Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Pickleball at the Rec Center. Lots of people but the overall level of play was somewhat lower than normal (some of the better regulars weren't there, and there were more than the usual number of novices). Still, I had two enjoyable games playing as trailsnail's partner, coming out victorious on both (one of them coming from a 5-0 deficit to win 11-6).

C • I'm sure the victories were... 2

It actually turned out to be a not so bad day -- not nearly as much rain or wintery mix as was forecast. So Homer and I did a medium length city walk.

The worst places for footing, ironically, were the sidewalks where the owners had thoughtfully shoveled the walks. They tended to be icy and slick. Where there had been no shoveling, there was maybe half an inch or an inch of wet snow, which was not nearly as slick as a shoveled sidewalk. (No falls happened, though.)

JCC pickleball league (3.5 level and above players). My normal partner, Glenn, is still recovering from an ankle sprain, so I rounded up Mike S. to take his place. We played Larry and Kathy, and beat them 2 games to 1. Kind of an odd assortment of scores -- we won the first game 11-6, lost the second game 11-0 (!), then won the 3rd game 11-7.

Early-afternoon walk with Homer on a gorgeous winter day. Again, the walk included some bushwhacking.

Another bumper crop of pickleballers. I think we had 10-12 people sitting out and 12 people playing, so a lot of sitting compared to playing time. But I got 4 games in and all were a lot of fun (and I played reasonably well for a change), so I had a pleasant enough time.

Walk with Homer, after pickleball. Included some off-trail travel. Very balmy 20 degrees out, and the conditions in the woods were just right -- a few inches of snow but not too much to make it really tough going, and the wet spots on the ground nicely frozen.

Webster Rec Center. I played so-so, not all that great, but generally had a good time.

C • Good time 1

First night in the JCC league. Partner is supposed to be Glenn Pearce, but he sprained his ankle yesterday playing pickleball, so Joe Roth subbed for him. We played a team of two solid women players, Gail and Trisha. They had trouble getting going at first, and we won the first game easily, the 2nd game not so easily, and then lost the 3rd game in a fairly close contest. We then played a 4th game that didn't count, and they got off to a 6-0 lead but we came back to nip them 12-10.

In the hour after our group played, there is a higher league that plays; we watched them for around 20 minutes, and it was quite humbling ... mostly young guys (relative to me, at least ... but some legitimately young, like 20's or 30's). Some of the top players in Rochester, including Joe Valenti, play in that league. I'm quite happy to be in the lower of the two leagues, especially since I'll probably be one of the weaker players in the league I'm in.

Pickleball at the Rec Center. Two hours reserved, and most of the time we had 4 courts going, but there were lotsa pickleballers present today, so most of the time, 9 people were sitting out (with 16 people playing). I was probably there for 2.5 hours, but was sitting out quite a bit, so the time recorded is a rough estimate of the time spent playing.

First skiing of the season; at Bristol; with Cheryl. Remarkably good conditions.

I tried two demo skis -- one was more narrow than my current ones (current ones 78 mm underfoot; narrow demo was 72 mm). They skied fine on the groomed slopes, but I struggled big time on lower Meteor where it is almost always pushed around, soft, generally cruddy.

Then tried a wider ski -- 82 mm. For some reason, it felt a lot wider than my current 78 mm. It was a little more work to get up on edge on hard packed / groomed slopes, but really not bad at all once I got used to it. It really excelled, though, on lower Meteor. Made skiing through the soft cruddy stuff almost a piece of cake.

I took 12 runs, I think, based on the GPS climb, and taking into account that I didn't start the GPS until I was 75% down on our first run.

Distance and vertical drop recorded was 17.6 miles and 11,900 feet, but of course the distance included the lift rides up as well as skiing down.

Snow guns blasting away all over the mountain, but sadly (from the standpoint of any XC aficionados) not on the XC trail. The guy in charge of the summit center (one of my two bosses at Bristol) said he was going to bring up at the staff meeting at 1 pm today that he's been getting lots of calls from XC skiers asking when they were going to re-open, and make an appeal to start making snow on the XC trail.

Th afternoon drop-in pickleball. Lots of decent games. Four courts, about 18 people.

With trailsnail, Cheryl, and Paul. Pretty steady play for a little more than an hour.

Another course-setting walking tour of a portion of Rochester, again with Homer in tow.

Fairly amazing weather. I wore shorts and was not the least bit cool. I almost went out in a tee shirt, but there was a significant wind blowing, not really enough to make me cold, but it looked like rain was a possibility. So the prospect of being in windy, rainy weather, especially since the temperature probably would have dropped a bit if the rain had come, was enough to convince me to put on a long-sleeve shirt. As it was, no rain came, I probably would have been ok in the tee shirt, but I wasn't overly warm with the long-sleeve shirt, so everything was fine.

More "course setting" for the Rochester Map Adventure, with Homer in tow. I was dressed fine at the start but by the mid point of the walk, I was definitely overdressed for the mid-50's temperatures.

Late-morning walk with Homer, to Finn Park, then back via Rt 104.

He met a very nice choc. lab on the Rt 104 path, which he was very nice to in return. He's gotten way better, in his older age, at interacting with other dogs. Compared to even a few years ago, when he would always be on high alert and in an aggressive stance when encountering any do he hadn't previously met and deemed acceptable. Today, he was not the least bit aggressive -- no barking, growling, or threatening poses. It only took him around 10 years to get to this point ...

Drop-in pickleball at the Rec Center. Probably 18 people max, with 3 courts going and for a while, a 4th court. Some very good games.

Rec Center. 4 courts, around 20 people. I didn't wind up in many really even games, plus I wasn't playing the greatest, so it wasn't my best outing. Still, I had one decent game, where Debbie S. and I played against Debbie's husband Mike S. (the best player who routinely plays with us) and Robin. It was a close game but Debbie and I managed to win. Debbie seemed quite pleased to have beaten Mike.