Thursday 31 May 2012

Today's fitness

Not at work today so no cycling. Here's the fitness I did today:

1.5 mile run
Hill exercises (up a small hill (10 m at about a 30% incline):
2 footed jumps * 3
1 footed hops * 3 per leg
15 m jog to base and then jog up * 1
15 m jog to base and then run up * 2
15 m jog to base and then sprint up * 3
15 m jog to base and then run up * 2
15 m jog to base and then jog up * 1
small step run down the hill then run backwards back up it * 3
High jumping down the hill * 3

0.5 mile run back

Didn't time the runs but this exercise felt pretty good. Will try to do hill exercises some more.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Time to step up!

The last few weeks I've been a little quiet on the fitness front with injury and illness. Luckily I was still able to step up at Tour 1, but I was still absolutely exhausted even though I only played one day.
I started this blog so I could keep an eye on my fitness and ultimate performance. I also felt that by writing posts it would keep the pressure on myself not to slow up, which up until now I felt it's done. Just think it's time to step up to make the most of this season.

Monday- 2 miles cycling
Tuesday- 4.2 miles cycling and Kapow training.

At Kapow midweek we ran a short warmup after some throwing, then moved on to running some drills practicing the offensive patterns. This was because we didn't always connect on our deep shots at Tour 1 running from the patterns. The drill went well but everyone agreed that it would different with defenders in game situations.
We then moved on to our endzone play, which was another area that we didn't do so well on at Tour 1. We played it with defense and generally it went well, but again would be very different in game situations.
Lastly we played some mini (3 on 3) with 1 point per swing scored on a completed scoring pass. This was good for breaking the mark but we could have had harder marks at times. This is another thing we will be working on in the future.
Good training though.

Today will be cycling 3 miles and going to the gym.

EDIT: So Anna wasn't feeling great tonight so we've postponed our weekly gym session this week.

Will do 3 lots of the following core work:

1 minute plank
1 minute side plank right
1 minute side plank left
10 sit ups
10 Thoracic Spine Mobilization Exercise on both sides (info here)



Monday 28 May 2012

Tour 1 wrapup

This weekend served as a very interesting start to the Open season. 
Saturday recap:
As predicted, even though Ka-pow only had 9 players they muscled through the group, beating Burro and Leeds, but ultimately fell short against a strong DED squad of over double the number of players. DED went on to finish 9th overall proving the strength of their squad. 

Sunday recap:
Turned up Sunday morning and was one of the first to the pitches. We had limited warm ups all day to conserve energy. First game was against Wessex. Nick (Wessex) unfortunately went down to a very bloody nose early on in the game which was a shame as the game could have been even closer with him in it. Was very close until near the end when we managed to pull it out. Final score was a W for Kapow 15-12 (I think).
Next up was Tooting Tigers. They had another big squad and we knew they were all fit and athletic and well drilled. The first half was a little one-sided and we lost it 8-4, the second half we managed to stifle their cuts and play well, and we won the second half 8-7 but ultimately couldn't make it close enough and keep up with their less tired legs and they took the win 12-15.
Lastly we played Devon. We played them last weekend at Fog Lane under similar circumstances, they again had a big team and we didn't and again we managed to pull out another hard fought win. Pure grit and our zone working well meant that we could get a few turns and put in our O most of the time. Can't remember the final score but this win meant we finished 19th overall.

Good start for a very small team playing in blazing heat in cotton shirts (eugh). I've said this before but I have a really good feeling about this squad, this season. Bring on tour 2.

I thought I played ok, got one run through D and made some good break throws. Also, got some nice scores, assists and high grabs and played deep defense pretty well but it was hard to play really great due to tiredness. No layouts so didn't aggravate my knee and should be fine from now on, but will continue to wear my knee pad for a while, just in case.

