Pickleball Journey

Adventures of Andrew Lenz and a Yellow Ball

Tag: new paddle

Elbow Woes Return

November 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Sunday, November 3, 2019 (Court Day #320)

Today was the change from Daylight Savings, which meant an extra hour to sleep in, but I woke up at my normal old time regardless. One good test for my elbow is to stretch my arm out straight in front of me, fingers pointing out, palm facing down then bend my hand up at the wrist (not using my other hand) so my fingers are pointing to the ceiling. Not a lot of pain means the elbow is doing pretty well. Pain, then the opposite. This morning, this test didn’t yield much pain.

I was at Derby Park about 10 minutes before opening to set up. Grita and Cabrillo Student who I met on Friday, Jesse. “I forgot to reset my watch!”, explained Jesse.

I figured I’d play the first hour left-handed then switched to righty. A man came who was told me he was a 4.5 player when I asked. He said he’s a friend of Terry Long. It was fun playing against him. I ended up switching to my right hand midway through our game, though we lost against him anyway. I wish he was around more often.

David Black asked me to sign the two of us in a game together. (That’s a definite pat on the back, he recognized that I played well on Friday.) I asked Charles to join us and then waited for the existing red box to fill. Once it did, I signed up the three of us up in a new box then waited for a fourth. Adrian would be that player. When you want to get better, you pick the weakest player as your partner, I picked Adrian. (No offense to Adrian.) When David saw Adrian and me walking to the other side of the court, he half-joking said, “You guys want to die?” What’s shocking is that it didn’t go that way. Neither of them played their best game, I played solidly, and Adrian did just fine. Adrian and I won. Yes, shocking! But it happens. Like the time a few months ago when Grita and I lost 0-11 to a team we should have easily beat. It happens.

As the morning wore on, my right arm started to hurt. Backhands in particular. Two days recovery from a full day of righty play is not enough. For my last game, I switched back to lefty.

I left at 12:45, with Janet agreeing to close up. Hers was the last game of the day.

When I got home, I iced my elbow while watching the Oakland Raiders win—I enjoyed the game with my son Nicholas—and even up their season record to 4-4.

Tonight, my wrist-bend elbow test caused pain. The outing today took a toll. So frustrating.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019 (No Play)

On Instagram, there a bunch of photos right now from Nationals in Southern California. If I wasn’t hurt and playing left-handed for most of this year, there’d be a decent chance that I might have seriously considered competing there this year. I hate this. It makes me so exasperated. I love playing pickleball, but I’m crippled by this tennis elbow. No specialist that I’ve seen seems to really know how to fix it. The new paddle does seem to help a little. The forearm band seems to help a little. But playing still makes it get worse.

While I can get by playing lefty, I can’t be a 4.0 or a 4.5 player that way. I’ve spent too much of my life as a right-handed person. I just don’t have the power or control or quick enough reflexes. While playing righty, on an outright slam by Charles down the middle, I was able to dig out the low rocketed ball and return it backhanded—while it was still a few inches shy from making it over the net, the shot still impressed the rest of the players on my court. I can dig out some shots lefty but I can’t ever see making a shot like that with anything other than my right hand.

Blog Technical Progress

The green lines of doom. CPU spikes! My tag testing.

Oh, WordPress. I figured out that for some reason, if I add tags to my posts, it spikes the server CPU and takes my site down. Tags aren’t particularly useful anyway, so I’ll just skip adding them to posts. It’s weird.

I also dumped the “Classic Editor” plugin and am now using the latest WordPress editor. I figure the less plugins the better my site will run. Plus it was messing up my posts and paragraphs were all cramped together . . . I went back and fixed those.

Thursday, November 7, 2019 (No Play)

I had a flight to take at 6:35 a.m. this morning. I finally got enough done last night that I could crawl into bed around 11 p.m. then woke up about six times between then and 3:45 a.m. when I got up. I parked my car at off-site long term parking and waited for the shuttle. I looked over and thought, “Boy, that sure looks like Sue. Not 100% sure though.” It was out of context and still dark at about 5:15. I got on the shuttle and serendipity, one of the last seats, next to me, was filled by the woman. I asked her, “Are you a teacher?” She looked at me incredulously, “Yes…” “And you play pickleball?” She was even more aghast, “Yes, but how…” “And your name is Sue?” She broke into a smile. “Oh, Andrew!” Like I said, context! She was heading out of state to visit her parents. While there she said she’d be playing in a pickleball tournament with her dad. Fun! Unfortunately for me, I was unable to line up a game while I’ll be in New Orleans at a trade show.

