2-1 at Volleyball last night...
6th place in the Scantic Race on Saturday...
More details and hopefully pictures to come!
I'll be doing the Scantic Spring Splash again this year, a 5 mile whitewater canoe race. Unfortunately, my brother won't be able to race with me this year, but I've found a good substitute in Greg, another veteran of the race. Looking forward to the run, it may be a little easier this year as the water is pretty low, but hopefully we can still finish in the money! It's a fun race to watch, the finish line is easily accessible and has rapids right there, check the post below from last year for details.
From last year, prep and where to watch
http://mangolds.blogspot.com/2008/03/canoe-dry-run.html
Here's my race report from last year
http://mangolds.blogspot.com/2008/03/scantic-race-report.html
Decent result last night, we went 2-1 for the evening...
On a personal note, I played fairly well except for the fact that I can't set at all anymore without getting whistled for double hits. I need to work with Eric a bit this week perhaps on what I'm doing wrong. I did get my best spike of the season in, I had my legs under me and really timed it nicely.
I also have ended up playing over 4 hours of racquetball over the last couple days, and haven't gotten much better. It's been a lot of fun, but it's taken it's toll a bit on my right elbow as swinging hard as been bothering me more and more lately. I need to take it easy with it, and perhaps get a bit of support from an elbow band or something similar for during my games.
I've been spending quite a bit of time playing Racquetball lately, and although I suspect it's at least partly to blame for my sore elbow, I can see it improving both my game and my fitness.
I was able to play for almost 2 1/2 hours yesterday, mostly with my uncle and cousin, but a bit of 2 on 2 with another gym member. Reading the ball of the wall correctly and maintaining footwork have become the keys for me. My tendency in the past was to overrun the ball a bit instead of reading the bounce and letting it come to me. That typically would result in not only a poor hit, without good extension on the swing, but likely putting me in a poor position to get to the next ball. This ties in directly with good footwork, reading the ball and getting set lets me set up the swing and take a smoother and harder swing. Focusing on footwork and good follow through really helps you take advantage of each shot and allows you to put the ball in the right area to make your opponents work.
The corollary to Crossfit or any other activity is clear: Form is critical to developing mastery. Reading Starting Strength lately, I've come to realize some of the form issues I have with Squats and Deadlifts. I suspect that I'm not going to be able to correct all of these issues without at least some coaching if only because I can't always "see" what I'm doing while I'm doing it. In any case, I need to continue to focus on form if I truly want to see some big performance gains.
It's been a crazy week, things have been pretty busy at work...
I didn't get a chance to play Volleyball on Monday night as we had plans for a family dinner. My team went 0-3 without me, which either means that I'm a better player than I thought, or we played a good team... I'm going to go with "they must have needed me"!
I've also been pretty good about doing Crossfit this week, although my elbow is killing me now at the end of the week. I did the Murph workout, which resulted in a whole lot of pullups, pushups and squats and about did me in. Still feeling pumped about the routine, and I'm disappointed that I couldn't do it today because of my elbow.
Hopefully, I'll be back on track tomorrow.
I did my second workout at Crossfit Perservere, and my 6th crossfit workout overall this morning, and it was just as tough as the first!
I've hesitated a bit to post about this, because I had starting and stopping stuff... but its been a whole week now. I've been doing Crossfit which is a weight lifting and training philosophy that I could really identify with!
Couple people have asked about the house project that I've been working on with my Dad and Brother. I found a good shot of it using the Live Maps online, check it out here http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=qzjht88yn4p3&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=17071165&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1 It's the house on the triangle lot next to the railroad tracks, with the garage and pool in the backyard. The pool is pretty interesting actually, a huge custom poured concrete pool. It's something like 60' by 25' if I recall correctly, maybe I could even use if for training in the spring!
The idea is to rehab the house and sell it after we sub-divide the land. We're hoping to get 4 lots out of the property in addition to the house, but may have to settle for just 3 more. The house needs some work, but ultimately it's going to be pretty nice. Four bedrooms total with big closets, plus a downstairs laundry and Master bedroom. If anyone is looking for a nice house in a couple of months, let me know!
I've been helping with demo so far but just started doing a little painting. A couple rooms are going to pretty much stay how they are with the exception of paint, so we decided to get a head start on that part.
The results were good, 3 wins, but my play wasn't especially sparkling. I think my morning workout left me a bit flat, I couldn't get any extension on my spikes and so I was hitting them long. Hard to play well when you don't have your legs under you completely, I could really feel the fatigue slowing me down just a bit.
Our team is really playing well together though, we have a pretty good mix of players and don't have any glaring weaknesses. Everyone moves well and has been enthused about getting to every ball which bodes well for the long-term. Hopefully I'll be back on my game next week and can contribute a little better.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
© Blogger templates Psi by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
