Author: andrewlenz (Page 4 of 327)

Thursday, June 25, 2026 (Court Day #940)

The plantar fasciitis in my left foot is improving. Stretching seems to make a huge difference. Last night, I ordered a soft splint, which will keep my foot closer to 90° angle, which keeps the fascia stretched out overnight. The claim is that the fascia heals overnight in a shorter relaxed foot position, then it can tear when stretched out by walking around in the morning. I will say that morning is typically the worst, however, on Sunday afternoon, the pain in my foot was significant. Quite a bit more so than it would typically be in the morning. Regardless, it was a little tight and only very mildly sore as I headed to Scotts Valley tonight.

On My Way

It was sunny and 66° as I drove to Scotts Valley after work. I got one of my staff to close up te business since I haven’t gotten to play much lately and I really want to get in more than my typical 90 minutes tonight.

I realized that forgot my sports sunglasses at home, but I keep a pair of sunglasses for driving in my car regardless, so I used those instead.

Skypark

Being early to the courts was nice, was able to find myself a spot in the parking lot.

I was walking into the courts at 6:06 p.m.

There were three or four games going on, but I was the odd man out. I spent about 10 minutes waiting for someone to show up. Eventually, Aaron Huang arrived and he and I started warming up. Shreyas arrived, and we started warming him up and then Alec finished whatever game he was in and joined us.

I played an assortment of unmemorable games for the two and half hours I was at Skypark.

The lights went out shortly after 8:30 p.m. and we were in the middle of a game. Aaron Hicks and I were playing against Shreyas and short left-handed Eric. We played for about 10 minutes after wrapping up the lopsided win.

I do have to give some credit to Eric. There was one rally where there was a high ball and I slammed that thing really good. But Eric still managed to get the ball back anyway. I’m pretty good about getting slams like that back myself so it was a taste of almost like playing in a mirror.

I was not playing my best tonight, though I was serving pretty well.

Pro Accident

Earlier today at an MLP event in New York, a large baseline LED scoreboard blew over briefly trapping Rachel Rohrabacher’s leg. It looked really bad, but she was relatively ok, though she didn’t return to play.

Here is an articles about it:
https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/baseline-scoreboard-falls-on-player-during-mlp-new-york-match/
…and another…
https://www.timesnownews.com/sports/pickleball/frightening-scene-at-mlp-new-york-as-wind-blows-led-scoreboard-onto-rachel-rohrabacher-article-154784734

And Nico the Lefty’s take on the incident (with a warning that there is foul language):
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaBiWpsyEDS

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Friday, June 26, 2026 (No Play)

It’s seriously getting time to retire one of my pairs of pickleball shoes! (I need a pickleball show sponsor!)

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Saturday, June 27, 2026 (No Play)

Jennifer Lucore, retired pro women’s champion, added a new entry to her blog:
https://allpickleball.com/first-pro-pickleball-tour/
It’s really cool to revisit history. The first pro tournaments were held a few months after I started playing pickleball. Jennifer has a couple of links on that page to blog posts that she made at the time. (At the moment, they say April 2016 and May 2016, but I just emailed her telling her that those are supposed to be 2017.)

A kick is this photo that Jennifer shared as a part of a collage of pro participants:

I commented on Jennifer’s social media post promoting this new blog post. I said, “That kind of looks like Tyson but with no tattoos!” (Granted, I was viewing it on my little phone screen.) She replied, “yes, it’s Tyson”. Wow. Tyson is much more decorative these days.

You can see Tyson’s own take on the passage of time here.

Funny!

Here’s an amusing photo of a future pickleball player in the womb:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DZsH8Z-xFMR/

Number of days on a court: 940
Number of total hours: 3,485
Number of paid coaching hours: 218.5

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

Tuesday, June 23, 2026 (Court Day #939)

I took a rare day off from work today. My wife and I drove down to Monterey to shop for a new bed. After success doing that, we drove back north and had quick but leisurely lunch in a Mexican restaurant in Aptos. When we got home, I took the dogs for a walk and caught up on my email—first for work then for personal.

