The Ultimate Four Day Week

With Victoria Day last Monday, the four day work week was complimented by a four day ultimate week. Even though Wednesday was my only night "off" (15 minutes on the exercise bike, 30 minutes of lifting, and 20 minutes of physiotherapy ball exercises), I thoroughly enjoyed four nights of ultimate. Since I've already written about Poached Motel on Monday, I'll summarize my ulty exploits for the rest of the week in point form.

- Tuesday's BigFish (BF) practice was fun and educational. Lots of tips were given during practice, and in a helpful follow-up message from one of the coaches after practice.
- Among these tips, one that will take considerable work for me is using one hand to hold the disc while handling. I've been using two hands for a while, but as Gavin accurately pointed out, you can't throw a disc with two hands, so you look uncomfortable and clueless (i.e. my natural state). If memory serves (doubtful), holding the disc with two hands was something I picked up from one of my ultivillage DVDs…but Gavin knows best, and his reasoning makes sense.
- At the risk of having my sanity questioned (happens more than I'd like to admit), since Thursday's BF practice focused on conditioning, I loved it! One of the BF regulars, Tom (who has a cool last name) is apparently an athletic therapist and/or personal trainer. He led us through about 30 minutes of conditioning drills. His drills seemed more ultimate-related than the ones at the Phoenix/Firebird pre-tryout, tryouts.
- One of the past BF players who was working out with us ('Tron or Paul?) recently had sports hernia surgery. He said there wasn't a long wait, and he seems to be recovering well. As coincidence would have it, we share the same physiotherapist.
- Instead of doing 5-pull, we scrimmaged at the end of Thursday's practice. That was my best performance yet with the team. With some of the real speedsters away, and with my speed endurance kicking in after Tom's conditioning, I managed to catch a couple of beautiful passes for scores, and even threw a goal. On the down side, I caused others to do push-ups with a bad decision after a long reception. After long receptions, I have to condition myself to do the right thing and dump the disc.
- During huck drill, my mind continues to be blown by one of my female team-mates ability to throw ridiculously long backhands. Having chased down two of the gravity defying beauties, I now know not to shoulder check until I cross mid field. Said team-mate also gave everyone a sweet-ass, limited edition, BigFish version of the 11th edition rules. Gee…what a star.
- Sadly, due to an Urban Sprawl game, post-game drinks, and a 10km race the next day, I had to skip a get together thrown by Niki from BF. She's another BF lady with impressive throws and enviable decision making skills.
- During warm-up and cool-down stretching, the comedians on the team seem to step up. Thursday night's favorite topic seemed to be pot, while the favorite target was fellow practice squadder Ahman (IMHO, the most dominating IID player last winter). Glen in particular seems to have one-line zingers primed to release at a moment's notice.
- Sprawl vs. Bombers on Friday was….the typical first game of the year for a Friday night team. After finding out they lost 15-0 last week to a team with a couple of BF'ers, I knew we could probably pick them apart. Due to windy conditions, it was 3-3 until we finally scored an up wind point. That led to an 8-3 half, extended to 10-3, and then we decided that our ladies would handle for the rest of the game when the score was 11-4. I think we won by 15 to....7ish.
- When the Sprawl ladies were handling, one particularly cute one nailed me with a down wind, bullet of a flick to the sternum. I'll be rocking a rather embarassing bruise from that fatal flick for the next couple of days. On the bright side, I caught the pass on the rebound.
- My six pack of Thorlos off Ebay finally arrived! My feet will thank me the rest of the summer.

That my friends, was my ultimate four day week. I'm super pumped for a hard game next Monday with Poached, two practices with the Fishies next Tuesday and Thursday (<- hoping we do conditioning again), and another fun game with Sprawl. Until next time, happy hucking!