Tryouts

(from last year's practice. later in the season when we were in pads. that won't happen this season till March.)

Didn't write about the tryouts on Sat. Pretty standard stuff. They started at 8 am so I set my alarm for 6:30 am & I am not a morning person. I go to bed then the next thing I know I feel a wet nose on my elbow & it's Max. I roll over all sleepy, "hi, Papa" & think how well-rested I feel then allofasudden, "Oh fuck!!" I look at the clock & it's 8:21. I let the dogs out, run to the bathroom & start getting ready meanwhile I'm trying to call someone to let them know I'll be late & even see if it's worthwhile coming cuz it takes 45 min to an hour to get to Long Beach w/out traffic.

Finally I get Sandy, the owner, on the phone & she says no biggie, come on down. She said the coaches said, "Get your butt down here. Don't bother to brush your teeth!" Too late for that.

So I get ready & James makes me some instant coffee (what an angel!) & drive on down. Only had time to eat 3 lil cookies I had made the day before.

I got to LB Poly right as everyone was starting the mile. Coach Love told me to just put my cleats on & stretch, then warm-up doing high knees, shuffle, carioca, back pedal & all that.

When everyone finished the mile, we just did all the usual drills--shuttle run, box drill, the 40. I ran the 40 in 6.1 which for me is fast. I did better than I thought on all the drills w/ minimal preparation. Nice.

After all that we went to the weight room & did bench press. It's always different. Sometimes it's the bare bar or a set weight & they see how many reps you can do or they keep putting weight on to see how heavy you can lift. I'd rather do reps since I haven't lifted much lately. And also my left shoulder has never been the same since I separated it the season before last. Just feels kind of weak, but I haven't had any problems with it.

That said, I gave a big disclaimer before I lifted. I think it was 85 lbs & they had us do reps. I think the max they wanted was 20 but I'm sure they'd let people go further if they could. Don't know if anyone went over, but I did 10 which really surprised me. It also surprised me that a lot of people did less than that.

So I got away without doing the mile. No big deal--I'm not super fast but they want at least 12 min., preferably under 9. I'm pretty sure I can get under 9.

The cool thing about Poly is that since they know Coach Love they're letting us use the bags & sleds. He kept the defense after so we could practice some rips & swims & hit the bags. Pretty fun.

We had a great turnout. Bigger than I expected. A lot of rookies but most of them look good. One kinda big/heavy girl was really fast. Usually the big girls just lumber along. Unfortunately it's not like the NFL where you get people who are huge & fast. Maybe someday...

It felt really good to see everyone & work out. Made me much more psyched about playing this season. It's just gonna start sucking when I have to work too. Then between that & 3 classes my time will be down to 0.

More on the first practice we had last night later...