Throwback, Details, Night Rider, Conversations with myself
My three day weekend was pretty busy but not overwhelmingly so. My Veterans Day was pretty nuts with my throwing caution to the wind. In the morning Kerri and I played pickleball for a couple hours. We played an older but clearly more experienced pair a number of games. The first game they beat us like 11-2 or 11-3. The last game we played, we won. You have to love a good comeback story.
Kerri also plays a ton of beach volleyball. She had been encouraging me to come bump the ball around since she knows I used to play a ton of volleyball. The issue is I have not touched a ball in over a decade, no that is not an exaggeration. I was already a bit beat up from pickleball but I was committed to get back out there, even it killed me. The good news is it didn’t. Just doing simple bumping during warm ups was erratic/difficult at times for me. Although I have basic volleyball skills muscle memory there is so much rust that can only be knocked off by repetition.
The best path would have probably been to just practice basic skills at first, not try to play a game but I am not known for choosing the best path consistently. So I played a total of three games. Most aspects of my game improved from game 1 to game 3. The one exception was hitting, which was the thing I loved most about playing back in the day. My timing and ability to jump out of the sand is just horrific at this point. The only thing that trains you to jump out of the sand is jumping out of the sand. I still had fun getting out on the court as the gang Kerri plays with are all very cool.
I came out of it with a couple injuries, albeit not serious ones. My left elbow felt really sore, almost like tennis elbow. I think I have tried to dig a ball with one arm and it bent it back somewhat awkwardly. My left knee also had an awkward moment when I fell down and wound up compressing it further than it normally wants to go when stretching. Again neither injury was bad enough to make me stop playing. The other thing I noticed was I gassed really fast. Granted playing a couple hours of pickleball prior is not ideal but I was sucking wind big time. The good news is all of these things get better with time and reps. We will see if invest in them going down the road.
Friday night I made a spur of the moment decision to live stream. A lot of the stream had to do with my trip to California to ride with the EUC crew out there. Two of the key guys I will be hanging with on the trip, Marty and Larry, were on the stream talking logistics with me. The stream went for a couple hours and was fun, despite the limited notice.
My Saturday was not bad, I worked on various small tasks around the house. Saturday evening I made arrangements to go ride bikes with Monique at the Greenway. Normally when I come to see them I bring coffee which has become a fun tradition. I also got to see Leilani which is always a highlight for me. What makes it awesome is she actually gets excited to see me too now. Monique and I had a diverse ride in the dark where we covered around 7 miles in over an hour. I forgot to strap a light on my mountain bike that I just replaced two tubes on the day prior. One thing I did not like was the hard narrow seat on my bike. My ass was killing me, I need to get some supplemental padding involved.
Today again I tended to smaller chores. For example I noticed how cruddy the rear sliders were so I cleaned them. I noticed how the spider webs in the garage were piling up, so I vacuumed them. I also cleaned the filters on my Shark stick vac, the exhaust had smelled badly of dog. Of course I recorded the process.
After my coffee run in the morning I stopped at the park with Elsa to get a mile walk in around the perimeter. As always she was terrified to get out of the truck but then is fine 30 seconds later.
I went back to the park mid-afternoon this time with OneWheel GT. I did a number of “extreme” stunts with my tongue in my cheek. It was a funny video, at least I think so.
Over the weekend I had a serious conversation with myself. I was chastising some of the things my brain was doing, going down mental paths that made no sense and did not serve me in any positive manner. The internal taskmaster, the same guy that drives me to do, do, do, barked how I need to snap out of it and abandon thought patterns that make me feel poorly. The self talk felt like it worked, I felt like cold water was thrown in my face, opening my eyes to what reality is and how I control it. I have a long and muddy history of caring too much about things or people when it/they might not merit it for a number of reasons. Acknowledgement of the issue is the first step to recovery.