When I lived in Orlando I would wake up at 4 a.m. to work road races. I would put water on the course, help put up the finish line, pop up vendor tents, cut oranges, make Gatorade, spread out bagels and fill cup after cup of water to put on tables that I lugged out and set up. After hours of watching people emotionally cross the finish line, pose for photos, drip sweat into the cups of water and Gatorade I poured and mangle orange slices and bagels with their snot and sweat covered paws I would tear everything down, pack it up and take a crap-ton of water and untouched bagels home. I loved it. One of the girls who would work the races with me would help do the set up then ride a bike, staying in front of the lead runners to show them the course. She would help tear everything down and then go work an open house or go do some other planned “thing” for the day. I was always fascinated that she could keep going because when I got home, I didn’t do a thing the rest of the day, unless napping and television watching counts as something.
Today I got up early to play pickleball, not quite 4 a.m. early but still early, and I love doing it. We had a unique time slot, 6:50-8:50 a.m. and when I looked up and saw it was 8:48 I wondered what would happen. The score had been 9-5 for a few side outs and even though it seemed like we were going to win, we couldn’t make it happen. Time kept ticking and I thought, will we finish this game? At 8:51 and the score still 9-5, the dedicated mom apologized with sincerity and took off to do mom things with her children. I’ll be watching re-runs of Sex and the City and if I’m super ambitious today I might go get a haircut.
Enough of the I-don’t-do-enough-in-a-day thoughts. Today was the opposite of last Saturday, 3 girls and 1 boy. The boy is quicker than us and he reads the ball really well and since for the most part everyone isolated him, he just had to stand there and wait for the block or put away. It probably was pretty boring for him, but he had a lot of success. It was frustrating for me because I would think this is a winner because he just standing there with his paddle down and then he’d get it.
I did have one ATP that I actually had time to kind of place, rather than just hope and pray it worked out. I attempted but missed another one and I gave up one with my stupid angle dink.
If we count the 9-5 score as a win I managed to get a victory with each partner. Most of the games were good. I think I had a couple of games I felt slapped around but I don’t think anyone left thinking what a waste of time.
One of the girls played volleyball at Clarion, a team that I played basketball against in college. A team that I scored 46 points and made 12 three-pointers against and couldn’t beat. A team that I played 9 times over 4 years and never beat. Is it possible that my mind goes back 30 years and gets hung up on a Golden Eagle, even though she was 9 years old when I was fighting for a victory against them? I want to say with confidence that just isn’t possible but I swear I picked up an old Cal U t-shirt last night and considered wearing it. And today she showed up in a Clarion t-shirt, instantly giving her an advantage. Sadly, I guess I’m that easy to manipulate.
I used to play regularly with these girls last year and I always felt bad because I just could not win when I played with the Golden Eagle. I always blamed myself for the losses but when really evaluating our games all I could come up with was we play too much alike. We both like to drop, we like to dink, we have no issues poaching or attacking balls but together it never seemed to produce a win. Today we lost the first game we played, then we made some adjustments in the second game, trying to focus on what we like to do. We still lost but it definitely seemed like we were moving in the right direction. The third game we snuck out a win and that felt good.
Just like last year I’m easily the weakest link when I play there but I like the competition. All I can do is keep trying to play better.
End of Week Numbers
- Pickleball play
- 7 sessions
- $60.25 court time
- $39.34 gas
- Drilling
- 2 sessions
- Weight: +2
- ATPs: 11
- Injuries: 3
- Lower back soreness
- Finger cut and bruise
- Left arm soreness
