24 Hours of Adrenaline

Treena got me on her team for 24 Hours of Adrenaline a few months ago. Her buddy was putting in a team (sponsored! No fees! I'm such a freegan), and I got a spot. I was nervous, because I've only been on my bike about 6 times so far this year. I'm pretty sure only 2 of them were trail rides, and both of those were little ones in Calgary. I was hoping to ride more (leading up the event), but was always crunched for time with lots of ultimate and a very rainy early season. Anyway, by Friday, I couldn't help but think maybe I should have signed up for the 48 Hours of Fuck All this weekend.

I knew I'd have a blast as soon as I actually got there, which I absolutely did. I was the 4th rider (Shannon was second and Treena third), so my first lap was somewhere around 4 o'clock. That lap was my most fun, partially because it was 'dry' (there were wet roots, but not too much mud yet) - looking back on it, compared to the torrential downpours we got before (started right as Treena started riding) and pretty much the rest of the weekend, that loop was 'dry'. I took about 1 hr 15 minutes, and was really pleased with that loop.

My second lap was my night lap. I think I stared around 12:30 or 12:45 in the morning. It was weird/neat/scary riding with lights (thanks to Rob & Nat/Shannon for the loans) and f'ing hard in all that mud. The technically rooty section from the first lap became a giant, rainy, nighttime trail run/walk with my bike. So much uphill! It was wet enough that I don't think I could have ridden that fresh, during the day, at the end of the season. The night lap was very tiring, both because it was at night, and because of the mud. I think I churned out an extra 100 calories per hill by slipping. Although I did get new tires (so needed) for the race (the front one was the original, and I both commuted on it on bikepath for a long time and took it to Moab) and they were AWESOME. My night lap time was 1 hr 50.

I managed to get a solid 3.5 hours of sleep (while Deanna, Reagan and Shannon rode), before getting up and getting ready (while Treena rode). I could tell I was a little fatigued at that point when I punched myself in the nose stuffing my sleeping bag into it's stuff sag. My first slipped - ow.

My third and final lap was our teams last. I think I left around 10? I really enjoyed this lap too, although I did have one really hard bail in the rooty section. There was so much mud that I was having a hard time clipping in (same on the night lap). I had other 'bail', but I didn't really fall, I just lost control, leapt off the back on my bike - it went down the little hill without me. Final time was 1 hr 34 minutes.

There were lots of people that I knew at the race (I nearly said tournament), which I didn't expect. It was a nice surprise, and I think I got a boost of energy from everyone I saw.

Everyone rode really well - everyone kicked at least one lap. It was a really fun group.

Random ride note: I was only kind of proud of riding a hardtail. I think I saw maybe one other one the whole weekend.

ps. The dark shot was taken about 4 am just before I went to bed. The white streak is a riders light as he passed.

Twisted Element

Last weekend, I checked out Calgary's one gay bar (how lame is it that there is one?) with a buddy. It was lots of fun - they played good music, it was great people watching, and best of all, we got to hang out with drag queens for part of the night. Seriously. Definitely an experience.

Rawson Lake Pictures

Various scenery shots (such a nice day)

View from the top.

Oops, I guess I need to learn to work the timer.

The door blew open right as I walked by.
Travis and Terri.

Bug at Terri's house, not on the hike at all. BTW, when I say 'bug', I mean either dragonfly or damselfly. I can't remember which.

Alberta Regionals

Alberta Regionals were this weekend, and the tournament has never been more exciting. (read: until now, the tournament has never been exciting.) The co-ed division was the one to watch, with 5 teams from Alberta fighting for two spots in Nationals at home. Two teams were from Edmonton - Red Herring and Psychoplastique, and three from Calgary - Bronco, Oui and Crude. I really enjoyed watching lots of hard fought ultimate this weekend! I had to cheer good play, because Red Herring was the only team that I didn't either have good friends on or have some sort of connection with. I've played a bit of Psycho (last year, Vegas, nearly this year - they are a great group and skilled players!), I have lots of friends on Oui, and I've been all but playing Bronco all year (I practice with them, have played two tourneys and even have a uniform!).

Psycho took first place with a win over Bronco this morning by 3 points. This was a great game - so tight the whole way and both teams played so hard. Meanwhile, Oui beat out Crude for the chance to play the loser of the 1-2 game via UPA format.

Bronco took the second place to Nationals with a CRAZY comeback over Oui in a universe point!

Congratulations to Bronco and Psycho!!

I feel really bad for Oui, because they are a great team and definitely deserve a spot at Nationals too. Hopefully the Alberta teams will do really well this year and get lots of spots for next year.

Our game (women's division) was enjoyable, and I felt we played well. We were trying to work our plays and zones, and we were running with a small squad of about 11. I really enjoyed the game, and was really stoked to hit endzone on one of my pulls (little known fact: I practice pulling and throwing on my own a lot, especially early and late season. Even when I'm just practicing in a field by myself, I'd say I can hit endzone about one in 50, maybe 100 pulls, even downwind. It's something I really want to be able to do consistently!). Anyway, we won over Edmonton 17-3, which may have been a tad anticlimactic after the exciting and close co-ed games. Nationals, here we come.

