Bif ol' fail of a day yesterday.  Ginie and I drove 20 minutes to get her cleats and go to the gym.  Both places were closed, so we licked our wounds and headed home.  Ended up doing the following:
 AMRAP 10 minutes:
20 Mtn Climbers (where each leg counts as 1)
10 Pushups
5 Squat jumps

I completed 7 rounds + 9 push ups.  The pushups were INCREDIBLY difficult after round 2 and I think after round 3, I started doing them from my knees.  Still hard.  The mountain climbers, I really focused on pushing my tempo, especially while tired.

Tonight is summer club against our former team.  Here's hoping we win...

Doing work,
~#28

Yesterday- a nice solid arm/back day.  DB Rows, DB bench press, lat pull down of sort, bicep curls and then some KB swings for shits.

Today- Did a slightly truncated/altered version of Lou Burruss' Kung Fu Throwing with Corey and Ginie.  Felt pretty good through it.  Hitting good distance with moderate accuracy on a regular basis.

Tomorrow- Ginie's got Slow White, then it's Vermont with the KToads.

Doin' Work,
~#28

Reeeeeally bad track workout.  Showed up planning to run 400,2x200,4x100,8x50 with rest of 3,1.5,.75,.5 minutes for each distance.  Given how I've been running the past few times, this should have been very doable.

When I got there, my hamstring was aching from yesterday (Mixed Nuts tryout...more to be said on that, but not here), it was cold enough out that I couldn't loosen my leg, hip or back and I just generally felt shitty.  I ended up getting in a 400 at 1:10, which is a) slow and b) slower than a 400 I ran at the END of a workout by 8 seconds.  Ridiculous.  Anyway, the run overall was

400, 3 min
200, 1.5 min, 200, 3 min
110,45s,110, 3 min, 110, ~2 min, 110

I overall felt terrible today, with poor form on the back swing of my leg (tightness in my hip flexors and back), bad traction (a sprinkling of rain had slipperied up the track) and bad breathing (my chest hurt early and often).  That said, the last two 110 felt really good, I could feel myself lift up onto my calves and bring my whole lower kinetic chain into play and I thought I had good speed coming through them.  My turnover rate improved when I paid attention to it, as well.

More work to do,
~#28

Welp, that's that.  Cut from both Slow White and Wild Card in the first round.  Pretty pissed about that.  Slow is one thing, Wild Card is all the more frustrating because of how little I did wrong.  And yet, here I am.  I'll be seeing what I can do as far as finding another team.  I refuse to not play this summer.

Back to doin' work,
~#28

One more week, this time Slow White tryouts again.  Today was...not nearly as good as last week.  I just felt slow the entire time, partly because my hamstring was aching, partly because the ground kept slipping and partly because I'm just not that fast.  Like I was telling Corey: One-on-one defense is one thing and trying to keep up with a dude as we just bust deep is something else.  I am only good at one of those and it's not the one we spent today doing.

That said, I felt good a couple times today and played well against a really good player (ex-ISide).  Apparently I acquired a nickname too- Twitchy.  Whoops.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully one where I will play better.  I don't intend to make Slow, but playing poorly is just such a downer.  It makes me feel like all the hard work is for nothing.  Even when I have a bad day, I have to be better than this...

Doin' work, even when it's hard,
~#28

EDIT: Day Two was MUCH better.  I played well against higher level competition.  Much more enjoyable.

Oh damn, it's been forever.  Oops?

What have I been doing?  Lots of explosive work, a little track work, a bit of strength work, not enough arm work.

I'm trying to get my Clean form good, because I'm leaning forward badly and not catching the weight forward, instead catching it with my hands, which hurts after a few.  I've really got to fix that.  Ironically, snatches may be better for that, since I catch the weight better, despite them being harder.

I'm trying to lift heavy Sumo Deadlifts, since lifting 225 in a normal deadlift has been jacking up my back in a bad way.  I'm concerned about that.

My core work seems to be paying off, so that's nice.  I can tell my core is getting stronger, so hopefully I'll be able to bring that to bear on the field.

My arms are...meh, though my back is getting stronger, which is awesome.  I can tell my lats are getting stronger but I don't see the results I would expect in my backhand.  When I went out with Ginie, I was hitting 60 yds (unmarked) with some reasonable accuracy.  Forehand...much less accuracy, a little bit shorter (50something?).

I can run with Corey, perhaps a step behind on the long stuff (over 50yds).  I'm pretty okay with that.  Honestly, I take some solace in the fact that he talks about the ISide guys telling him he played well and having a solid shot at Slow, so if I can just be as good as Corey, maybe I can pull this off.  Maybe.

Goin' out to do more work,
~#28

Quick update:

Winter League continues, with our team in the one seed moving into the semis next week.  Pretty excited about that.  Lots to complain about, but more to be happy about, so...I'll take it.  Tonight's game was pretty average for me.  A couple of good plays, a couple of bad decisions, generally a hard worker and nothing too spectacular.  Muffin DID tell me I had nice throws, which felt good.

Gym continues, with the paces a little weird.  I'm going to be moving almost entirely into power for the rest of the time until tryouts.  That'll be fun.  I've been trying to get hang power cleans rather than hang snatches, since they're simpler and we'll see how that works out.  I'm also moving back into the hammy lean and the most functional abs I can find.  Keeping my mind on flexibility and I'll see what happens.  Excited.