Interesting talking points from this tour: 
Fire 1 and Fire 2 switched their squads completely after Fire 2 finished higher at Fog Lane than Fire 1. In an interesting turnout, Fire 1 (which was Fire 2 originally) again finished higher. 
Fusion suffered a severe tumble this tour, narrowly avoiding relegation to B-Tour, finishing 21st after starting the weekend as 13th seed.
Clapham beat GB Open in the Quarter Final, to put GB Open out of the top 4 and behind three other National teams: Germany (1st), Sweden (2nd) and Austria (4th). GB and some other national teams have stuck around the grounds to play some friendlies today again.
GB Masters won their last game against France Open to take 7th overall.

Friday 25 May 2012

This week and Open Tour 1 preview

Been another slightly slow week fitness-wise. Knee swelled up after last weekend so not been doing anything on that all week, and on top of that I got some sort of illness on Wednesday that is just clearing itself up.

Monday: 3 mile cycling
Tuesday 3 mile cycling
Wednesday: Ill
Thursday: 3 mile cycling
Friday: 3 mile cycling

Saturday will be at a wedding and Sunday will be playing Open tour 1 with Ka-Pow!

Open Tour 1 Preview:

I will be missing Saturday's games, but if pre-season stuff is anything to go by I expect Ka-Pow to win their group which includes LeedsLeedsLeeds and Burro Electrico before their crossover so we can play for 9th (if we win) or 17th (if we lose). This is a pretty big gap and it looks like they will have to play a strong team in this game. The pool we cross with looks tough (Fusion, DED and Cardiff). Fusion have traditionally been strong but have not been competing in Tour finals for a few years, DED we know from pre-season games to be dangerous and Cardiff are young and know each other very well. I would expect Fusion or DED to win the group so they'd end up playing whoever came in second. This makes a big difference as (since there are 7 national/foreign teams at Tour 1, 3 at Tour 2 and none at Tour 3) playing for 9th is almost like playing for a european qualification spot at nationals whereas playing for 17th would be more like playing for top 8.
However, I'm realistic and know that we will have a depleted squad, partly through injury, partly through players playing for other teams (GB Masters, GB Open) and I know that another player as well as me is missing Saturday. I'd love to come on Sunday and be playing for 9th, but I'll play hard whatever.

Sunday Preview: No idea! If we're playing for 9th I'd predict to be playing in the same bracket as the following teams:
Fusion, Fire 2, Tooting/Devon, Brighton, Austria/Fire 1, Orange, Ranelagh 1.
This is mostly guesswork though as I don't know about most of the teams there and anything can happen at this first event. If we're playing for 17th I'd predict to be playing in the same bracket as the following teams:
Tooting/Devon, Cardiff, Wessex, Burro, Strange Blue, EMO and Leeds

Both brackets will be tough and will be a good start to the rest of the season. Good Luck to Ka-Pow tomorrow!

One last thing: New track for my psych up playlist. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is one of my favourite movies and I came across this gem on twitter. It's a remix of the 8-bit version of "Threshold" by Sex Bob-omb from the Scott Pilgrim Soundtrack and "How Low" by Ludacris and is pretty awesome!
Link!

Sunday 20 May 2012

Fog lane cup!

Pretty interesting weekend with Ka-Pow in terms of what happened play-wise and in terms of the other teams there.

Saturday

Game 1 vs LeedsLeedsLeeds: Won pretty convincingly, played pretty well. I got a layout block which unfortunately aggravated my knee. It was fine to play on but was a little swollen by the end of the day.

Game 2 vs DED: Lost by a few points, played pretty well until they threw a zone on us. This would be a little bit of a theme for Saturday, not playing well against zone.

Game 3 vs Clapham: We started pretty awfully against Clapham. Took a time out, started a bit better after that and got some points off them but they were a lot better than us in terms of individual matchups. We got them to throw away deep quite a bit and our defense was quite good. I think I played ok for most of the points I was on but did get D'ed a couple of times as well. This could've been a good game for us but they really stopped us from running our systems with good defense. Clapham went on to win the tournament pretty convincingly and they will do well this year when they have their full squad (not missing their GB players).

