Harness :: Horse
4. Couple :: Dating
5. Shovel :: Hole
6. Game :: Fun
7. Patriotic :: Fireworks
8. Bleed :: Cut
9. Top :: Spin
10. Leafy :: Tree

St. Pat’s Hat – Day Two

Sunday, I was back at it again for the second day of the ultimate Frisbee tournament.  The day started off foggy.  Even when the fog burned off, it wasn’t quite as warm, although when we were running around on the field, it felt just as warm.

We lost a member of the team or two, so we had fewer subs, which meant I wound up playing more on Sunday than I did on Saturday.  Its times like this I’m so thankful I run because I could do that.  10 years ago, I don’t think I could have played like I did.

We lost the first game of the day, which cemented us in the bottom bracket, and we then played two consolation games.  We won both of those!  While ultimate Frisbee is always fun, it is certainly more fun when you win.  That first game was my favorite since there were three guys on the team I could keep up with, meaning I wasn’t outmatched on defense.

It also meant I was getting open quite a bit on Sunday as well.  Sadly, I didn’t do much better passing it on.  I do so much better at pick up.  I guess I get more nervous when it counts for something, and I throw the disc behind the person.  Still, it was great to be part of the action and even better to win a couple of games.

We finished 9th out of 12 teams.  Not quite as good as the two years I was on back to back winning teams, but better than 12th.  I’ll take it.

St. Pat’s Hat – Day One

I spent all weekend playing ultimate Frisbee.  It was wonderful!!

This weekend was the annual St. Pat’s Hat tournament here in Southern California.  It’s a two day tournament where you are assigned a team and play with them all weekend.  This was the first time that some of the people I regularly play ultimate with played, and one of them wound up on my team.  And one of our co-captains is someone I’ve known for several years as well.

Unfortunately, Saturday wasn’t a great record for us.  We played four games, and we lost all of them.  Our first two games were close, but we slowly started to get worse and worse as the day went on.  We’d start most of the games ahead and then just stop being able to score and the other team would win the game.

Still, we were playing ultimate Frisbee.  Outside.  In March.  In glorious low 80’s weather.  What’s to complain about?  Absolutely nothing.

Personally, I was much more involved in the action than I thought I would be.  Normally, I get looked off or just can’t get open, but I was able to get open quite a bit and was thrown to.  Unfortunately, I didn’t complete the pass about as often as I did.  But it was still nice to be part of the action.  I did score one of our goals in the final game, too.

Afterward was the party.  I went for about 45 minutes or so – long enough to grab my “free” (already paid for) drink and chat with a few people.

Irvine Lake’s Spring Break at the Lake 2015

Mud run season is in full swing.  Okay, so I’m signed up for one a month between now and July, and I’m hoping to extend that through at least October.  (August is going to be the hard month to find one for).  So it’s hard to call it a season.  But I have done my first mud run of 2015.

And I started it out where I often do, Irvine Lake.  This is still a favorite mud run, and this time didn’t disappoint.  The course was pretty much what I expected, including the mud slide.  It was a bit more popular this year, so I only did it once since I didn’t want to wait in the line any more for it.  Still, the line wasn’t nearly as long as it had been in the past.  It helps that it is near the end instead of near the beginning.

There was mud.  Lots of mud.  And a few climbing obstacles.  That was actually the one thing they added I didn’t especially care for, ropes over a rock obstacle.  I had a hard time getting my feet in the ropes, and I hate heights, so it wasn’t the best for me.  Still, I did it successfully.

They must have had a problem with their showers because they had a water truck spraying us down next to the shower.  I think I lucked out since I could get into a group that was being hosed down as soon as I finished.  Later, it looked like people were having to wait for a water truck to come back.

Afterwards, I met up with some friends for lunch at a Mexican place they found on line.  Then we all headed to one of their apartments and played Ticket to Ride.  The first time I’d played, so I didn’t do super well, but it was fun, and I completely enjoyed getting to see them.

Word Association for March 18th

Time for this week's word association.

1. Hunt :: Animal
2. Spinal :: Tap
3. Groom :: Bride
4. Red light :: Green Light
5. Delayed :: Gratification
6. Forgetfulness :: Old age
7. Tennis :: Ball
8. Best of luck! :: Change
9. Badge :: of Courage
10. Autograph :: Book

Winter League Tournament

I’m over a week behind talking about fun stuff again.  For example, there’s the winter league tournament from March 7^th.

