VB return to playoffs, too much of a good thing

My volleyball tournament this weekend was at a new location for me, Delray Beach. It was a different kind of place which in some ways reminded me of Rehoboth Beach back home. It was on the narrower side, had dark sand and wasn’t fronted by huge condo towers. It was killer warm again, by 10 am sweat was just streaming off me. However our play early was better. We won our first 3 matches. We had first place wrapped up for our net and our final match was against a team that we had beaten handily in the past. Well we flopped in the last game, with the other team almost exclusively serving Randall and we being unable to make them pay for doing so. We lost the game by 3 or 4 points. It set a bad tone for entering the playoffs. The start of our playoff game was delayed for 15-20 minutes while we tracked down our opponents who were asleep at the wheel and didn’t realize playoffs were starting. The match was back and forth for most of it but at the end they got a few lucky shots and we had some shoddy play to help them along. We lost again by 3 points. The 2 losses to end it, took a good bit of shine off what what seemed to be a turnaround in our fortune. However overall, we played better which is better than playing worse. I have a new serve I am working on which is a side-arm, super spinny thing that could prove to be quite effective. I had some decent hits, good hustling saves and played ok defense. There are only 2 or 3 possible tournies for me to play in for the rest of the year so hopefully the improvement will continue. The vball page has been updated and a few tips have been added.

On Sunday when I woke up my shoulder was killing me. On the first play of the tournament, I made a diving attempt to my left where I landed with all my weight on my shoulder while my arm was fully extended. It was the kind of thing where you see shoulders pop out. But besides the shoulder I felt ok, good enough to go for a run again. Ali got up earlier which allowed us a 10-12 degree break in temperatures for the run. When we run, I let Ali set the pace and the distance. She set a new personal best doing a mile and a half straight and then adding on another half mile later. In total we covered 4 miles in around an hour. My knee felt surprisingly ok. Our Sunday run although difficult in some ways, is also one of my favorite parts of day. It’s cool seeing Ali improving and it feels good for me to run after abandoning it for the most part for the last 5 years because of my crappy knee. Running clears the mind like few exercises I know.

After we got home I immediately wanted to dive into my list, the first part of it being mowing the grass which was spotted with standing water everywhere. After 30-40 minutes of weed whacking I was sweating more than when we ran, as the temps had crossed back into the 90’s by then. Ali had a PC show in the afternoon so after she left, I ripped into the rest of my list and had it all done by 2:30. After that I was more or less playing WoW until 9:30-9:45 at night. It amazes me that after being submerged in this game for coming up on 8 months, it still holds my interest to the degree that it does. There are just so many things you can do in the game, the challenge never ends. If you level your character to the highest level you would think it could get boring or tail off. But all you have to do is start a new character that is a different class and the fun starts all over again. By the time 9:30 came though, my eyes were exhausted and I felt a bit disgusted when I counted up how long I was at it. The time just flies by. I still am doing my best to keep balance, still workout 4-5 times a week, still doing the house chores, I just am trying to do the stuff as fast as I can to allow me uninterrupted leisure time. It’s better than other addictions that come to mind.