The wee hours at San Jose Airport. Stop in Dallas, then to New Orleans.

WordPress

So, it turns out it wasn’t tags—or just tags—that caused server spikes. Yesterday, a guy named Steve asked to have me add “flying erne” to my pickleball terminology page. (He’d recommended it before, but I wasn’t convinced yet.) Steve sent a link to a video of Nationals with the announcers, one is Mark Renneson, discussing the move made twice in the span of a few minutes.

Friday, November 8, 2019 (No Play)

While at the trade show, one night the attendees were taken to a bowling alley for dinner and fun.

A New Orleans bowling alley. I won the first game with a score of 112 which anyone who actually bowls would scoff!

I bowled two games then my right shoulder started to hurt. I switched to left and halfway into the game, the screen went black and were kicked out at 10 p.m.

I knew it was a bit of a gamble playing. Bowling is far from a regular activity and unusual activities usually result in soreness. I’m hoping that it’ll be fine by next week—assuming it’ll be sore.

Monday, November 11, 2019 (No Play)

After me working 8 days straight, four of my staff couldn’t come in to work this morning and I had to cancel my plans to take the morning off and play pickleball with my son. Sometimes running a business stinks.

Maybe it’s good that it worked out like this. My right arm—mostly the inside of my forearm—and shoulder are still a little sore from bowling on Friday night.

My current plan is to play Wednesday morning left-handed and play Friday right-handed. But so far, my plans haven’t been going that great!

Number of days on a court: 320
Number of total hours: 897

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

Playing righty with a New Paddle

November 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Friday, November 1, 2019 (Court Day #319)

I arranged to take the morning off. Our home weather station was reading 47 degrees outside. Nah, no sweatshirt. I left my house, got about three blocks away then realized that I’d left my new paddle on the dining room table, still protected in the padded manilla envelope. Oops. I went back and grabbed it.

I arrived at Brommer Park just before 9:30 a.m. and I took one of the last four parking spots in the lot. It was sunny. Games were going but not all the courts were full yet. It was a lighter attendance day and wait times to get onto courts were short for the whole session.

The newly resurfaced courts.

I got out my new ProKennex paddle. Today, I’d play right-handed. I’d see just how good this paddle and gel grip tape is in preventing more aggravation of my tennis elbow.

My first game was with Mike (curly gray hair) against Tony and I think it was Joe. Mike and I lost, but I’d attribute this loss to my rusty play. I was disappointed, but, heck, it’s—what?—my fourth day playing righty this whole year? And it’s November! I got a “Where were you hitting?” from Mike when I blew a forehand and it dropped on our side of the court, but after the game when I apologized for my poor play, he said, “I didn’t think you played that bad. And you’ve got a new paddle and are back to playing right-handed.” On one point, Mike made a series great stretch shots from the backcourt where he dropped the ball right over the net.

There was tall young man with dark hair and braces there named Jesse. He said he has been taking Kim’s pickleball class at Cabrillo. When I asked about his experience, he also said he used to playing middle school. “Did you go to Mission Hill?” “Yes.” “My daughter went there and she said she played pickleball there too.” He seems like an upbeat fellow. I didn’t play with him, he was signing up in the lowest skill level.

Kim and Grita were signed up in red. I popped over to Kim and asked if I could sign up in her box. I told her that I’d be playing right-handed. She agreed and I added my name. Steve (not lefty Steve, this is goatee Steve) was our fourth. It was a good back and forth close game. Steve and I won.

David Black, Kevin, and I were signed up in a box. (I asked permission.) Susi added her name. Surprisingly, David made a lot of mistakes (for him) in that game, but David and I still won.

