Ultimate's End

Tonight was the last night of Ultimate frisbee for the season. (Well, okay, the real last night is tomorrow, but I don't play on Wednesdays.) Our regular Thursday night games were cancelled last week and this, so Subrata and I have gone on Tuesdays instead. Last week a few other people from our team were there, too, but this week we were the only representatives. But no big deal, since we just integrated with teams wearing similar colored shirts.

I felt like I was dogging it the first half of the night. Sat out a number of points, wasn't running my hardest, and kept getting mixed up as to whether I was on the Light or the Dark team for a while.

During "halftime", though, one woman brought out several containers filled with cookies and really yummy brownies, of which I definitely ate too many. Nonetheless, I think the sugar high helped, because all of a sudden my legs and my endurance kicked into high gear, and I was outrunning most people on our field.

Actually, I was somewhat frustrated most of the night with the lack of running our team was often displaying, and when we were running we were getting in each other's way. It's not really a big deal - this league is for fun more than anything else - but I think several people found it to be a bit of a drag. So when my sugar high kicked in it really showed; I was making all kinds of cuts, running around in circles to make multiple cuts on one point, and not really feeling all that winded most of the time. I made a really bad throw, but mostly I kept it simple and did what I could and felt good about how things were going. In Ultimate there really is no substitute for just flat-out running.

I also accomplished another "goal" of my season on this last night: Taking a big spill. Against a player who is considerably better than me, I was trying to block a throw, and I knew he was going to jump early to catch it. So I jumped early myself, got a finger on it - and then the two of us plowed into each other in mid-air. As he had better positioning and was behind me, I ended up taking the fall, skinned my knee, and rolled completely over. I think he was a little amazed that I'd put out that effort on that play, but like most folks in the league he paused for a few seconds and checked to make sure I was okay. Good sportsmanship, that's what makes the league fun.

Like I said, I skinned my knee, and I have a bit of a bump below my knee, but nothing feels broken or strained. I might have a bruise tomorrow, but that's okay.

I don't want to brag too much; I'm certainly not one of the best players out there. But I'm really pleased with how far I've come this year. I'm going to look forward to next year to take the next step.