Last night I sadly skipped my usual tennis doubles at TCCP because of my laptop's death and subsequent scrambling to recreate stuff. I was at work for about 14 hours, which sucked. I am getting a new laptop today, but that doesn't solve the need to recreate what I lost.
This morning I did P90X3 Total Synergistics, preceded by Cold Start. I did better on this than the last time, because I was more familiar with the moves. I'm not sure it's my favorite, but it's OK. I burned about 95 calories.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
Wintergreen Tennis Weekend
On Friday morning, a group of eight of us from my tennis teams went down to Wintergreen Resort for a weekend of tennis clinics. We had done a trip last fall, and really had a lot of fun and learned a lot. This past weekend was more of the same!
On Friday, we had a clinic from 1 - 4pm, so we planned to arrive at our rental house by noon. Well, we drove into the mountains and the rain changed to pretty heavy snow! We got a couple of inches of snow in parts of the resort. Fortunately, the roads did not get too bad. The Friday clinic was a good review of the double strategies we had learned last October, plus some new drills. I love taking tennis clinics!
On Saturday, we had a clinic from 8 - 11am. At this clinic, we did some drills involving "awkward" volleys, which are volleys were you have to reach or stretch or react very quickly. This was excellent practice. It helped me kind of mentally sort these volleys into categories of how I react to them, which I think is the first step for me to play them better. In the afternoon, some of us (including me) went hiking, even though it was pretty cold out. We hiked a nice, scenic loop around some waterfalls and up a creek.
On Sunday, we had a clinic from 8 - 10am. A lot of this was review, which was good. It helps to keep playing and doing it so that it becomes ingrained. After the clinic, we drove home.
I really enjoyed the clinics again, and I think everyone else did, too. We have a group of twelve making the trip down in May. After that, I want to organize a trip for the fall. That may be too much for us to get twenty to go again, but hopefully we'll have enough for a trip.
When I got back from Wintergreen yesterday, I had a 3.5 match with my team that evening. We came so close to winning the match, which was against a very good team, but only won two courts. Whitney and I lost 7-6, 3-6, 0-1. In the first set, I got into some lobbing rallies with the other team, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. But then I remembered the strategy we learned at Wintergreen for dealing with lobs, and when I pushed back my opponent, I moved forward to take the next lob out of the air. This turned things around for us, and we got pretty aggressive at the net, with a lot of volleys and overheads. In the second set, our opponents switched sides, which somehow enabled them to hit better groundstrokes. We really floundered. I wanted to try to get the balls more "up" again, like in the first set, but Whitney really wanted to rally. I just didn't think that was working. We lost the second set. In the match tie-breaker, we quickly got up 4-1, but then they caught up. We made some unforced errors, and they hit some good shots, and we ended up losing the match tie-breaker 10-8. Sigh. I really feel like we could've won our match, and it would have gotten an overall win, too!
This morning, I did P90X3 The Warrior, preceded by Cold Start. This was an interesting workout, with an unusual sequence of moves, mixing cardio and bodyweight strength moves. I burned about 175 calories.
Today before class, my laptop died, taking a bunch of work stuff with it. I decided not to go to my tennis doubles tonight at TCCP so that I can re-make some of the stuff, but I really miss it. Sigh.
On Friday, we had a clinic from 1 - 4pm, so we planned to arrive at our rental house by noon. Well, we drove into the mountains and the rain changed to pretty heavy snow! We got a couple of inches of snow in parts of the resort. Fortunately, the roads did not get too bad. The Friday clinic was a good review of the double strategies we had learned last October, plus some new drills. I love taking tennis clinics!
On Saturday, we had a clinic from 8 - 11am. At this clinic, we did some drills involving "awkward" volleys, which are volleys were you have to reach or stretch or react very quickly. This was excellent practice. It helped me kind of mentally sort these volleys into categories of how I react to them, which I think is the first step for me to play them better. In the afternoon, some of us (including me) went hiking, even though it was pretty cold out. We hiked a nice, scenic loop around some waterfalls and up a creek.