SV Meeting

Tonight is a meeting of the Scotts Valley Parks & Rec Commission. The future of the pickleball courts at Skypark are part of the discussion. I couldn’t go to the last commission meeting two months ago since I was running my mom and brother around for medical appointments at the same time. (My brother has recovered from his pneumonia and my mom‘s hearing has returned.)

I left my house at 4:15 p.m. to head to the courts in Scotts Valley to get a little bit of play in before the meeting. It was sunny and in the high 60s.

When I arrived, there is a group of six pre-teen children playing on one court at the far end. Then there was a woman—whom I’d had seen out before but I don’t know her—giving a lesson on one of the courts. I texted Paul and Matt to see if they were available but Paul was at a baseball game and Matt was about to make dinner for his family. Matt did add that he was going to jump onto the meeting virtually later.

Drilling

I spent about 20 minutes alone working on different types of serves—short serve, backhand, forehand, drop serve with slice, etc. Then a woman named Cheryl arrived. I asked if she wanted to hit a ball around and she said she would until her friend arrived. That would turn out to be a while!

After about 10 minutes of Cheryl and myself hitting a ball back-and-forth at the net, Gabby and a friend of hers, a guy named Aaron, arrived. I’ve seen Aaron around a few times but I definitely do not know him well. They played against Cheryl and myself.

Gabby was the weakest player and, of the players on the court, Aaron would be the one I would pick as a tournament partner.

Cheryl and won both games. Aaron had solid play punctuated with some great shots. Cheryl’s friends had arrived and that was that. Cheryl did say, “I should take a lesson and you can teach me that serve you use!” (I’d earned a few points in a row with unreturnable serves.)

I did manage one last game playing with a young woman named Eva against a regular, Doon, and his friend Phillips. We lost. I felt bad about a speedup I hit that headed right for Phillips face—fortunately, he was able to dodge it.

They wanted to play again but I asked the time. 5:46 p.m. Time to get to the meeting.

Meeting Time

After some administrative stuff by the commission, Allison, the director of P&R, talked briefly about a recent soccer event and new animal tamper proof trash cans at Skypark. (Which, I have to admit, are very effectively designed.)

Then Allison went on to present the community survey regarding the Skypark courts. There were a number of slides, but here are a couple…

It was brought up that someone had brought portable lights to extend playing time. I can see doing that at Brommer Park where there are no close homes, but Skypark is in a neighborhood.

There was also a complaint about about pickleball players blocking driveways.

A number of speakers got up to talk on behalf of pickleball, including Mark Dettle. A handful of neighbors got up to speak about traffic and noise. With the Chief of Police present, the neighbor who angrily insulted one of the commissioners was on his best behavior.

I got up myself, shared who I was and what I do for pickleball. I shared my points.

• Private portable lights are unacceptable. We’ll send out an email about that to the club.
• Blocking driveways is unacceptable.
• Vast majority of players are happy to have police enforcement.
• I recommended that if we are considering cutting the lights earlier, give players a chance to try quiet equipment after 8 p.m.
• I was at the courts before I came here there was a group of children playing aged about 9-12. There’s a player I know who is 88. The sport provides exercise to a wide range of ages.
• A survey by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association shows that an estimated 24.3 million Americans play pickleball. The sport has grown by 479% over the past five years. 
• My three summer beginner pickleball classes are all sold out. 
• The club will encourage players to park at skatepark. 

Some additional speakers got up addressed the commission.

Actions

The commissioners discussed reducing the number of pickleball courts from 8 to just 4, but that didn’t gain any traction among them.

But what did gain traction and passed was a motion was cutting 30 minutes off of the evening lights for a trial period of about six months. So, 8 p.m. instead of 8:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 9 p.m. instead of 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

Ouch.

Painful for the nights I can’t leave work until 6:45 p.m. I’d only get about 60 minutes of play before the lights turned off.