Seattle Pictures

I have a blacklog of topics (a backblog?), but I'm just going to post some pictures for now. They are from Seattle last weekend, hanging out with the Millar brothers. We wandered around Pike Place Market. The night before we wandered around downtown a bit, and found a delicous frozen cheesecake to share (J.Lo and Petra from Edmonton were there too) at about 11 o'clock at night. On my flight home (the bit from Vancouver to Calgary), for the first time ever, I GOT BUMPED TO FIRST CLASS! So much room, and free (really good) food. I enjoyed every minute. I'm sure I fit right in with my Batman T-shirt and flip-flops.

View from the Sheraton in downtown Seattle.

Mmm, street crepes for breakfast.

We enjoyed coffee from the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market.

Potlatch 2008

Oops, another big gap in posting. I haven't been flaky, I've been away. I'm hoping to get a little more sanity time (and some clean socks) in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, he's a very quick version of what happened at Potlatch. The 4th of July fell on the Friday this year, which means Potlatch was a three day tourney. I was playing with a team called Summer Camp, from Texas. It was a bunch of Double Wide guys, some girls from the Texas co-ed team (or a Texas co-ed team - I didn't catch the name), Steve Finn from Seattle (who played Booyakasha last year and plays for Shazam, aka Team USA co-ed this year), plus Janice from Edmonton and me.

We did really well the first two days, winning all our games to go 6-0. We were ranked 6th in A pool going into the Sunday pre-quarter. It was a tough, hard-running, really fun game, but closer than we would have liked. Just when we would start to get a little gap or get a break, we'd make an uncharacteristic mistake or huck away. We very very nearly scored a point near the end of the game, and ended up f'ing it up and getting scored on instead. In hind sight, had we scored that one, we would have been up 12-10 when the hard can horn went off. Instead it was 11-11, universe point. It was an exciting one, and we had a huck off that might have one the game, but it got d'ed, and they hucked the other way to end our run. Boo urns.

We played one more game, losing to Downtown Brown 15-13. They were a good team and we played hard when on the field, but the team had definitely lost it's fire. I think we would have won if we were playing like it really mean something. On a happy note, Janice got a sweet D on Awesome that game. (Awesome, thus dubbed at Flowerbowl, is a girl who plays for Fury who wears glasses, looks like an astrophysicist, and can layout at head level. She's AWESOME.)

More on Potlatch to come, including who we playing, the games, plus the other teams that were there - two Calgary teams, LP and Oui UC, plus TFP from Van.

Boston - Tourney Run Down

Lotus won the tourney in the women's easterns division. The tourney was split into women's easterns and women's elite. When I first read it, I was pretty disappointed that Lotus went to the easterns side and Stella (Ottawa) went to the elite side. I'm all for getting your asses kicked in elite pool, but at least I knew ahead of time. In the end, I actually really impressed by the level of the easterns division. There were 8 elite teams and 16 women's - wow. I was thinking it would be like flowerbowl (I would never want to play in women's - there are 8 poo poo teams).

Here's the game by game:

Game 1 ended up being a really tough one. We beat an under-ranked team called Pounce (from Pittsburgh) by one point, 12-11 in a cap. That was the only point of the game that we were ahead. What a great start.

Game 2 was a local team, average but with one or two superstar types. We won 15-11. I love the UPA's score reporter - it's sweet to be able to look up the score and where people are from after the fact. I always remember the game, but that's about it).

Game 3 we took it to Salty, a good chance to get a look at them before Nationals. 15-6.

Game 4 was a crossover against another team that won their pool - Pop from Minneapolis. They were good. We battled, but lost 13-11. I think we should have won this game. We made a couple of uncharacteristic turnovers. That can be the difference in a game with a 2 point spread.

Into 1/4 finals Sunday morning - we rolled a team called Ambush from NY. I think maybe they shit the bed, and Lotus definitely played well. They didn't seem like a lose 2-15 kind of team, but Lotus took it too them.

Nemesis from Chicago in the semi. Unfortunately, I had to leave halfway through this game to get back to Boston and catch my plane. Nemesis was a good team. I think they go to UPA's. Held on 15-10 for the win.

Lotus beat Storm 11-9 in the final. Bummer that I couldn't be there - again, would have been a good one pre-Nats. I guess they traded points the who time, and the cap went on tied at 9's. Lotus took the next 2.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun playing with those guys, and of course, wonderful to see Mere.

Thanks to Marcia for sorting out how I could get my ass back to Boston for my flight. More on that end of things in another post.

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Boston

This past weekend, I went to a tournament in Boston. Why, you ask? A few reasons. Mostly to visit Mere, who I hadn't seen since last September. Also, I am a frisbee-aholic, and since Mere is playing for Lotus these days (Toronto women's), she could hook me up. Picking up with lotus seemed like an especially sweet deal considering I didn't yet have a team for HoDown (the Calgary tournament). I'd never been to Boston, so why the heck not?

I got home last night around midnight. My flight landed at 10:45, but it was Air Canada, so I'm sure I don't have to expand. I had to work today (surprisingly not that tired), and tonight I drove to Dalhousie to get a spare key to my apartment (it's been on my to do list for over a year), worked out for an hour (in the form a road ride and some push-ups with lots of stretching), cleaned up a bit (each room of my condo is currently a disaster - I need to clean clothes, dishes, my cleat bag, my bathroom etc etc) and studied German for half and hour. This is a super long-winded way of saying I'm not righting the rest of my Boston blogpost until tomorrow. Good night!