Tomorrow is the day. Playing squash, never to early, so probably around 1330 in the afternoon. The pressure is on. As it might well be the last game of 2005 and in the overall standing I am trailing 6 to 7 in wins this year. In other words: I have to win. Well, actually I was down 3-7 a month ago, so I had to win most of the games left this season to make the score look at least a bit more decent by the end of the year, but now that I won 3 in a row and a draw is near, it’s a whole different ballgame! Loosing ain’t longer an option! I can’t get so close and then not be bothered with it…

Weird thing, as I also felt the pressure last week, which resulted in playing quite a bad match, even though I was able to win it. Well, at least the first 3 sets where bad. Only in the 4th and final set I lost the pressure of “having to win” and was able to play better and enjoy myself much more! I can only hope tomorrows match will be like that!

Preparation has been quite ok. The one and half hour gym session on Wednesday morning was, although very early, good fun. The first 15 minutes on the cross-trainer was almost about poking fun at the physical laws of the basic heart functions. A speed of 12 km/h with a constant heartbeat of 165+ per minute… Any 8 year old would be jealous! :-) But to say it’s healthy… I am not sure… Maybe it’s a good thing I am not a doctor! But well, in that perspective it was the perfect preparation, because that rate of heartbeats per minute has been quite normal during most of the squash games this year… and then it’s about 15 minutes per set! *hahahaha* and lucky for my body doesn’t shake as much as Bastiaans body at that heartbeat rate! :-)

Either way, I will try and play as relaxed as possible, just go out there and have fun. That sounds like the winning scenario. And if it’s not… well, then I can also claim the fair-play award! :-)

Update (December 18, 2005):
4-9, 9-3, 10-8, 9-3. I won! :-) It was far from easy though, but I was able to cope with the pressure! Actually Bastiaan took the most pressure away from me when I talked to him on the phone in the morning. I never realized that he was also feeling the same pressure. He had lost 3 in a row and was seeing me getting closer and closer in the 2005 results; damn, he had more pressure then me!! So after hearing that, I wasn’t to worried about the result anymore. Still the game was very close and could have gone either way, but luckily it went my way in the end!

Not sure how many games there will be left this year… Maybe one or two more… I guess the pressure will be on until the end of the year… Mmmm… already looking forward to the first game of 2006! When it will just be about having fun again. The one without the pressure! :-)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 23:12 and is filed under Squash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.