I stayed after the meeting and talked to the commission chairman afterward, sharing that I might only get to play a hour in the evenings. He suggested, “Maybe you get off from work earlier?”
“Maybe.”
Truth be told, I am the boss. I set my hours. (That’s why I work 6 days a week!) But my work doesn’t end because I say so. That 30 minutes of lights lost will very likely mean 30 minutes lost for my play too.

A couple of years ago, when the lights went from 9:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. I didn’t get to arrive an hour earlier. I when from 2.5 hours of play to 1.5 hours.

Number of days on a court: 939
Number of total hours: 3,482.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 218.5

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

Sunday, June 21, 2026 (Court Day #938)

My son Nicholas drove down from Santa Clara last night, I’m assuming for Father’s Day weekend. He and my wife and I went out to dinner last night to Rosie McCann’s, the local Irish pub, where they were all decked out in honor of World Cup soccer. A game between two obscure foreign countries was plastered over all the screens. In the end, one team was very unhappy and the other one was delighted that the score had ended up 0-0. One team was from a tiny island country off of Venezuela and I imagine them tying the game was a major upset in their favor!

I asked Nicholas if you would like to play pickleball in the morning and he said that he would and, in fact, he brought his pickleball bag. Nicholas has been taking tennis lessons the last few months, we would see how that affects his pickleball game.

Derby Park

We arrived at Derby Park at 9:30 a.m. It was foggy and cool, though it got sunny later.

Everyone was still signing up in the court boxes in just black pen since it was it wouldn’t be mixed skill until 10 a.m. The waits were short when we signed up and there is only one group waiting to get on ahead of us.

Games

First game with Nicholas would be against Patrick and Jens. We were all arriving and so none of us had played. We warmed up a little bit then got into our game. Nicholas and I found ourselves down 2-9 versus Jens and Patrick, but we came back and won 13-11.

Today, I felt like I’m still a little bit rusty getting back to playing right-handed after playing lefty for a few weeks to keep tennis elbow at bay.

In our next game, Nicholas and I won the 11-1 versus Allan and Jens.

For the next game, the pendulum swung. We lost 0-11 against Sean Lynch and Stuart Howell. Sean, of course, is a strong player and Stuart, while not a spring chicken, is solid. Sean is better than I am and Stuart is better than Nicholas.

Splitting Up

For the next game, Nicholas and I split up into signing up in different skill levels. When I told Sean, he said, “Brutal!” Yes, I dropped my own son as my partner for a game. Ha! Sorry, Nicholas.

I was signed up in a box with Sean and Stuart again and Jeff (Scott’s brother) would be our fourth.

When we walked on, Sean asked me if I wanted to team up and show them? I was tempted but I opted to split us up for more of a challenge.

Jeff and I lost 6-11 versus Sean and Stuart. This was Jeff’s first game of the day and it was a bit rough. Midway through the game, he was a bit mad at himself, “I have to stop doing that! That’s the fourth time I’ve hit that into the net!“ Jeff was driving backhands that were too low. The good news is, he hit a backhand passing shot not too long after that for a winner. So there was some redemption for him!

Time to Go

Nicholas’ last game ended a few minutes before our game ended. We checked the time. 11:30 a.m. Nicholas wanted time to go by a bike store and purchase a new bike helmet. I needed to get home, have lunch, and then get out to teach my classes. There is a bike shop a few blocks away from the park and he made a successful selection there. His main takeaway? “Don’t buy a bike helmet at REI.” (Apparently, theirs are lower rated helmets and inventory can be old and bike helmets have a self-life…though I wonder how much of that is propagated by helmet manufacturers!)

Nicholas shared that his recent tennis lessons didn’t negatively affect his pickleball play, so he was happy about that.

Teaching

What’s funny, is my students this afternoon were complaining about it being hot. It was only 72°F! Of course, it’s always warmer in direct sunlight and moving around on a hot court surface, but I was out teaching last year and it was over 100°F. This was very pleasant in comparison!

Number of days on a court: 938
Number of total hours: 3,481
Number of paid coaching hours: 218.5

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