Volleyball Season Ends...

Well... my volleyball season ended last night with a bit of a whimper. We lost the first 3 games in the playoffs and are out. It was a difficult match, we were shorthanded with 2 of our best players unavailable, and myself with a bum ankle.

Starting the game, we had 5 players with really only John and myself hitting... and I wasn't sure how much jumping I was going to be able to do. It turned out that I could move fairly well, but I didn't have much explosion at all in my legs and couldn't get up in the air very much. Then, halfway through the second game, one of our ladies took a spike directly to the nose and left the match... we were down to four players!

Still, we managed to keep every game close, we were within a few points on all three but when push came to shove we couldn't make enough plays. It was good to play again after 2 weeks resting my ankle, and I held up okay throughout. Every day the ankle feels a little bit better and today is no different so that's really encouraging.... hopefully I can get back to regular workouts again soon.

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Musings

Lots of thoughts...

Tough to get injured, especially since I don't seem to heal as fast as I used to. My volleyball season has potentially two more nights, tonight is round one of the playoffs and if we make it then the finals are next Monday. I clearly can't play tonight, but if we win I suppose next week would be a possibility. I've been mulling around heading down tonight to watch, and perhaps get some sort of a workout in...

Along those lines, I'm hopeful that I can back to at least some form of Crossfit workouts this week. If I get to the gym tonight I'll try some of the movements and work, but most of the Workouts have at least some portion of lower body involved. I'm not real stable with a weak ankle at the moment and don't want to have a setback, so I'm a bit mixed about trying too much.

Finally, it was nice to get track season started again. For the last few years I've been an assistant coach with our town's youth track program. Mike, the head coach, has made some interesting changes this year and I'm excited to see how it plays out. We had our first practice on Saturday and have about 70 kids signed up at this point. I suspect we'll get a few more, we've peaked out at 115 in the past. I couldn't do much with the group, but helped a little with some core exercises as a warmup and then stretching at the end. My two oldest daughters are participating, and I may get my youngest to come out occasionally.

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Big Ouch!

I think my Volleyball season came to a screetching halt last night... hopefully not my Triathlon season as well!

I rolled my ankle after landing on my cousins foot in an attempt to block his spike.  Considerable pain, and not much walking at the moment... we'll see how it goes, hopefully things will get better quickly.  The good news is that we won all 3 games and are the 3rd seed in the playoffs... the bad news is that the playoffs start next week, and I doubt I'll be able to play.

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Long Overdue

Lots has happened...


Less than thrilled with my Hockanum river race results, we were 5th.

Went 1-2 at Volleyball, not particularly good considering we weren't playing a very good team

Got a brace for my elbow, but it didn't completely help for Racquetball... I did get a new racquet though!

Leaving for Florida on Thursday! Hoping to get to a Crossfit affiliate near Naples.

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Quick Update

2-1 at Volleyball last night...

6th place in the Scantic Race on Saturday...

More details and hopefully pictures to come!

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Volleyball 3/23

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.

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Quick week report...

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.

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Volleyball 3/2

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.

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Volleyball Week 1

It's Volleyball season again!!

Starting off a new season with a new team and a lot of hope that it will be better than last session. To make it even better, I got to play my uncle's team right out of the gate. We had one new guy that no one knew, which always makes you a bit apprehensive, but it turned out that he was pretty decent.

We started off okay, they were short-handed, but it still took a bit for us to get coordinated. The first week it's always a bit of a challenge to get a feel for each others' playing style and how best to work together. I was a bit out of sync but managed to get going a bit as we won the first game. The second game, they had all their players and we lost a bunch of points when we had trouble returning serves and ultimately lost the game. Finally in the third game, we played very well, including my kill through my uncle's attempted block :)

So, we're off to a 2-1 start, or 1/2 the number of wins we had the entire last session!

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Volleyball wrap

The season is over, none too soon. Not entirely successful from a competitive standpoint, but I did have fun for the most part. Our record was something like 5-25, so nothing to brag about.

I did improve my game though, my overhand serve is consistently in play and I can occasionally make it tough to return. Bumping, setting and spiking are better as well, I need to stay aggressive on my spiking and maintain good footwork on my bumping.

Looking forward to next session, hopefully our team will be a bit better.

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Volleyball update

Another crummy result... it was strange, at one point it felt like we were playing some of our best volleys of the year and I looked up and we were down by 8 points! Just a really strange year.

We did get to play some pickup afterwards, and I tried to work on bumping specifically. I wasn't moving well at all, my knee was bothering me and I landed on my hip during our game. I ended up leaving early, and had a lot of trouble sleeping even after downing 4 Ibuprofen and icing my knee. Then, strangely I woke up this morning with almost no issues... just really strange.

Today is off, then hopefully an early morning run with my daughter tomorrow.

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Busy weekend

Busy weekend with my mountain biking buddy Josh getting married! What do you suppose the chances are that he's going biking with me anytime soon? Seriously though, congratulations to him and Carol.

Looking forward to tonight's volleyball game... or rather I should say that I'm looking forward to next session of volleyball since we're going nowhere with this team. I have a couple more weeks, and then probably a 3 week intermission as the playoffs happen, until I can start playing meaningful games again. Just going to use the time to have fun and practice what I need to do better.

More snow this weekend means that outdoor biking is probably delayed again... it was getting close to feasible, but it's pretty tough to ride in more than an inch of snow. I'm still game if someone is interested, but I tend to have trouble finding others crazy enough to go out with me in these conditions.

Lastly, I've settled on a style for the blog for now... subject to change of course!