Game 4 vs Fire 2: We played absolutely terribly all game. They played a zone against us and again we failed to break it. Pretty bad loss. Fire 2 did go on to beat Chevron in their Semi final so they were obviously strong and did have more players than most of the other teams but we made far too many mistakes to even make it competitive.

Sunday:

Game 1 vs Reading: Started a little slow and we traded for a little bit, before we turned it on and took it away. They were a lot better than everyone probably expected and were definitely only out of their depth when playing the top teams.

Game 2 vs Devon: Our D was really strong in this game and stifled their offense. We played pretty good offense as well, but their D was also pretty good. We took the win by a few points.

Game 3  vs DED: A rematch of Saturday's game and they were down a few players (to injuries and one guy who only played Saturday). We traded for a while and they built up an 11-8 lead before we staged a 4 point comeback to win 12-11. Showed a lot of character to not give up and played some strong D going into the late part of the game.

Overall a strange weekend, we suffered from injuries throughout the weekend and, at times played pretty poorly, but also played pretty strong D mostly, and at times played our offensive systems pretty well. Still got a lot to work on throughout Tour if we are going to go to Nationals and take a European qualification spot, but I'm very much looking forward to the open season.

Friday 18 May 2012

Fog Lane Preview

Gym routine today (didn't have too much time):
5 minute cycle
3 * 10 bench press (45kg)
1 * 10 barbell upright row (20kg), 2 * 10 barbell upright row (30kg)
3 * 10 laterall pull downs (45kg)
2 * 10 shoulder press (23kg), 1 * 10 shoulder press (33kg)

No squats or other leg exercises as I didn't want to aggravate my knee.

Now on to the Fog Lane cup.
Hosted by Chevron Action Flash (based in Manchester) and named after their Manchester Training ground (Fog Lane) we are headed to just outside Bristol this weekend...

Schedule for Saturday looks like this:
First game against Leeds: This should be a good tough game to get us into the weekend. There shouldn't be any easy games as this will be a warm up for Open tour 1 next weekend. Leeds have been finishing in the 6-12 sort of area for the last couple of years but have plenty of experience coupled with some good younger players that can make them a tough opponent for any team.
Second game against DED: This should be a good rematch of the Final of the one day tournament in Thame, hosted by DED. In that game we won in sudden death to win the tournament and stay undefeated. I'm sure DED will be looking forward to exact some revenge.
Then after a break we have our third game against Clapham: This game will be a solid test to see how far we've come since the inception of Ka-Pow! For anyone that doesn't know, Clapham are THE powerhouse of UKUltimate. National champions for the last 10 years running, consistently winning Tours and forming the basis of GB teams. This will be a true measure of our team and I'm very much looking forward to it.
Game 4 and the last game of Saturday is against Fire 2: Despite this being a second team, this should also be another hard test. Fire 2 finished as high as fifth at Tour and never dropped below 9th place.

First game of Sunday is against Reading: A slight unknown quantity, they would appear to be out of their depths at this tournament with their highest Tour finish from last year as 26th and not gaining a Nationals spot. Still not a game to be taken lightly, Reading are entering under a new name into competitions this year and appear to be looking to take the next step. They entered this tournament for a reason so we will see what happens I guess.

After that, the pool stages are over and, based on whether you finished 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th or 5th/6th in your pool, you play a semi and a final to determine your finishing position.

I know it's still early in the season, but, with the aim for Ka-Pow! being to qualify for Europeans, we should be aiming for a top 4 finish this weekend. That would give us a bit more confidence going into the Tours and is where we want to finish, come August in Southampton at Nationals.

Let's go to work!
Europe!