All the games we’d played during the two months of winter league lead up to this all day tournament.  It was all about seeding, and we went in the 13^th seed out of 15.  I’d love to say we pulled off a miracle and somehow pulled out a win, but the truth is, we played about as well as I expected we would.

Because the higher ranked teams got a first round bye or two, we actually started off playing a team that was fairly close to us in seed.  Despite trading points early on, we wound up losing that game fairly decidedly, which placed us at the lowest of the loser brackets.  There were only six games for the first round, and three teams in that loser bracket, so it was a best two out of three round robin format.

And those last two games?  They were against the other two lowest teams, aka the two teams we beat all season.  And the games went pretty much how I expected they would – we won both games.  So we finished the season in 13^th place – our seed going in.  I’d say the seeding was fairly accurate.

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it out unscathed.  Our high school woman hurt her ankle and out of our guys seriously messed up his knee.  They both appear to be recovering, but hopefully it will continue without surgery (which is a possibility for one of them).

We also had to draft a woman at the last minute since ours had things come up.  We would have played a woman down if the teams we played and the commissioner hadn’t been gracious in letting us do this.  Amazingly enough, I’d just met the woman who stepped in the week before at random.  God is good.

The injuries did put a damper on things, but overall it was a fun day.  I even topped it off with two parties that night.  Okay, so it was just brief appearances at both.  It made the day long, and I was beat by the time I went to bed, but it was a very fun day.

Word Association for March 13th

A week since I've posted anything here?  Let's fix that with a little word association.

1. Neutral :: Party
2. Renovation :: Remodel
3. Metallic :: Taste
4. Filling :: Tooth
5. Designate :: Driver
6. Bee sting :: Ouch!
7. Neighbors :: Noisy
8. Bracket :: Sports
9. Call me :: Phone
10. Pretty :: in Pink

Closing Out the Season with a Win

Yes, we got another win on Tuesday night.  And it was our best win to date with a final score of 15-8.  We were playing Rooks again, a team we beat earlier in the season.  That first game was very close, and they actually got a win after our game, so it wasn’t a give me.  In fact, I was a little surprised by just how far apart our scores turned out to be.

Of course, the score was tied several times up through 3-3.  That was when we started to pull away.  We almost won when they had 6, but that disc didn’t quite go in.

It was funny because earlier in the day, I was thinking about how I hadn’t gotten my score of the season yet since I normally do score at least once a season.  The first point of the half, Travis threw a long throw to Billy, and I took off running for the end zone since it was obvious he wouldn’t be in the end zone.  By the time Billy caught it and was ready to throw it, I wasn’t alone in the end zone as far as teammates goes, but I was still the person who was most open.  Yes, I got my score!

So now it’s down to the tournament on Saturday.  We are ending the season with a 4-4 record.  However, all of those wins are to the two teams who are at the bottom of the standings because we played them twice each.  My guess is we will be facing them again on Saturday, but we will see how it all shakes out.

Word Association for March 5th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Jude :: New Testament
2. Erased :: Gone
3. Addiction :: Study
4. Curls :: Hair
5. Hotel :: Sleep
6. Bloomers :: Pants
7. Membership :: Club
8. Family :: Love
9. Handle :: with Care
10. Questioning :: Detective

Close Win

We got another win under our belt last week for winter league, but it wound up being closer than it should have been.

Because of the way the schedule has worked out this time, we played a team we’d already played and beaten.  However, they were coming off a tough loss and we were coming off that shut out game and a bye week, so we both really wanted to win.  We had numbers, but that means nothing, as we will see.

The game started out strong for us with a 6-0 lead before they scored.  But then they kept coming back and closing the gap.  The final score was 15-12.  And that was them having two female and one male subs to our one female and 12 male subs.  Yeah, numbers on the sidelines mean nothing.

I was a bit frustrated with my performance since I got the disc three times and threw it away twice.  Both times, I threw it behind Abby.  Once would have been a score, too.  Frustrating since I can throw it so much better than that.  The third time, I did manage to pass it on to a teammate despite being fouled multiple times by my guy as I was standing there trying to throw it.

It was a close, exciting game, and I really truly had a great time.  We are supposed to play tomorrow night, but we will see if the fields are dry enough with the rain we’ve been getting this weekend.  Not that I’m complaining since we do need the rain and it would be the first rain out for us of winter league.