Tuesday, September 8, 2026 (Court Day #963)

As my workday was winding down, I was feeling unusually exhausted. I was quite tempted just to go home and lie down, but pickleball is fun once I get started and I can always use the exercise.

At quarter after 6 p.m., I was driving away from work and heading to Scotts Valley. It had been quite a warm day and it was still 75°F.

It has been a full week since I took a serious tumble when my right leg landed on my paddle. I still have a large welt on my thigh just above my knee.

Skypark

There was still lots of parking in the lot when I arrived and an empty court. It seemed that the heat was keeping people home.

I don’t sweat a whole lot, but I definitely was this evening, it was very muggy.

Alfred was there tonight. I hadn’t seen him in months. He was playing with his friend named Anderson. Alfred was the better of the two players, but Anderson definitely held his own.

My play tonight was far from stellar. There are nights where you think, “Why am I even bothering to play?” Tonight was one of those. Sure, I had my moments of good quality play, but overall, it was subpar and I’d rather just forget the evening!

Surprise!

A young Asian guy came tonight named Jared. I overheard that Jared recognized Alfred from classes at UCSC. Jared wasn’t too keen on playing with our group, he said, “I don’t think that I can hang with you guys.” In his bag were an assortment of very cheap mass-market paddles and the balls that I saw were actually indoor balls with a larger holes. As long as it’s not all the time, I don’t mind ‘taking one for the team’ and playing with newer players as my partner. Jared and I played together against Alfred and Anderson.

Well, Jared played just fine! He’s easily a 3.5 level player. Not only did we hang, and I won the game. Towards the end of the game, I got points on consecutive serves that Anderson then Alfred hit back into the net. In a tournament, I would’ve kept going, but instead, I changed up the serve a little bit to make it slightly less difficult. Alfred has some really good serves himself. He serves fast and deep. It’s a good challenge. Alfred has quick hands, pretty much every time I drove at him, he was able to hit it back for a winner.

And?

My biggest issues for tonight were hitting shots too high, and making ill-advised speedups. Failing on speedups can often be a case of underestimating opponents, which was happening tonight. Also, I slammed a few overheads into the net. It was bad all around!

Tonight was bad. I always play worse under the lights, but I was also exhausted.

Wednesday, September 9, 2026 (No Play)

Today was one of the handful of days that I can remember where Santa Cruz has crept over 100°. My car was still reading 106° at 6:44 p.m. I checked online and it said temperatures peaked at 101°, but that always depends on where those weather stations are. My car was parked above a black asphalt parking lot, that could have added 5°. Nonetheless, hot.

Number of days on a court: 963
Number of total hours: 3,537
Number of paid coaching hours: 231.5

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