Pushing 50
These first few posts will be an overview of how I got to where I am today. After that I’ll take a deeper dive into specific times and adventures and see what I can unearth. If I’m feeling it, I may even come back and link those to the proper spots in these overview posts.
Beach Nationals with “Grave Error” in 2016. Note the shoulder tape - I really enjoy messing up my right shoulder apparently.
It wasn’t all tea and crumpets as I began to put on weight and get in shape. I royally screwed up my shoulder diving for a disc in ultimate and had to play most of one season left-handed. And of course that slowed down my workouts for a few months. Fortunately I recovered with just a couple PT visits and aggressive rehab.
But for the most part I was feeling great and performing at a higher level than ever. I turned 40 in 2011 and joined a Grand Masters team for the first time. (That’s an impressive-sounding name, “Grand Masters”, but all it really means is you had to be over 40.) I was also still playing with my Masters (over 33) team Ra but could also play GM with a team called T-Rex because the championships were at different times.
My first season with T-Rex we earned a bid to Nationals, then were ranked pretty low. However, we broke seed to make it into the quarter-final round. That was our goal going in, and it was a great feeling to actually pull it off.
RJ, meanwhile, opened a gym in his yard called Club Shed. At its height, we had around 20 people working out throughout the week. He brought me in to assist and run some of the classes for him since he was still also working full time. Having the other athletes to work out with really helped me to push myself to improve my skills and I did.
In 2012 I played with an Irish ultimate team at a beach tournament in France and helped them make it from a low ranking to 5th place. I was voted team MVP and had an absolute blast.
Back in the USA at GM Nationals that year, I was the 5th-highest scorer in the tournament. We didn’t win as many games as the year before, but had fun and definitely scared one of the elite teams.
And through all this I felt like I was continuing to be in better shape each year than the year before. Even when I tore my left hamstring and had to lay off running for several months, I still kept workouts going and got back to peak shape rather quickly once I could run. And really, that’s how it’s been since. Working out, playing ultimate and occasionally injuring myself and then recovering.
It’s only been the last couple years that I feel my age hitting, but even still I’m able to play ultimate at the level I want, and accomplish everything physical I need to. As long as I can do that, I feel like things are good. I think this ends the “broad scope” blog posts, now I’ll start getting into more detail. Should be fun, so be sure to stay tuned!
