Racquetball Chronicles

By Thursday my legs were exhausted. 2:30 of racquetball Tuesday mixed between singles and cut-throat, 2 hours Wednesday and I was worn down.

So when TA started the first game with his traditional lob serves I fell right back into my bad habits. I casually flicked at the ball from waist level, did not get into good position, and worst of all did not hustle. ball after ball I looked at and just did not chase.

As a result he won game 1 by a 15-13 score...and here is the thing; it was because he played together. I knew what the slow pace was doing and instead of changing it, went along with it which resulted in poor shot execution. Meanwhile, he was executing extremely well.

Game two was slightly faster but still very deliberate. I was bored...which is not good when a game ends 15-14. However, the problem is, I was getting so little action that I had maybe 5% of my shirt sweat-drenched.

Since most nights there is maybe 5% of my shirt DRY after half of a first game...that means I was not getting much done.

So games 3, 4, 5, and 6 I enforced my will...I stepped up the pace, made a point of letting balls drop to the point where I had to run to get to them, which in turn got me moving constantly. And the games became blowouts as I won the last four handily. I think he never got past 4 points.

Lesson; even in "lob serve only" games, I can push pace and be energetic.

Friday I was coming off 6-1/2 hours of racquetball and nearly an hour of weights over the course of the prior 3 days and, counter-intuitively, I was fresher than I had been Thursday. This did not bode well for 25.

Indeed, over the course of the next 8 (or 9...he thinks 9, I think 8) games, he scored 10 once and 8 once.

And the 8 point game...well, we agreed to experiment one time with "no points off serves". Had we not it would have been 15-5 I think. I was up 14-3 if we were counting serves when I stopped paying attention.

I was super energetic, getting to numerous balls. I was hitting corner pinch shots better than I ever have. I was hitting the new shot I developed where I get close to the front wall and gently tap the ball, leading to numerous rollouts. I even got my z-serve working super well to both corners.

I even started working on a new serve that applies backspin. It has potential.

So lots of fun, lots of success. Not enough energy expended.