Quiet week

Came back from Mixed tour with something wrong with my knee. Only hurt when fully bent so have had an easy week exercise-wise. Been resting knee in the evening as well as icing it and taking ibuprofen and it's feeling good for this weekend.
Fog lane cup preview to come.
Monday: no exercise
Tuesday: 1 mile cycling
Wednesday: 2 miles cycling
Thursday: 3 miles cycling
Friday: 3 miles cycling and gym at lunch (will post session later with Fog lane cup preview).

Monday 14 May 2012

Post Mixed Season Reflections

I'll first look at Mixed tour 3 and then the season overall...
Herd 1 only got 1 win out of 5 games this weekend, but finished 4th overall (3 places higher than we started) and with that (if my in my head calculations are correct) secure fourth place over the three Mixed Tour events, behind Bear Cavalry (1st/1st/1st Average position:1) DED (3rd/3rd/3rd Average:3) and Peeps (2nd/8th/2nd Average: 4). We finished 4th/7th/4th averaging 5, ahead of Brighton who finished 9th/2nd/5th Averaging;5 1/3 and Golden Ants: 7th/3rd/(7th or 8th) Average: 5 2/3 or 6.
Not a bad finishing position considering I felt it was a disappointing season in terms of play and results. I know many people on our team were disappointed with the team's play at times and everyone was disappointed with Mixed tour 2. However, we never lost any games against opponents that didn't deserve to beat us on the day so we can only look at our own play as the major factor for our finishing position.
My personal Aims for Mixed Tour 3:
I wanted to get more Ds. Final count was 4 layout ds over the weekend on top of a few other defensive blocks which I am extremely happy with, didn't get any point blocks but not too worried about that. On offense I feel I didn't take too many shots that weren't on, but sometimes my throws were a little "creative" and they didn't always come off. Along with that, I didn't complete a few shots in the last couple of games because the wind was pretty strong and I just didn't get the huck right. Generally though I felt like I was pretty safe with throws and made good cuts when playing offense, though I didn't play much of it.


Open season now, starting this weekend with a warmup tournament and then straight into Open tour 1 the weekend after. Time for the hard graft to the end of the season!

Friday 11 May 2012

Aims for Mixed tour 3

Cycling 3 miles today.
New tracks on psych up playlist: Bangarang - Skrillex, Wild Ones - Flo Rida, Make a Beast of myself - Twin Atlantic

Aims for Mixed Tour 3:
Team based aims- I'd like to finish at least in the top four, definitely higher than the second team, be challenging for the final/1st place, and finally play to our potential which we've not done in my opinion all mixed season.
Personal aims- I'd like to get more Ds. Layout ds, run through ds, skying ds, point blocks, whatever. I want to be more dominant over my man mark assignments and get more turnovers to help the team. On offense, I'd like to be safe with the disc, only taking long shots when they're on and be as big in the air as I was playing at Tom's Tourney.
General aims- Have fun playing and don't get injured.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Gym tonight

Tuesday 2 miles cycle
Wednesday 3 miles cycle
Thursday 2 miles cycle and Gym:

5 min cycle warmup
3 * 10 bench press 45kg
3 * 5 squat 60kg
3 * 10 lunges 20kg
3 * 10 press ups
3 * 10 leg press 100kg
3 * 10 lat pull downs 40kg
3 * 10 bicep curls 10kg
3 * 10 upright row 10kg
warm down

Milkshake

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Ka-Pow Bank Holiday Training

All day training for Ka-Pow on the bank holiday Monday.
Was more of a walkthrough of the remaining elements of the offense, as well as a zone that we will be using this season.
We did have a bit of a mare in one of the drills/walkthroughs though, so we were made to do punishments just before lunch (much better than just after). This was the same punishment as during one of the Tuesday night sessions and went as follows:

Once you got a hand block in this drill you finished that set and then were out of the punishments.