On Sunday, we had a clinic from 8 - 10am. A lot of this was review, which was good. It helps to keep playing and doing it so that it becomes ingrained. After the clinic, we drove home.
I really enjoyed the clinics again, and I think everyone else did, too. We have a group of twelve making the trip down in May. After that, I want to organize a trip for the fall. That may be too much for us to get twenty to go again, but hopefully we'll have enough for a trip.
When I got back from Wintergreen yesterday, I had a 3.5 match with my team that evening. We came so close to winning the match, which was against a very good team, but only won two courts. Whitney and I lost 7-6, 3-6, 0-1. In the first set, I got into some lobbing rallies with the other team, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. But then I remembered the strategy we learned at Wintergreen for dealing with lobs, and when I pushed back my opponent, I moved forward to take the next lob out of the air. This turned things around for us, and we got pretty aggressive at the net, with a lot of volleys and overheads. In the second set, our opponents switched sides, which somehow enabled them to hit better groundstrokes. We really floundered. I wanted to try to get the balls more "up" again, like in the first set, but Whitney really wanted to rally. I just didn't think that was working. We lost the second set. In the match tie-breaker, we quickly got up 4-1, but then they caught up. We made some unforced errors, and they hit some good shots, and we ended up losing the match tie-breaker 10-8. Sigh. I really feel like we could've won our match, and it would have gotten an overall win, too!
This morning, I did P90X3 The Warrior, preceded by Cold Start. This was an interesting workout, with an unusual sequence of moves, mixing cardio and bodyweight strength moves. I burned about 175 calories.
Today before class, my laptop died, taking a bunch of work stuff with it. I decided not to go to my tennis doubles tonight at TCCP so that I can re-make some of the stuff, but I really miss it. Sigh.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Tempo Run
Yesterday after work, I did the next run on my training schedule, which was a tempo run. I did it on the treadmill. First, I ran 10 min at 5.8 mph, then I ran 25 min at 6.5 mph, and finally I ran 5 min at 5.8 mph. This came to a distance of 4.15 mi in 40 min. The run did not feel too bad, although my legs were definitely a little sore from the run the day before.
This morning I did P90X3 CVX, preceded by Cold Start. This was actually a pretty tough workout. From some reviews I'd read, I thought this was going to be easy, but it was tough. I burned about 195 calories.
This morning I did P90X3 CVX, preceded by Cold Start. This was actually a pretty tough workout. From some reviews I'd read, I thought this was going to be easy, but it was tough. I burned about 195 calories.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Long Run
Yesterday after work I did the long run I was supposed to do this past weekend. I had switched my schedule a bit, since I played so much tennis on Saturday. The run was supposed to be 8 miles, with 4 miles at an easy pace and 4 miles at "race pace". On the treadmill, I did the first 4 miles at 5.8 mph and the second 4 miles at 6.3 mph. The run took 1:19:30. While I did take breaks, it didn't seem as hard as I expected for the fact that the whole thing was 8 miles.
This morning, I did P90X3 The Challenge, preceded by Cold Start. This is a whole lot of pull-ups and push-ups. My "number" for pull-ups was 3, which I did accomplish. The next time, I'll try 4. My "number" for push-ups was 15; I was trying not to go too crazy here, because I didn't want to be incredibly sore the next few days, but I was too conservative. I should've done more. The next time I'm going to go for 20. I burned about 75 calories.
This morning, I did P90X3 The Challenge, preceded by Cold Start. This is a whole lot of pull-ups and push-ups. My "number" for pull-ups was 3, which I did accomplish. The next time, I'll try 4. My "number" for push-ups was 15; I was trying not to go too crazy here, because I didn't want to be incredibly sore the next few days, but I was too conservative. I should've done more. The next time I'm going to go for 20. I burned about 75 calories.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Monday Night Tennis
With all my matches and traveling, it's been a long time since I played in my Monday night tennis doubles. It was good to be back. I played pretty well! In the first round, my partner, Jill, and I won 6-1. In the second round, my partner, Kelly, and I won 6-5. In the last round, my partner, Katya, and I won 3-0. Not bad!
