Beat down, Riding, Two Months

We got to enjoy some pretty nice weather down here in SW FL with lower humidity and slightly lower temps. Unfortunately it came courtesy of the Noreaster that smacked the Atlantic coast. The rotation of the storm shot cooler northern air across Florida. My girlfriend and I took advantage of the weather by going on AM bike rides both Saturday and Sunday, her on her e-bike, me on a wheel. Mia once again rode in the bike carrier strapped to the handle bars and loved it.

So all week I was trying to get my painful lower back to feel better to play in the pickleball tournament Saturday night. It was still painful Saturday but I loaded up on Advil and headed to the facility in Bonita. The place seemed nice enough with a long row of pickleball and sand volleyball courts down the one side.

My girlfriend showed up about an hour later with Mia to cheer me on. Unfortunately a couple minutes after she arrived someone from the facility said that dogs were not allowed there which got a WTF face from both me and my girlfriend. I asked why was that. The bullshit reason was that they spray a lot of pesticides to keeps the weeds down for the sand volleyball courts and they don’t want dogs exposed. Yea, sure buddy. I mean the guy was nice about it but still, it was very lame IMO since Mia would have been held the entire time. So after driving 35 minutes to get there she had to turn around and head back home. In retrospect it was sign how the evening was going to go.

This was the first time this facility had run this tournament and it showed. They had issues utilizing the app that is supposed to run things and instead resorted to using paper and pencil which caused more errors and delays. They also had an issue with the PA system where this annoying as fck interference sound would be broadcast through the speakers that they apparently didn’t know how to fix. Oh, and their wi-fi went down at some point as well.

We played in the 3.25 to 3.75 skill level division. The tournament only had two divisions with the second being 4.0 to 5.0. It became apparent that there was considerable sandbagging going on in our division. Even so, we should have done better than we did with an awful 2-4 record after starting 2-1. I struggled physically with my back hurting even with the Advil. When you have pain it affects how you move and do things, obviously. I did not play nearly as well as I can when I am my version of healthy. Brian struggled a lot too. If we would have cut down on all of the unforced errors I am pretty sure we could have flipped our record around, at least.

Brian and I also were clearly the oldest people in our division which surprised me. Our last game were against two young guys, one of which hit some of the hardest serves and drives of anyone that I have played against in my 5 years plus in the sport. This was made even more difficult to handle because of the bad lighting on the courts. The lights are only on one side of the courts so visibility was a real issue for both of us. The courts also did not have adequate space between the back line and the fence which caused issues returning deep shots multiple times. I was not a big fan of the facility when all was said and done. I would play another tournament there but only if it happened during daytime hours.

I was pretty bummed about the result of the tournament. Up until that point I have had good results playing in 3.5 tournaments, winning one and placing second in another. One of our losses Saturday night was a pickle, meaning we lost 11-0. After that happened I was mentally pretty much checked out. Even though I know I had multiple reasons the performance was not up to par, my competitive nature was very unhappy with the end result.

Last night I did my first live stream in two months, one of my longest times in between live streams in awhile. I knew it would be a tough one because I talked about the loss of Elsa. I managed to get through it without totally breaking down but there were some awkward pauses and difficulty speaking at times, as expected.