5 press ups -> 40 yard sprint -> 5 press ups -> (in groups of three) 3 man break mark drill until someone gets a hand block -> 5 press ups -> 40 yard sprint back to start- > repeat

Last time, there were only 6 people and I managed to get the second hand block. Unfortunately, this time there were 13 people running it and I was in the last group of three (I did get the last hand block so I wasn't in the bottom two but I did just as many press ups and sprints as them). About half way through, it was introduced that the three in the break mark drill would do 5 press ups for a turnover that wasn't a hand block as well. All in all I probably did around 75 press ups and 8 40 yard sprints. Was pretty tired after that, but luckily with lunch to recover, I was fine for the rest of the training session.
Final parts of the offense are now set, looking forward to playing them. The zone looks like it will be tough to play against if we get it right, but requires a lot of movement and a lot of thinking, so will be tough to get it completely right.

Good session and luckily didn't rain all day.

Sunday 6 May 2012

This week

Tuesday was too rainy so I didn't cycle at all.
Wednesday cycled 2 miles
Thursday cycled 3 miles
Friday cycled 3 miles
Saturday had Herd training. Was alright, practiced our horizontal play and had three games against the second team. Won the first two games without the second team scoring more than 2 points and lost the 3rd in sudden death, but with the fact that there were very few players there (and only two of the first team girls) it really wasn't representative. People had good excuses and I can't complain because I have missed the last three Herd sessions but it did mean the session was a little slow.
Sunday Gym:
5 min cycle to warm up
3 * 5 squats (65kg)
3 * 10 bench press (45kg)
3 * 10 lunges (20kg)
3 * 10 press ups
3 * 10 leg press (100kg)
3 * 10 bicep curl (10kg dumbell per arm)
3 * 10 dumbell upright row (10kg dumbell per arm)
3 * 10 chest press (40kg)
Warm down.

Tomorrow I will be spending the bank holiday at Ka-Pow all day training. It will be our last big training before the start of the open season, and with Tom's tourney just gone, I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday 3 May 2012

My play at Tom's Tourney in Bruges

I had a great time at Tom's Tourney. I didn't always make the right pass or cut but I felt I did myself proud.
I don't want to go into too much detail, at the risk of giving away strategies, so I will just highlight what I think went well and what I think still needs improvement in terms of me fitting in with the Ka-pow systems.
Firstly, I should state that when I was playing 95% of the time it would be an Offense point. I was only put on for D when the D line was tiring through being on the field for a larger percentage of the time than the O line.
However, when I did play D line I didn't get scored on (as far as I can remember) and I got a couple of run through blocks and one (almost) layout block (mentioned yesterday). No point blocks but I am not too concerned about that. One thing in terms of defense that I noticed from the weekend is that I should probably be getting on the force quicker.
In terms of offense, like I said, I don't want to reveal our systems so I will keep this vague.
At the start of the weekend, I was feeling quite comfortable with the overall theme of our offensive system out of all structures, and felt I could adapt to play in most of the roles quite easily, apart from 1. I didn't play in the role that I felt uncomfortable with at all on the first day and only played a few points of it later in the tournament, but I'm glad I did. I definitely feel that I could play this role now, even though I believe there are players who would be more competent at it than I am.
In terms of what went well, my team mates were very complimentary of my grabs on offense. I admit that I did get one grab for a score (described yesterday) that is up there with some of the best offensive plays I've ever made, but the rest I felt were pretty standard for my abilities, so I guess I'm looking forward to showcasing these skills in the future... everyone loves a compliment or two!
I didn't put up too many big hucks, but generally I didn't need to. When I did though, there were a couple of occasions when it wasn't connected because it wasn't the best option. I know I can get this, and I think it's just a case of learning abilities of teammates better and learning the timings of the systems better.
In terms of cutting, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the cutting patterns of the downfield roles in our offense and really think I have it almost nailed now. I didn't really run the handler cutting patterns too much and so I'm a little less confident with them, but I know them and could run them in play, so I look forward to getting them nailed down in practice.
Overall, pretty happy with my play at Bruges, and looking forward to really getting myself ingrained in the offense systems and roles, and busting my arse if I'm put on defense lines as well.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Last week and Ka-Pow at Bruges