Steve and Ted were signed up in red. I’m a bit surprised that Ted is signing up in red, but I wouldn’t expect him to be in a game with John Connor or Dean. Neither would I, though I’m the stronger player when I play righty. I added my name. I asked Dan—who was cleaning up as the session was over—if he had another game in him. He said he did. Awesome! We had a fourth. I was anxious to play well. Dan plays in games with the best of the local best. It did not start off well. I hit my first three service returns past their baseline. Ugh. That doesn’t impress a strong partner! I just told myself to relax and play normally. Dan’s only negative comment in the entire game was “You should be more of a bungee cord with me. Don’t get too far ahead.” (Dan was taking shots at the baseline and I was halfway up to the kitchen.) On the flipside, he had a number of nice things to say like, “That was a perfect drop shot” or “Good patience!” or “Nice kill!” or “Good serve!” Ted and Steve went up 8-6. Dan and I went on a five point run and won the game 11-8. (It helps when you don’t return serves out!)

It was great serving and playing right-handed. I was a little rusty, as you’d expect, but I made some nice shots and played solidly. My one recurring weakness today was low backhand dropshots—those were unsuccessful far too often. They did get a little better, but I’ll need to work that back up . . . if I can continue to play right-handed.

I left the courts at 12:30. With work looming, I didn’t have time to ice my forearm.

We’ll see how much damage I did playing righty today. There was one overhead that I could really feel my elbow. I’ll know within 24 hours.

Saturday, November 2, 2019 (No Play)

I’m cautiously optimistic today about my arm.  At the moment, it’s not overly sore from yesterday’s three hour session. Maybe it’s early, but maybe it’s actually ok. The bone at the right elbow seems more tender, but it’s hard to say yet.

Number of days on a court: 319
Number of total hours: 893.5

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

Good Games and Paddle Order

October 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Thursday, October 24, 2019 (Court Day #316)

72nd day out playing lefty. (Tennis elbow.)

Today was the first day in weeks where I had a strong desire to get out and play pickleball. I’m not sure why the feeling is back, but it is.

i left work 10 minutes before closing, at 5:50. I was hoping to be at Skypark 15 minutes early, but that didn’t happen. I pulled up at 6:26, still early, but not really early. A number of games were already in full swing. I didn’t have to wait long for a game. My first game performance wasn’t anything to write home about.

I was waiting at one point with four others and I was thinking we should just set up a net in the last (8th) spot, which we did. I spent virtually no time tonight waiting to get into games. I rolled from one game to another to another.

Carol, who’s been playing left-handed due to a right shoulder injury, called over and said, “I aspire to get as good as you.” She on her way, she’s doing surprisingly well.

After a game as partners, Stuart admitted, “You’ve got skills.” That said, I popped up a lot of shots. Those were balanced with some successful hard shots.

Carol, the one who calls me her “inspiration” played a game with me against Stuart and Mark Dettle. We lost 11-2. We had a rematch and went up 3-0. Then I figured out what was going on, they were playing lefthanded like us—well, almost, Stuart was still serving right-handed! I don’t blame him, serving lefty is miserable for me. Carol and I won 11-1. We played a third game, this time normally with them playing righty. Nonetheless, Carol and I won 11-8! What do you know! Mark said afterward that switching back to his right after playing with his left messed him up a bit.

What’s amazing is I nailed a number of drop shots tonight. I was really impressed with myself. Drop shots! Crazy. Left-handed.

After a great battle of a game between Mike and Mark against (male) Terry and me, Mike said, “I don’t even know how you do it.”

I tagged both Mike and Mark tonight with body shots.

I narrowly missed a lefty backhand ATP shot. After the game, Mike and Terry both said they’d never done an ‘around the post’ shot. I, on the other hand, must have a dozen or more now.

The last game wrapped up at 8:47.

 

Friday, October 25, 2019 (No Play)

I bit the bullet today and placed my order for the ProKennex paddle—and a couple rolls of gel grip tape which someone on the Facebook Pickleball Forum said would also help dampen the ball impact vibrations. Pickleball Central has a discount code that gives buyers 5% off and also rebates an additional 5% back to the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club. Win, win.

 

I’m excited! New paddle! It’s been almost a year since I bought the Prince Response Pro paddle, my last paddle purchase. It already shipped and says it should be here by Monday.

Number of days on a court: 316
Number of total hours: 883.5

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

 

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