Mixed Loss

Last night I played a mixed combo match.  Unfortunately I was not scheduled to play with my husband, which is what I prefer.  I played with another guy who is a 3.5, so we made a 6.5 pair in a 7.5 league - not good.  We ended up losing 6-1, 6-1.  I don't think it had to be that bad, especially since we had a number of deuce games, but I felt like my partner wrote off the match before we even got started.  It's hard not to be insulted by that, but I think he just didn't care overall.  He's a singles player mostly, and so his doubles strategy was definitely lacking.  The opposing man also had excellent shot placement for doubles.

This morning I decided to sleep in a bit and catch up on my rest, so I didn't do a workout or even foam rolling.  I have another late match tonight.

Short Run

Last night I had planned a practice with my tennis team, but it rained.  Instead I did a 40-min run on the treadmill.  It was at an easy pace, so I split it up into 8-min segments and ran at 5.8, 5.9, 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2 mph, which averaged to 6.0 mph and a total of 4 mi.  This is the second time I've done a run like this, and I really like it.  It kind of fools me into thinking I'm not going that fast, since I started easy.

This morning I did the first workout in Stage 3 of NROLW again.  I used the same weights as I did in the last set the first time I did the workouts, except I increased the barbell bent-over rows to 58 lb.  The workout took me 75 min again...long!  I burned about 220 calories.

Monday Night Doubles

Last night I had my usual Monday night tennis doubles at TCCP.  The weekend finally caught up to me yesterday, and I was feeling really tired.  Even so, I played pretty well.  I tied my opponent in singles in the first round, 4-4.  In the second round, my partner Jessica and I barely won, 6-5.  In the last round, my partner Mariann and I finished in a tie with our opponents, 2-2.  I wasn't able to hit as many overheads as I wanted to, especially in the second round, because the kind of balls I was getting didn't work for it.  I still tried to do all the court movement.

I was tired enough last night that I decided to do my shortened version of P90X2 Recovery + Mobility this morning.  I usually do it on Thursdays, but I swapped workouts.  I really needed the foam rolling after all the tennis I've been playing lately, too.  I burned about 90 calories.

Tennis Camp!

Twelve of us from my tennis teams went to Wintergreen Resort this past weekend for tennis camp.  We rented a big house in the resort.  We arrived Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon.  It was great!  We had a tennis clinic on Friday 6 - 9pm.  We had three instructors for the twelve of us, so we really got a lot of personalized instruction.  They emphasized court positioning a lot (for doubles).  We also played some games.

On Saturday, some of us played some tennis outside around noon to try to practice some of what we'd learned.  It was a beautiful day, albeit a little brisk.  Then we had another clinic 5 - 8pm.  We learned another layer of court positioning.  The idea of following the ball not only left to right but also forward and back was great.  It was something I used to do more, but then it seemed like I wasn't "supposed" to.  However, when put together with the other strategies we were learning, it worked really well.

Sunday we had our last clinic from 11am - 1pm.  This focused on shot selection:  which shots to hit at the net person, and which to hit back to the baseline.  Also, between the three clinics, I learned something that may fix my forehand, if I can stick to it:  stop running toward the ball when it bounces.  That keeps me far enough away from the ball to be able to hit it well.

We all really liked the clinics and definitely want to go back in the spring.  I hope that everyone is able to put into play some of the strategies we learned.  We also had a really good time because it was such a friendly and easy-going group.

Once we got home yesterday, I had a tri-level match.  I got to put into play a lot of what I'd learned, and overall it worked pretty well.  I did have some overheads into the net (because I didn't turn sideways) and some other errors, but mostly I felt like I played really well.  Unfortunately Justine and I lost, 2-6, 6-2, 0-1.  We really turned things around in the second set - I switched to playing the deuce side - and we did pretty well in the match tie-breaker, but had a few too many unforced errors in the end.  Fortunately, our team won the other two courts, so we won the match overall.

This morning I did the second workout in Stage 3 of NROLW.  Again, I did 3 sets of each move, with 6 reps per set.

• Barbell Romanian deadlift and row: This was not extremely difficult in terms of the weight.  I had a hard time remembering to do both moves in a row, the deadlift and then the row.  I used 53 lb.
• Partial single-leg squat: This was done with bodyweight, and it was mostly a balance move.  My left leg was much better than my right leg.
• Pull-ups:  I did 3.5 in the first two sets and 4 in the last set.
• Prone cobra:  I did manage to do this for the required 90 sec in each set.
• YTWL: I knew this one was going to be hard, so I used 5 lb per hand.  Hopefully it's going to be good for my shoulders, because they need it.
• Swiss-ball crunch with weight: I used a 10-lb weight plate, but with only 6 reps, this wasn't difficult.  I'm not sure if I'm not doing it right, or just need more reps.
• Prone jackknife: I did these in Stage 1.  It wasn't difficult to do them for 6 reps.
• Hanna side flexion 2:  This one was difficult, because it was a kind of side crunch.  I didn't feel like I was getting myself off the ground, but I'm not sure if I was supposed to.

