Sunday, December 10, 2017 (Court Day #101)

Early this morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I listened to a couple episodes of a podcast, The Pickleball 5.0 Podcast, that I’d previously subscribed to. It’s pretty basic, the 1st episode was about how the host got into pickleball and about his pickleball Instagram account and the 2nd episode was about how the game of pickleball got its name. The guy is nice—he’s only been playing a few months—but I suspect other podcasts would be more worth my time . . . like the one Mark Renneson just started, Pickleball Problems. But his is not on iTunes yet, so it’s not as easy to listen to was some others. Oh, I fell back asleep about 5:45, only to be back up again about 7:30.

My wife walked into our bedroom. “It’s cold out there.” I pulled out my phone. 45°. Chilly. But the surprise was the projected high for the day. 75°! (It would actually reach past 80°!)

I pulled out my new pair of Costco court shoes. I need to secure the insoles on these now too. I’m thinking of ironing on patches to make the insoles more durable. I wore through the heel on both shoes and partially through the front as well.

Of note today, I hit a sharp dink cross court right to left. Alan took that shot and hit an around-the-post for a winner. (He got a hearty congratulations from me!) Sharp cross-court dinks are not always the best!

There were a couple of newbies there. Pam and Candi. Candi said Dave Allenbaugh has been giving them lessons. I played a game with them and Jeff (the tennis spin guy). I guessed that Candi would be the weaker player (Pam is quite tall) so I took her as my partner. I made an effort to hit a lot to Jeff to make a more interesting game, but I hit some to Pam so she wouldn’t get bored. Even in games with all weaker players, there are skills to work on. It may not be quite as fun, but in my book, there is no such thing as a bad game of pickleball!

Today was a good day. A “climb” day. I missed a small number of my drop shots, but I played well overall. Enough that I was craving stronger competition most of the day. After I signed up on the schedule board, Olga asked, “Why aren’t you signed up as advanced?” I told her, “I’ve been told advanced is supposed to be 4.0 players and above. I’m not a 4.0.” “What do you think you are?” “Probably a 3.5.” But then I added, “Maybe I’m getting closer to a 4.0.” But here’s the rub. There’s “by the book” 4.0 then there’s “tournament” 4.0. I’m certainly not a tournament 4.0. No way. As for the players there today, I was likely one of the top 6. We topped out at about 30 players today. Eric, Oleg, Stuart, Kim, Cathy, maybe another, and me would round out the top. Of those, I only got to play against Eric. (I had Grita as a partner in my first/warm up game.) Bruce made for some decent completion though, he always does. If he had a better soft game, he’d be absolutely deadly, but I think pickleball falls second to playing basketball for him.

After I locked up the club storage bins, Laura and her husband Terry, Oleg and Olga and I headed over to La Cabana for lunch. Ha! Eric was there with Ted finishing up their lunches and across the room was Cathy (who often plays with Kim)! Pickleball central! It was an enjoyable lunch—food and conversation!

After that, putting up Christmas lights!

Number of days on a court: 101
Number of total hours: 285

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.