So, being away in Bruges from Friday morning to Monday night means I haven't blogged in a while so here's a recap.
Thursday I didn't do anything, stupid rain.
Friday, I was on a coach from 8 a.m until 1:45 p.m and then walked 6 miles whilst exploring Bruges.
For anyone that doesn't know, Ka-Pow were at Bruges in Belgium for the annual (and 20th edition of) Tom's Tourney. It was a fantastically run tournament with great food and questionable weather! Ka-pow had a great showing and below is a short recap of the games. I will post about my thoughts on my performance tomorrow.
Saturday games:
Uprising (Poland) (Finished: 18th/20) Win 12-6. Strong win, score wise in Ka-Pow's first international game, but we needed this easier game to get our heads into our offensive systems.

Flow (Belgium) (Finished: 13th/20) Win 11-10. Sudden death win. Don't remember that much about this game, apart from it being tight.

Ultimate Vibration Old Stars (France) (Finished 2nd/20) Lose 10-5. I think this game deserved to be a lot closer. We came into the Saturday show game with nothing to lose. It rained a lot and they didn't play a whole lot better than us, so I don't remember why they won by as much as 5, but they were a strong opponent.

Sunday Games:
Orange (Dutch National Team) (Finished: 6th/20) Lose 9-5. Started out slow and sloppy and went down 4-0 going on to lose by 4 points. A big disappointment because this knocked us out of top 8 against a team we really should have challenged at least. This put us into the Power pools with 9th being the highest we could finish.

Catchup (Austria) (Finished: 14th/20) Win 10-9. Another close game, though this wasn't sudden death. Tom's Tourney rules means there is no cap so when time was called with us up 10-8, we had won even though Catchup went on to score the final point. This was a game of huge Ka-Pow plays. I had what was possibly one of the best scoring layout grabs I've ever made, Elias had a massive layout grab for a score off a huge huck from his brother which unfortunately left him injured, Pringle had an incredible layout D to stop a score and Dave Tyler had one of those incredible grabs in the middle of the field that he is known for. Strong game for us.

Pata Negra (Spain) (Finished: 11th/20) Win 10-7. Don't remember too much about this game, except that it was the first time the sun came out on the weekend.

Quarter Final (9v16) against FreezBeez (Belgium) (Finished: 16th/20) Win 15-7. This game could have been closer had we not gotten an upwind score in some very strong winds. After that, we got a couple more upwinds to take it away and never looked like slowing up against the gracious hosts. We got a compliment about showing exemplary spirit in this game in the circle afterwards and it was generally a great game to finish Sunday on, especially since we managed to get to the points cap for the first time.

Sunday night fitness: Dancing until 3 a.m

Monday Games:
Semi Final (9v12) against Sun Ultimate (France) (Finished: 12th/20) Win 13-9. A fairly strong game again for Ka-Pow but with a few offensive mistakes, made up for by strong defense. We were up 13-8 when the timer went, with a disc going into our endzone. I didn't want to end another game on the opponents scoring and I peeled off my man to help with the coverage of the player the huck was aimed for, I layed out and got to the disc but it popped up into the air for a score. Was dissapointed, but a win is a win.

Final (9v10) against Cota Rica (Italy) (Finished: 9th/20) Lose 8-7. Was a shame to lose this game. Even had the disc on the upwind endzone in sudden death for the win, but the huck that got it there was called back for a travel. Played it tight the whole way and lost to quality opponents, but it could have easily gone the other way.

So we finished 10th of 20 but finished with 6 wins and only 3 losses. Half way up the table and winning spirit was a good achievement at only our 2nd tournament and our first international showing with a not full team.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as well, and the systems were running well, and I came away very much looking forward to the Open season with this great bunch of LADS!!!

EUROPE!

Tomorrow I will post about my personal play at Bruges and my fitness from the rest of this week so far. Stay tuned.