Quasi-Tournament Weekend
Man, it feels like it has been forever since I have played an ultimate tournament. Last one I played was Hallowinona (end of October in Winona, MN… the name is kind of self-explanatory), where I won my first ever tourney, and since then the weather just hasn’t been conducive to outdoor play, though there have been a few indoor tournaments in the region that I haven’t participated in... though they sound fun ;)
But no worries. I have been keeping in shape and will be ready. This past weekend was a good test of the kind of conditioning required for a tournament, and I think I met the challenge. Here’s how it went down:
1. Play hard on Saturday. No ulty on Saturday, but I did participate in an event with similar physical demands – The Great Grain Relay. This is an event put on by the grain industry (but open to anyone) at the Max Bell Centre, the U of M’s track facility. What it is, essentially is teams of five with each runner completing 4 laps (800 m) at a time before handing of to the next person; when the fifth person completes their set they hand off to the first again, and the process repeats for 2 full hours. The team that completes the most laps wins.
Our team (the Homestar Runners) was made up of friends and teammates from Trogdor, our league ultimate team. We hadn’t done any specific training, but hoped our conditioning would be enough to put in at least a respectable performance. As it turned out, it was… we surprised ourselves and ended up taking first in our division with 154 laps (30.8 km, or about 6 km each). Go team!
2. Party hard Saturday night. Most ultimate tournaments – the good ones, anyway – have a party on Saturday night. Especially if you’re a rec team, or if it’s a ‘fun’ tournament (as opposed to a highly competitive one), ‘winning the party’ carries bragging rights almost as big as winning the tourney on the field on Sunday. So going out and partying hard, then being able to take the field on Sunday and still do well, is a big component of a successful tournament weekend.
The party this weekend was supplied by another Trogdor teammate’s wedding social which took place out in Portage la Prairie (thus giving the weekend a road-trip component, another tournament staple). The social itself had a few shortcomings – beer selection was limited to Budweiser and Labatt Light; music selection was limited to country and western, with real dance music making a late appearance; and worst of all, the late lunch of kubasa, rye bread and cheese cubes was missing a key component: mustard. But that's nothing to do with our teammate, who was shut out of the planning process for the social. And regardless we all had lots of fun, lots of drinks, and even scored a rare win in the silent auction. We may not have won the party – that’s kind of hard to do when up against an army of drunken country-music loving girls on their home turf – but we lasted until the end and held our own on the dance floor, at least when they started playing real music.
3. Take the field on Sunday. After hurrying back from Portage on Sunday morning, we finally had some ultimate to play early in the afternoon. OK, it was only intramurals. And the other team didn’t have enough to field a line, so we just ended up playing pickup. But it was still a good workout. After a slow start, my team in the dark shirts started to go on a run and I scored my share of points, even scoring a callahan with a layout grab (it later turned out that the girl who threw it was playing her first game ever. Ah, well – I still had to work for it). After our slot was over, one of the next teams up failed to show so we scrimmaged against another team, who were unfortunately all quite new and not much of a challenge. After a while we decided we had to make it a challenge and give tem a chance at scoring, so we imposed some restrictions on ourselves – the hack rule (all our players must touch the disc before we score), playing upside-down points (took a while, but we scored), finally a left-handed point that left us more inept than our opponents and they scored. We scored one last point and called it an afternoon.
So… the quality of play wasn’t up to tournament finals on Sunday, but I think overall I’m in good shape for a tourney next time I get the chance. Hopefully things will work out for a trip down to Fool’s Fest in Lawrence, Kansas this April. I’ll keep you posted.
But no worries. I have been keeping in shape and will be ready. This past weekend was a good test of the kind of conditioning required for a tournament, and I think I met the challenge. Here’s how it went down:
1. Play hard on Saturday. No ulty on Saturday, but I did participate in an event with similar physical demands – The Great Grain Relay. This is an event put on by the grain industry (but open to anyone) at the Max Bell Centre, the U of M’s track facility. What it is, essentially is teams of five with each runner completing 4 laps (800 m) at a time before handing of to the next person; when the fifth person completes their set they hand off to the first again, and the process repeats for 2 full hours. The team that completes the most laps wins.
Our team (the Homestar Runners) was made up of friends and teammates from Trogdor, our league ultimate team. We hadn’t done any specific training, but hoped our conditioning would be enough to put in at least a respectable performance. As it turned out, it was… we surprised ourselves and ended up taking first in our division with 154 laps (30.8 km, or about 6 km each). Go team!
2. Party hard Saturday night. Most ultimate tournaments – the good ones, anyway – have a party on Saturday night. Especially if you’re a rec team, or if it’s a ‘fun’ tournament (as opposed to a highly competitive one), ‘winning the party’ carries bragging rights almost as big as winning the tourney on the field on Sunday. So going out and partying hard, then being able to take the field on Sunday and still do well, is a big component of a successful tournament weekend.
The party this weekend was supplied by another Trogdor teammate’s wedding social which took place out in Portage la Prairie (thus giving the weekend a road-trip component, another tournament staple). The social itself had a few shortcomings – beer selection was limited to Budweiser and Labatt Light; music selection was limited to country and western, with real dance music making a late appearance; and worst of all, the late lunch of kubasa, rye bread and cheese cubes was missing a key component: mustard. But that's nothing to do with our teammate, who was shut out of the planning process for the social. And regardless we all had lots of fun, lots of drinks, and even scored a rare win in the silent auction. We may not have won the party – that’s kind of hard to do when up against an army of drunken country-music loving girls on their home turf – but we lasted until the end and held our own on the dance floor, at least when they started playing real music.
3. Take the field on Sunday. After hurrying back from Portage on Sunday morning, we finally had some ultimate to play early in the afternoon. OK, it was only intramurals. And the other team didn’t have enough to field a line, so we just ended up playing pickup. But it was still a good workout. After a slow start, my team in the dark shirts started to go on a run and I scored my share of points, even scoring a callahan with a layout grab (it later turned out that the girl who threw it was playing her first game ever. Ah, well – I still had to work for it). After our slot was over, one of the next teams up failed to show so we scrimmaged against another team, who were unfortunately all quite new and not much of a challenge. After a while we decided we had to make it a challenge and give tem a chance at scoring, so we imposed some restrictions on ourselves – the hack rule (all our players must touch the disc before we score), playing upside-down points (took a while, but we scored), finally a left-handed point that left us more inept than our opponents and they scored. We scored one last point and called it an afternoon.
So… the quality of play wasn’t up to tournament finals on Sunday, but I think overall I’m in good shape for a tourney next time I get the chance. Hopefully things will work out for a trip down to Fool’s Fest in Lawrence, Kansas this April. I’ll keep you posted.
posted by Druski at 7:41 p.m.
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