Author: andrewlenz (Page 138 of 328)

Tuesday, September 20, 2022 (Court Day #550)

I left work and arrived at Skypark at 6:30 p.m. I’ve learned that I can park back alongside the courts if the paved parking lot is full.

Tennis Bottleneck

When I arrived, the four permanent pickleball courts are full of players, and a bunch of other players were sitting and standing along the bench and fence waiting for the two tennis players on the dual-striped tennis court to finish and open up the four additional temporary pickleball courts—which would accommodate 16 waiting people.

Tonight, there were three singles games going on for tennis. Two on dedicated courts but the third was on the one court also striped for pickleball. About five minutes after I arrived, the two tennis players who are playing singles decided that they were done. It turns out one of those two tennis players also plays pickleball. I’d seen him in the group once before, but we haven’t been introduced nor played together yet.

Someone asked if I had access to the storage bin with the portable nets and I said I did. I put it in the code and opened the lock box with the key to the bin and we pulled out the four portable nets and immediately set up three of them. The last one also got set up not too much later.

Tonight, with the exception of one game, I had all pretty strong opponents. I was playing reasonably well, though I kept track of how many balls I hit into the white tape of the net tonight. 15. A whole lot! Too many.

Children

Matt B. brought his energetic son Lucas and Paul W. brought his daughter Mallory. While I didn’t play any of the kids—they walked to their nearby home fairly early—Matt said Lucas had an ATP tonight. Lucas is still very much a little kid, but he gets around on the court!

Last Games

The last four games of the night, which were all pretty long, was Tim and myself against Matt and his friend Paul. The first game was pretty even, the second game was lopsided in their favor. The third game Tim and I won 11 to 3. And the fourth and final game Tim and I were leading when Paul and Matt turned it on and end up winning that game. There are fun challenging games. Matt and Paul continue to improve. From what I understand they are still coming out at lunchtime, since they live very very close nearby, and playing singles and drilling. They’re both making less unforced errors than they had in the past.

The lights clicked off at 9:30 p.m., a few minutes after we finished that final game. It was a three hour session of playing pickleball.

Damn.

When I got home, I had some dinner. I was eating salad—no cruttons—when my right canine tooth snapped off at the gum line. (Things you don’t have to deal with with when you are under 50!)

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Wednesday, September 21, 2022 (No Play)

I got an emergency appointment with my dentist this morning. She was very empathetic. “Ooo, the nerve is exposed!” (That explains why I didn’t sleep that well last night and trying to brush too near that tooth was exceedingly painful!) She gently poked the nerve with a tool to see if it was “live” and I nearly jumped out of the dentist chair. She proceeded to kill the nerve with some solution on a cotton ball and then did an impromptu root canal. “I haven’t done this in so long!” (Dentists tend to specialize these days and send out things like extractions and root canals.) She put on an temporary filling and sent me on my way after some effort trying to set up an appointment with the oral surgeon who was off for the day.

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Thursday, September 22, 2022 (No Play)

This morning, I got a call from the oral surgeon’s office and my dentist had convinced him to go ahead and remove my bad tooth today instead of making me wait two weeks. It was a tricky extraction that took 2-3 times longer than is typical, but it was successful. Now I wait six months then a metal post to goes in, then another four months for it to bond then I get a fake tooth will be put on.

I planned to head to work after the procedure, but I was miserable.

Instead of playing pickleball tonight, I’m lying on my bed swapping out bloody gauze every hour or so and taking Advil. No fun. But it could always be worse!

Interesting Video

Tyson McGuffin does some pro rallies breakdown:

That video lead me to stumbling on this article that has some useful insights:

Shake and Bake – Pickleball’s Equivalent to Boxing’s Left Jab and Right Cross

One particularly interesting tidbit is if one of your two opponents is deadly volleying at the net and they are both back, hit to the deadly one to keep him away from his strength.

Number of days on a court: 550
Number of total hours: 2,488

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

Friday, September 16, 2022 (Court Day #549)

The cable running from the antenna in my attic to my television set stopped working for some strange reason. Even crawling underneath the house, I couldn’t determine where there was any problem. However, it had to be replaced with something that was functional. So I made a stop at Santa Cruz Electronics this morning and picked up a new coaxial cable that I could run underneath my house. After that, I headed to Brommer Park knowing that the parking lot would almost certainly be full since it would be 9:30 a.m. when I’d get there.

Brommer Park

Just as I pulled into the full lot, a truck pulled out of a parking spot conveniently leaving me a place to park my car. Good karma, I guess!

I signed up on the scheduling board and waited with a bunch of other people. It was a busy morning with about 20 people in addition to the 32 on the courts.

I got one or two strong games during the session, but that was about it. The rest of the games were marginal with very few rallies of more than a few shots.

Club Shirt

Jackie, one of the board officers, was there selling the pre-ordered club shirts. I asked her if there were any extra and she said there were. I looked through the paper bag and found a silver “Large” men’s shirt and opted to buy it for $25. Now I’ve got my years-old original one in white, the blue one from this batch that was gifted to me from the club for being a site coordinator, and the purchase today of a silver club shirt. Now I have a complete collection.

Fast Hands

I was playing with Hugh against Jackie and Rene and Paul—who had not met before. There is one particularly memorable rally in that game when Jackie and Paul were slamming the ball down at me but I managed to repeatedly get the ball back anyway. I surprised myself. Those were tough shots. Jackie and Paul complimented me after that rally. Hugh thanked me after that game and said it was the first game he had won today.

I headed out from the courts at 12:15 p.m.

UTPR Update

I excitedly checked the USA Pickleball website for my new rating, given my recent tournament with Jason. (The ratings are updated on Fridays.) Sure enough, 3.5.

I was surprised that my two-digit rating was the same, but that’s updated only quarterly. It’ll get updated in a couple of weeks though, October 1.

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Saturday, September 17, 2022 (No Play)

This is an interesting deep-dive breakdown of a single point in a game of 5.0 players by Jordan Briones.

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Sunday, September 18, 2022 (No Play)

Lots of rain today. I sent out first Mailchimp club play cancelation notice by myself. When I was done, I texted Mark and Tony—SCPC board members—letting them know that they didn’t need to lift a finger, but it was done! They were pleased!

Article my wife shared by text on August 25, but I forgot to share it with you, my dear readers, yet:

Pickleball: Sport of Future Injury?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/20/health/pickleball-sports-injury.html

Here’s another link to the article:
https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/pickleball-sport-of-the-future-injury

“Achilles’ strains or tears, shoulder problems, rotator cuff injuries, lower back problems such as disc injuries, muscle strains,” said Noe Sariban, a pickleball instructor, former pro player and physical therapist who markets himself as the Pickleball Doctor. And, of course, there’s lateral epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow — now pickleball elbow.

“Pickleball kind of sounds like a game with a silly name, but it’s a sport,” Sariban said. “It’s no bocce ball.”

Number of days on a court: 549
Number of total hours: 2,485

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

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

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