spirit, workouts, frisbee

The other night at indoor soccer, the ref was terrible. He seemed to get a majority of the contested out of bounds calls (i.e., which team did it go off) wrong, may have given us a goal on a ball that hit either the top post or the top of the net, and rarely moved from his standing position at center field. Now, this is just a coed B league (and only B because there was no C), so I'm not expecting him to be any better than we were, but I would appreciate a small amount of effort. But that is just the origin of the problem. The problem was how the other team reacted.

At first they just whined. We actually gave up a call that was obviously wrong in our favor, then watched them complain a few minutes later on a less obvious call. Shortly after that, they started to try to steal the calls by acting as if the ball was theirs. This led to me retaliating, twice. The first time, I deliberately kinda fouled a player from behind, leading to an OB ball in our favor and a resulting goal from the corner kick. The second time, it was a horribly blatant OB on them and their player ran to put it into play. I complained to him about his terrible manners, and he said, "Lighten up" and proceeded to crowd the ball on the kick in. So I kicked it as hard as I could right into him, and would have done so again on the rekick had he not backed up.

The way I see it, when they realized the ref sucked, they could have either accepted that each call would be a coin flip as to which team got it, or they could play as if there was no ref by dropping off when they knew it was our ball. It was not ok for them to whine and to try to steal the balls. (In case you didn't notice, this was a B league coed soccer game, albeit the semis of the playoffs.) I was very close to speaking to their team about it, both at half and after the game. I am again mad as I type this.

I've worked out more this winter than I have for many years. Been doing about one Tabata or pseudo-Tabata a week, often during my kid's swim class. I've varied the exercise, trying out the rowing machine, spinning bike, exercise bike, elliptical machine, swimming, and burpees. I'm not sure the rowing machine and exercise bike provide enough resistance. I maxxed out at about 400W on the rower, and while I got to 600W on one of the bikes, the resistance it provided was inconsistent and slow to adjust so I had difficulties with it. I don't have my own heart monitor so have used the machine monitors or counted heart beats and multiplied (but only at the end of workouts) and found my heart rate to generally be only about 165. (I hit 170 once after running on the treadmill.) I also ran two timed miles to see where I was. The latter was at a 6 minute pace but with a 15 second break with about a lap to go (due to a weak will more than a physical breakdown), followed by two quarters at 75s pace (after 5 and 3 minute breaks). (According to treadmill conversion charts, running on a treadmill at a 1.5 degree incline translates to a very slightly faster road time. And a 6:00 treadmill pace at 8 degrees is a 5:00 road pace (what I used for my quarters).

Also playing basketball most weeks, working hard there. Played some goaltimate over the winter, too, and finally got a chance on Saturday to play on something besides snow. That game couldn't have worked out much better. I show up to see Alex's team lose game 1 while he's muttering that they will have to mix up the teams soon. I join the other team and we win two more. At that point they agree to mix the teams, so I say that I have a big enough ego to think that I can make the other team win. Sure enough, I switch (along with another guy) and we win the next two. Someone then suggested that the two guys who switched to the new losing team ought to split up so at least one of them can get I win. I wonder aloud whether conversely, there was anyone who won all his games. (Someone quickly pointed out there was another guy who had done so.) Then we played a few more games but I can't remember how they turned out, other than I had a nice sweep catch called not a goal at 4-4.

I'm surprised at the variety of ways I will throw the disc at goaltimate. On the one hand, this is a bad habit, since I can get away with using just my arm on those short throws but in ultimate throwing without shifting my weight might be a bad idea. But otoh, it helps with creativity and in fast decision-making. Seve Ballesteros became an escape artist on the golf course because he grew up playing with only one club (a 3-iron, at that) and had to learn how to do everything with that club. (I'm not sure that's the right analogy, but I'm sticking with it.)

I was looking at my recent commentary on end zone offense and was wondering whether a typical elite ultimate team could benefit by using Frank's motion offense there without having to adopt the philosophy everywhere. Give and goes often work great as long as the space ahead is clear. If you keep the disc off the line you have enough space to keep multiple players behind the disc. You only need a few yards, and your goal-scoring cut has the additional benefit of not having to leave the receiver in position to make another throw.

Off to Paganello next week with Los Ox, one of only two US teams this year (the same number that Russia is sending and less than France). I was there in 2000 or so so I won't be doing any bucket list editing, not that I have a bucket list.