Thursday, September 15, 2022 (Court Day #548)

Ever since I had asked René to play in a tournament with me but she had already committed to play in it with Rick, she’s been suggesting tournaments for us to play together. I looked at some dates she provided and decided that the Bay Area Senior Games would be a good one. It’s on Sunday, October 2, and since I’m off on Sundays I’m guaranteed to be free that day. It’s kind of funny that they call it a senior games given that it’s 50-years-old and up and not ’65 and up’. I don’t consider myself a senior … yet! Anyway, I registered yesterday morning.

I told René that bagpipe band practice had been canceled for tonight and that I could play at Skypark at 6:45 p.m. (Tuesday, I opted to stay home and do house stuff.) She drove over Highway 17 down to Scotts Valley and she beat me there by a few minutes. We played a number of games together until about 8:30. By that time, we were both obviously tired—very tired.

Against the Big Boys

One really fun game we played was Rene and me against Tristan and Nolan. Nolan is a 4.0 player and Tristan is a 4.5 player. René and I did manage to score 2 points against them, and had a few good rallies—and garnered some compliments in the process—but we got solidly smoked.

The only games that René and I lost tonight were the games against Nolan and Tristan and the last game against Matt and Paul when we are both exhausted.

Tim and Me

Last three games of the night were Tim and myself playing against young Asian David and Scott. They won the first game, we won the second game, and then they won the third game.

I hit a slice drive service return in the last game. The ball hit the top of the net but backspin made it tightly hug the net as it dropped to the ground. It came to a full rest no more than an inch from the net. I’d never seen anything like it. And given the comments from the others on the court, they hadn’t either!

I was so exhausted playing that game…so exhausted. When it came time to tap paddles at the net, I got it within about 3 feet and then went down to my knees and then crawled to the net and then—without looking up—raised my paddle up for them to tap. It was overly dramatic, of course. But I wanted to share the gist of just how tired I was. I can’t remember ever being this tired playing. It was a culmination of having not eaten for about eight hours and also not getting a full night of sleep last night. Still those last games are fun and there were a handful of really good shots that I made that I didn’t think I could’ve made but I did. The last game finished at 9:25 p.m.

Injuries

The outside of my left foot is still bugging me. Yesterday morning, it was very painful to walk on—like a very bad cramp. Also, left hip is still sore from the Monterey tournament with Jason. And my right knee is acting up. I crouched down at work yesterday and getting back up was quite uncomfortable, but it mostly went away after a while. But it can be mildly nagging.

Overall

I was just happy I powered through the evening and played until lights out. That was an accomplishment in and of itself.


Number of days on a court: 548
Number of total hours: 2,482.5

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