Track

• Warmup: jog the curves, accelerate to a sprint over the first 50m of the straightaway, decelerate back to a jog over the last 50m.
• 5x200m, 2 min rest between sprints.
• 5 min rest
• 2x Whistle drill (described below)
• 5 min rest
• 4x40m, 15 sec rest between sprints.

Whistle Drill

Start jogging. When you hear the whistle, sprint. When you hear the next whistle, jog. Repeat. When you hear a long whistle, the person at the front of the pack starts jogging in place. Everyone else jogs to where they are and keeps jogging in place there. On the next whistle, everyone’s back to sprinting.

The interval between whistles is between 3 and 12 seconds (random). Each rep was a full lap (400m). I think we did about 5 or 6 sprints total. The rule for jogging is that your arms cannot fall below your waist and your feet have to come up to your shins on each step (no baby-stepping).

Practice

Start off with hunger drill, with each person taking turns throwing and the offense has to catch with both hands. Did backhands and flicks. Then moved on to scrimmage for 5 pulls. The D worked on zone-to-man for the first 5 pulls, then ran wolf for the next 5 (from a standstill). O and D took turns going through wolf. I honestly think the O did it better. They run a diamond in the backfield and do more switching than we do. After wolf, we played a 5 min game that went into overtime, then sudden death. The D got a turn and worked it up, but we turned it over on the goal line (I threw a dump over Panna’s head). Then O scored.

Worked on playing in our units (O1,D1,D2). D2 struggled during the first scrimmage to 7, but killed it in the second one. I guess team chemistry really means a lot.

• 3-line marking drill
• 9x endzone O for the O line and then the D line
• Scrimmage. Worked on waves, zone transition and force middle

Went to Southpaw tryouts. We warmed up and ran through the baseball drill. Then we split into four teams and played a round-robin with games to 8. Wirst game, I played fairly well on d but threw a bunch of turns. Second and third game, no bad turns and a lot of caught goals. I did have one turn on a huck to Christian, but it was a good look and if I’d put a bit more distance on it, it would have been a goal. The real lesson, though, is that I usually cut too frantically. I did a lot better when I waited for my turn and set up real cuts than when I just ran around all the time. I think with all this time on defense, I’m forgetting how to play O.

I didn’t play.

Worked on marks and scrimmaged. I really see how stepping back on the around mark is important.

Had practice for a few hours at Edgley. Worked on breakside hucks and scrimmaged, then ran 3 hari-karis. Five guys for lunch.

Ran the hunger drill and the breakside dump drill. Did them twice each. Worked on boxing out. Then scrimmaged southpaw for an hour.

I did something weird to my foot on Wednesday. I hope it’s just a bruise, but it hurts to run and there’s a large red spot on the top of it.

We’re on the road again this weekend, this time in Connecticut at their home opener. We played fairly well, but were behind the whole game and lost 29-23. We played well for the most part but our offense struggled and our defense didn’t get enough turns back. The goal was to guard the unders and force their throwers to throw bad hucks against straight-up marks. We did that pretty well, but they ended up catching a lot of bad deep shots, sometimes even after we got a hand on the disc. We also didn’t cover the incuts as well as we should have.

Personally I had one layout d and another jump d that didn’t go far and got caught. Also, a turn on a dishie pass against a zone. I didn’t get burned much on D (a few in cuts) and played well on dumps. I’d say my biggest problem was not pulling the trigger on a few bids. Gotta be a bit more aggressive (also more physical till the refs call it). And I could always be in better shape.

My parents came out to watch the game, take some pictures, and take me out for sushi after. Also saw a few old friends: people from college and Dono (hey buddy - you’re this blog’s only reader).

Practiced on the upper field at Temple. Worked on marks and moving the disc. I got in a little work on boxing people (Art) out.

Had Spinners practice 11-2pm, then went to UDel and scrimmaged their team (plus a few pickups) 4-7pm. My ankle didn’t hurt after practice, despite playing a lot (played a bunch of O-line, which was interesting). I think I’m almost fully healed.Also, met Bill Clemente at the first practice :-)

Had spinners practice both days. Ankle is still not fully healed, but I played most of both days. It seems to be fine when I’m not playing, but gets worse as I play. I hope it heals completely by next weekend.

Gym Friday

• Dips 3x10/25lb
• Bench 2/170, 4/155, 5/145lb
• Pull ups 4/45, 4/40, 5/30lb

Spinners practice today

I’m still hurt but I did about 200 push ups before the core workout, and then did the core workout. Also throwing.

Played two games in winter league finals. First game was against Keg/Kuhfuss. We were up the whole game but I got hurt in the 3rd quarter (evertion ankle sprain) and we only won by one point. Next we played Laarz. I sat out the first half but started to play in the second half. We were down 5 late in the game, but then we threw the Trey zone and evened up the score. We couldn’t pull ahead and ended up losing by 1.

After that, I went to Spinners tryouts. We did the beep test, breakmark drill, hunger drill and 40 meter survivor sprints. We also scrimmaged a lot. In the end, I made the team. Expect a lot of “spinners practice” posts.

Tied Brose’s core team 20-20, then did 10 burpees, pistols, push ups and full-body crunches. I played well in the first half, esp on D, but threw away a LOT in the second half. Mostly deep throws to people covered by H or bad up-line throws.

Lost to Butter’s team in full for the third time this season. We played really well, especially on D, but still lost. That puts us tied for 5th with Drexel and TKO.

Beat Trey’s team 20-19. Trey wasn’t there, but the game was still close. We should have won by more because we were up 8-1 in the first quarter, but then really slowed down.

Beat Alex Peters 27-21.

Lost to RABS. We once again had 6 guys. They had their full team. They crushed us.

Lost to Butter’s team. We each had 6 guys and we both played well. We were up most of the game but died at the end.