I was also supposed to do a HIIT sequence after these moves, like in the second workout of Stage 2.   However, the moves listed above took about 70 minutes even though I didn't really follow the 105-s rest requirement between each move, so I didn't have time for the HIIT.  I'm not sure I really need that, given how active I am, anyway.  This workout overall was not very interesting and didn't seem very intense.  Most of the moves were bodyweight or very low weights.  Well, I have to hope the designers of NROLW know what they are doing.

New Routines

Yesterday afternoon I did a run on the treadmill.  However, I am switching my approach to the runs to that promoted by "Coach Jenny".  She advocates running by effort level, not pace.  That means that sometimes you'll end up running a little slower, and sometimes a little faster.  I'm going to be following her plan for prepping for my next half-marathon, but I thought I could start using it now, before the Marine Corps Marathon 10K.  So I ran for the prescribed 50 minutes at an easy pace - I could talk the whole time.  I did 10 minutes at 5.8 mph, 10 minutes at 5.9 mph, 10 minutes at 6.0 mph, 10 minutes at 6.1 mph, and 10 minutes at 6.2 mph.  This came to 5.0 mi in 50:00 min.  Also, this will help my body get used to going faster toward the end - I hope.  The run was in fact much easier than I have felt them to be usually.  My hamstrings did not hurt much.

This morning I did the first workout of Stage 3 of NROLW.    Each exercise was 3 sets of 6 reps, with 105 sec of rest in between.  105 seconds is really long, so I usually ended up doing about 90 sec.

• One-armed dumbbell snatch:  this is like the push-press move from the last stage, but it's only one arm at a time.  I felt like I "got" this move, and it was actually kind of fun.  I used 20 lb (you only use one dumbbell) for the first set, but moved up to 25 lb for the next two sets.
• Dumbbell single-leg Romanian deadlift:  I used 12 lb per hand for this move, since the book specified "light weight".  I think the idea is more balance rather than strength.
• Barbell bent-over row:  I did use my barbell for this one.  I used 53 lb.  I may be able to increase this weight next time.
• Dumbbell single-arm overhead squat:  This is a weird move.  I used 12 lb for the arm overhead and 25 lb for the lowered arm.  I didn't feel this much in the squat.  I felt it a bit in the shoulder.  Where I really felt it was in my lower back.  When I squatted, I had a hard time keeping my back flat.
• Dumbbell incline bench press:  I used by stability ball for this one.  I used 28 lb for the first set and increased to 30 lb per hand for the next two sets.
• Plank on stability ball:  This is a repeat move from the previous stage.  However, I'm trying to increase to 90 sec per plank.  I did that for the first round, but only did 60 sec for the next two.
• Reverse wood chop:  I used a 12 lb dumbbell for the first set, but that was way too light.  For the next two sets, I used 20 lb, which was better.
• The workout ends with a sequence of body-weight moves:  24 squats, 12 lunges per leg, 12 lunge jumps per leg, and 24 squat jumps.  You're supposed to time it and rest for 2x that time and repeat.  Well, it took me 4 minutes to do the sequence.  No way was I waiting 8 minutes doing nothing.  I waited 4 minutes.  I really was easier the second time through with the big rest break.

I enjoyed this workout more than the Stage 2 workouts.  It's pretty long, though, because the rest breaks are so big.  It took me about 75 minutes to complete.  I burned about 225 calories.

First Combo Match of the Season

Last night was the first match for my 6.5 combo team this season.  Our team won two of the three courts, so we won the match.  Unfortunately Andrea and I lost our match.  It was very frustrating, because we felt like we were better players than our opponents and were playing well.  However, we couldn't close out any of our games.  We would be up two or three points, and then lose the game.  We lost 6-7, 3-6.  Grrr.

This morning I did my shortened version of P90X2 Recovery + Mobility.  I burned about 115 calories.

End of Stage 2 of NROLW

Last night I did cardio tennis at TCCP.  I've tried to attend it the past couple of weeks, but there hadn't been enough people for them to hold the class.  We finally had it last night.  It was reasonably fun, but not too tough.  The pro tends to start a bit late and finish a bit early.  I did get to hit a lot of balls.

This morning I am at 127.6 lb for the second day in a row.  I really can't complain, because at least I'm under 128 lb, but it's frustrating to be stuck here.  I have been feeling like the waistbands of my pants are getting tight, which is bad.  However, I don't want to change too much of anything until I get my anemia sorted out, because that might be exacerbating a lot of things.

Today I did the second workout in Stage 2 of NROLW.  I didn't change anything from what I had done previously for this workout.  I burned about 205 calories.  This is the last workout for Stage 2, and I can't say that I'm disappointed.  I didn't enjoy this stage very much.  I never really got the push-press move in the first workout.  A lot of the moves in the second workout were abs and mobility, and they weren't all that interesting or difficult.  I'm not sure I really needed to do the HIIT, given my other activities.  I also didn't like that both workouts stayed at 2 sets of 10 reps, so I never felt like I was able to increase my weights.  Hopefully I'm going to like Stage 3 better.