This morning I did P90X3 Agility X, preceded by the Cold Start. I think this will be a good workout once I get the moves down, but this time I was mostly trying to figure out what to do. I burned about 175 calories. Afterward, I did some foam rolling.
This morning I did P90X3 Agility X, preceded by the Cold Start. I think this will be a good workout once I get the moves down, but this time I was mostly trying to figure out what to do. I burned about 175 calories. Afterward, I did some foam rolling.
Monday, March 23, 2015
P90X3
Yesterday evening I did one of the runs on my training schedule. I'm switching the order of some of the runs, because I knew that last night I was going to be too tired for a fast run. Instead I did a 50-min easy run. I ran at 5.8 mph on the treadmill for 50 minutes, which came to a distance of 4.83 mi. I took a lot of breaks on the side rails.
This morning I started P90X3. I did Total Synergistics (starting with Cold Start), which was an OK workout. I refuse to do the yoga pose "plow", because it kills my neck. There were a few other moves that I couldn't do well yet. I burned about 90 calories.
I decided to get P90X3 because the shorter workouts fit into my schedule better right now. Also, with my tennis and running, I'm not sure I really need a longer workout. Finally, P90X3 also has a wide variety of workout types, which seemed to be advantageous. Since I can only do 4 workouts (plus a day of foam rolling) per week, I've extended the P90X3 schedule from 3 months to 4 months.
This morning I started P90X3. I did Total Synergistics (starting with Cold Start), which was an OK workout. I refuse to do the yoga pose "plow", because it kills my neck. There were a few other moves that I couldn't do well yet. I burned about 90 calories.
I decided to get P90X3 because the shorter workouts fit into my schedule better right now. Also, with my tennis and running, I'm not sure I really need a longer workout. Finally, P90X3 also has a wide variety of workout types, which seemed to be advantageous. Since I can only do 4 workouts (plus a day of foam rolling) per week, I've extended the P90X3 schedule from 3 months to 4 months.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Lots of Tennis!
Yesterday I played about 6 hours of tennis!
First, I had an outdoor practice with my tennis team in the afternoon. It was finally supposed to get warm and sunny, so how could we not play outside? We played three rounds. In the first round, my partner, Bhanu, and I lost 6-1, which was a bit unexpected. In the second round, my partner, Viqui, and I won the first set 7-6, and then lost the part of the next set we played 2-1. In the last round, I played singles and unexpectedly won 6-4.
In the evening, Bill and I attended a tennis social at Fairland organized by Jessica and her husband. There was a lot of food, although I didn't really eat that much, because I can't eat a lot and then play. We each played 5 sets with different partners. Jessica and her husband did a good job with the organization, so the play kept going pretty smoothly, and we had pretty good pairings. I managed to win the second-most number of games among the women, so I got second prize! By the end of the night, I was completely wasted. In my last set, my arm was all noodly when I was serving, so I was lucky that I managed to keep going. It was a lot of fun!
This morning I did my usual boxing class. I definitely took it easy, since I had played so much tennis yesterday. It was good to be back, though.
First, I had an outdoor practice with my tennis team in the afternoon. It was finally supposed to get warm and sunny, so how could we not play outside? We played three rounds. In the first round, my partner, Bhanu, and I lost 6-1, which was a bit unexpected. In the second round, my partner, Viqui, and I won the first set 7-6, and then lost the part of the next set we played 2-1. In the last round, I played singles and unexpectedly won 6-4.
In the evening, Bill and I attended a tennis social at Fairland organized by Jessica and her husband. There was a lot of food, although I didn't really eat that much, because I can't eat a lot and then play. We each played 5 sets with different partners. Jessica and her husband did a good job with the organization, so the play kept going pretty smoothly, and we had pretty good pairings. I managed to win the second-most number of games among the women, so I got second prize! By the end of the night, I was completely wasted. In my last set, my arm was all noodly when I was serving, so I was lucky that I managed to keep going. It was a lot of fun!
This morning I did my usual boxing class. I definitely took it easy, since I had played so much tennis yesterday. It was good to be back, though.
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