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Sore

I got in a few games of Racquetball and Volleyball last night, as my wife was having a bridal shower for a family friend and I needed to get out of the house. It was nice to get to a second night of play in, but I'm paying for it a bit today.

I'm definitely a bit sore, so I think today is going to be a bit of a recovery day. I wasn't too disappointed that the storm and school closing put the kibosh on my morning run with Leah. We'll do it tomorrow morning instead.

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Losing Sucks

I hate losing, it really irritates me! My wife occasionally suggests that I may be a bit too competitive and she's probably right; losing at anything drives me nuts. What's even worse, is when I'm not even close to winning.... Yeah, we lost 3 games of volleyball last night.

It's very frustrating because I can't figure out how to fix it. I hate to keep whining about other people on my team, so I'll just continue to focus on improving myself. Eric reminding me again last night about better bumping technique, and I'll try to ingrain that a bit more next week. My Overhand serve has gotten pretty good, although I'm mixed about whether or not to keep employing it. Unless it puts pressure on the other team, it's no different than an underhand serve, but with a bit more risk. For the rest of this session, I suppose it's worth continuing to stay aggressive since there is not much to play for.

The other key factor for me is continuing to work back into shape. December was a bit of a blah month, and my legs were a bit affected. When I'm feeling poorly and a bit tight, I don't get as much of a jump and can do very little to block opposing spikes. Last night, I felt my legs under me a bit better and had some nice blocks as a result, a couple in the games and a few more during pickups. Of course this fits well with some of my other goals for the year, so better fitness would be good!

Only two more weeks left, time to sign up again for next session.

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Delayed V-Ball wrap

I'd missed two weeks of volleyball for various reasons, so I was happy to get back in action this past Monday night. Making it a bit more interesting was the fact that I was playing my uncle's team, a fact which he was sure to let me know by calling me ahead of time to make sure I was coming. Knowing Eric, it was mostly an attempt to start rubbing his (assumed) victory in ahead of time!

A couple things had happened in the intervening weeks, we lost two of our better players with injuries. Hard to believe we could be any worse, but it could happen! We still had only 3 wins on the season, and when I arrived it looked like we might have 3 more without even getting to play. It was myself, Kate and Christine, only three players which would mean a forfeit. At the last minute, Leighana showed up and then Missy. So for the first game, it was myself and the 4 ladies! Predictably... we won! We really played a smooth game, rotating and covering nicely for each other and taking advantage of our opponents mistakes where we could.

For the second game, Diego showed up and we promptly lost the last two games. So, we still stink, but I was able to "practically single-handedly" beat Eric's team! I did get to play a few games of racquetball, and then some pickup volleyball for a full evening!

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Weekend recap

It started pretty promising, I got lots of work done in the morning when my wife headed to RI to visit her Aunt. I finally finished putting the door knobs on my new closet and fixed the entry knob and deadbolt on the garage door.

I left for a nice bike ride on Soapstone around 1:00. It started nicely, but I was soon left in the dust by the three riders who were in better shape and then I started having trouble with the bike. It was really cold, and as we would break through some iced over puddles the water would freeze on the frame, chain and derailleurs. It was pretty nasty with all the rain over the last few days, but the worst part was when my shifting started to freeze up. The derailleurs were soon totally froze and I was left with a middle gear in the back and only the granny in the front. Then my pedal froze and I could no longer clip in.

Turned into a pretty nasty but entertaining ride. Unfortunately at some point I sprained my wrist pretty badly. I think it was just landing on a hard jump and all the weight coming on my wrist since my foot slipped off the pedal. It was so cold out that I think it stayed numb until later that evening, but even today I can't type without pain and my wrist is really sore. Sore enough that I'm going to have to skip volleyball tonight.

It may well be for the best since I can let my knee heal up completely as well and hopefully be back next week.

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Delayed Volleyball Recap

Mostly because it was ugly! Another 0-3 night, I guess I need to concede that we are just not very good as a team.

I played fairly well I think and had some fun but it was a bit brutal to lose all three games again. Even worse, it was to my uncle's team, and we were close in all three but couldn't get over the hump. Oh well, I still had fun playing pickup afterwards and working on my serving and hitting. I got the overhand serve in consistently enough that I will probably go back to it in the real games. We also played with 4 people for a bit which was a lot of fun and keeps you running pretty good.

It was nice to get a win in the pickup game... even if it didn't count in the standings!

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Volleyball

Ugly... very ugly. We seem to find a way to lose every game! Another 0-3 evening, this is getting old fast. We would play well, then miss a serve to change momentum, or not call the ball and let it fall between two players. I feel like a broken record, but we can play well and did for stretches, but couldn't stay consistent.

My hitting was better, I'm focused on staying behind the ball, then jumping through it with power instead of jumping directly underneath. My passing needs work, no surprise, I struggled with that last year as well. I haven't been aggressive with my serve at all yet, staying with the underhand because we can't afford to miss the serves. At some point I would like to go back to overhand serves, but I need to practice a bit before I try in a game.

Perhaps next week, when I play my uncles team in the late game we could stay afterwards and play pick-up or just practice a bit??

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Volleyball

Somewhat better, but still not good! We only won a single game and lost two, but I'm still encouraged by our team's talent. Our current problem is the lack of good setters, we have 2 setters out of 8 people, and a few others that do a little bit of setting when necessary.

We need to play better next week for sure!

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Volleyball League

Signed back up for Volleyball again, it will be nice to have a little competition going... It's been a bit tough to get up early and hit the gym lately, hopefully after my long weekend away I'll be able to get motivated again.

Planning a mountain bike outing Saturday morning at Case Mountain, so I have that to look forward to at least :)

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