Second Day

Good second day of practice yesterday. It was warm and sunny in the afternoon (see dog at left), but clouded up for practice. Still very nice though.

The girls are incredibly competitive. They love the 1-on-1 ground ball competition drills and do a nice job with it. The throwing and catching needs to get better overall (wall ball!) but there is some progress there as well. PlaySportsTV has some simple throwing and catching video instruction. Good stuff.

The 3-on-3 had some issues, but they got better with it each time through. A couple of covers and they need to master the stop on the whistle thing, but the effort was good and there was very little hacking (no checking in our league). The level of physical fitness varies pretty widely, but everyone is trying on the wind sprints at the end.

I can't wait until practice next week!

Lacrosse Season!

We had our first RVLLA practice of the year on Monday. It was cold and windy, but a perfect day to be out there (any day would have been perfect . It's a big group this year with many returning players and new faces.

I'm working with a new coach, CP, this year as Susan has moved on to the middle school team. She will be missed (although she isn't too far away). CP and I both brought practice plans with us on the first day. We are, quite literally, on the same page. It should be a whole lot of fun.

Our second practice is today and the lacrosse gods have smiled upon us and given us a beautiful sunny day to pay homage to them (or at least not offend).

June

It's time for the monthly update on my New Year Resolutions. We are halfway through the year, and I'm about halfway through the resolutions.

1. Do two triathlons. I did two events in June (neither very well, but that is besides the point).


2. Coach my daughter's lacrosse team. The season is over and I miss it already. We only lost two games (and one was against middle schoolers) and it was a fun season. Maybe it won't rain so much next year.


3. Learn something new. I'm converting my old Cannondale to be a single speed bike. So, I'm learning bicycle maintenance. I'm really tempted to build a bike from the frame up next.


4. Swim 50 miles over the course of the year. I swam 7,850 yards in May (4.5 miles) for a total of 53,350 (30 miles) on the year. If I can swim 4 miles a month, I'll be done in October. I also ran 24 mi and rode 117 mi in June.


5. Pass an SAP certification exam. Nope.

May

Time for the monthly update on my New Year Resolutions:

1. Do two triathlons. I'm signed up for two events in June. I swam 5600 yds, rode 156 mi and ran 35 mi in May, so I think I'm ready to go.


2. Coach my daughter's lacrosse team. The season is over and I miss it already. We only lost two games (and one was against middle schoolers) and it was a fun season. Maybe it won't rain so much next year.


3. Learn something new. Not much going on here. Lots of ideas, but no real action.


4. Swim 50 miles over the course of the year. I'm over halfway there. I swam 5,600 yards in May (3.2 miles) for a total of 45,500 (26 miles) on the year.


5. Pass an SAP certification exam. I might schedule this for early July since we are heading to Philadelphia anyway.

update

A (belated) update on the status of my New Year's Resolutions:

1. Do two triathlons. They cancelled the easy one in Blacksburg, so I might have to actually do two real ones. I'm keeping up with the swimming, but the running and cycling are so-so.
2. Coach my daughter's lacrosse team. The season is almost over and we are now 5-2. We lost our last game to Lexington 9-8. It was a good game and all tied up at half, but we fell asleep right after halftime and gave up 4 quick goals because we couldn't win a draw or get a ground ball. After a few minutes, the girls seemed to realize that they were getting killed and brought it to within 2 goals with about 20 seconds left. Sophie won the draw right off and scored to make it a one goal game with 1o seconds on the clock. Then she won the next draw and was just getting ready to shoot when time expired.
   
3. Learn something new. No progress. I'm relearning C++ on a project I'm working on, but I guess that doesn't count.
   
4. Swim 50 miles over the course of the year. Still ahead of schedule here. I swam 7,000 yards in April (4 miles) for a total of 39,900 (22.8 miles) on the year.
5. Pass an SAP certification exam. Need to work on this one.

2-0

On a blustery spring day, we won our second lacrosse game of the year against Lexington, 6-5. They were a tough team and had two players that were basically unstoppable but our team got a slim majority of the ground balls and controlled the midfield to earn the win.

We started off with the first goal fairly quickly and it almost looked like it was going to be a cakewalk, but Lexington came back with two goals scored by their tough center to pull ahead. Kali, who had bravely volunteered to play goal, made a good stop towards the end of the half to preserve the 3-3 tie.

In the second half, Lexington scored first and we got two more to pull ahead by one. Time was winding down and we had the ball in their end with about two minutes to go. Their strategy on defense was to not play the ball behind the goal, but they made a mistake and didn't pick Sophie up coming around to the right at all. Despite my pleas to hold the ball to run out the clock, she scored her 3rd to give us a two goal lead with about a minute and half left.

The Lexington center won the ensuing draw and brought the ball straight down the field and scored quickly. With less than a minute to go, the draw was closely contested and the clock expired with the ball at midfield.

It was a fun one to watch. Lexington is a well coached team and played tough defense with sticks up and very few open opportunities. We had more team speed and did a little better on the ground balls. We need a little work on the the rules (offside, shooting space and running the ball out on a shot were the things I noticed), but otherwise played a great game.

Quarter

Here is the quarterly update on my goals for 2009.

1. Do two triathlons. The running and swimming are in gear. I've done a few rides, but need to step that up a bit.
2. Coach my daughter's lacrosse team. We won our first game last week, so that is going well.
3. Learn something new. No progress.
4. Swim 50 miles over the course of the year. Still ahead of schedule here. I swam 10,000 yards in March (5.7 miles) for a total of 32,900 (18.8 miles) on the year.
5. Pass an SAP certification exam. I've been studying for the SAP PM exam and plan on scheduling it for March April or May (been too busy with work to get this one in).

A mixed bag, but nothing has completely fallen off yet.