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! :-)

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Pffff… It was great fun playing squash again yesterday! Last game dated back to the 12th of March from this year, so it was to be expected, but nevertheless a little disappointing to see how rusty my game had become… Luckily it wasn’t just my game, but Bastiaans game had suffered as well, so it was still fun to play! Even though the final score of 0-9, 9-11, 9-2, 3-9 doesn’t really show that and doesn’t give me much to cheer about, it was all smiles from start to finish!

Well, how could it not be fun, if you would hear Bastiaan try to take a deep breath which sounded so bad that if any doctor would hear that, they would have tried nothing else then to get him to the hospital emergency room as soon as possible! Talking about sport not being healthy… well, that’s how that sounds! :-)
And besides Bastiaans lack of breathing, there was also laughter when I managed to hit my own leg… pretty hard… and that produced a sound that would compare best with smacking a pirates wooden leg… quite strange… Do legs really sound like that? :-)

But that was all yesterdays fun… this morning when I woke up, it showed that being rusty on court, also meant feeling rusty the next day… pffff… very rusty… oh my, my right shoulder, both arms and hands don’t feel as they should at the moment… The cycling I have done the last couple of months made sure I was in pretty ok shape, stamina wise, but damn I feel like an old man at the moment… Ah well, it’s probably gonna be better again next time around and seeing the fun I had, it’s more then worth it!

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No, not the movie. Me. Squash yesterday left it marks. On my face. Two possible explanations. One. I got slapped in the face with the racket. Two. I run into a racket. Well, as it never happened before it was most likely a combination of the above. As I couldn’t see my own face while on court, I didn’t really understand why Bastiaan was laughing at the marks on my face, until I saw myself in the changing room mirror… *hahahaha* I sure was a funny sight! :-)
The people in the supermarket where I had to do some shopping not long after the match seemed to agree… People were looking a bit weird at me. I couldn’t blame them. Three big red stripes on my forehead and my nose was all big and red. I would have smiled as well if I saw someone with a racket print on his face! ;-)
This morning I expected the red marks to have disappeared, but they are still there… plus there appeared a couple of little bumps on my forehead and nose. Well, if they are still there tomorrow, at least I have a heroic story to tell at work! ;-)

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Today on the squash court (match starts at 12:00, red.) a new philosophy will be tried out: Fun on court. After loosing all 3 matches this year it’s time for a change. The first game I just lost. The second I had the excuse of the broken racket, but the last match I was without any chance. I expected an easy win, but that was never possible so I got very frustrated… Not good. Not good at all. No real excuse either, other then the fact I don’t like loosing. In the last 4 years, I have won 31 out of the 36 matches… guess I was getting a bit spoiled… Playing should be fun. So today having fun on court will be a little bit more important then winning. But, as winning is of course more fun then loosing, it would still be nice to leave the court as a winner this afternoon! :-)
I am really looking forward to play again, so we will see what happens! Hopefully the new philosophy works and I will be smiling when I am writing the update to this message later today!

Update (February 19, 2005 at 15:25):
The smile is there! :-) The victory as well. 11-9, 9-2, 5-9, 10-8. Although it could just as well have been the other way around. The game was very close (Bastiaan missed setpoints in the 1st and 4th set) and at an unbelievable high level! Lots of beautiful points throughout the match and a lot of running… That was also quite noticeable in the 4th set… we both were in great search of our breath between the points. And started missing balls because of that… but the game was great fun! Just one little scary moment just after the match, when we were playing a bit in our cooling down. I chased the ball, hit it and all of a sudden I couldn’t move my right hand anymore… it was stuck in a 90° angle from my wrist… Very strange. Not painful, and it went away really fast, but scary for a moment. But the smile is back, the philosophy worked and I am already looking forward till next week! :-)

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7-9, 9-4, 9-4, 7-1… *CRACK!!*… 8-1, matchpoint… but 15 minutes later a disappointing 7-9, 9-4, 9-4, 8-10, 7-9 stood on the scoreboard. Outch. And no… the big crack wasn’t my leg breaking, neither my physical state and nor my morale. It was my racket. I tried to make the last point with the broken racket in the 4th set, but it was hopeless. Played the 5th with Bastiaans spare racket, an ancient iron one with a hardly any grip, that would have been a precious relic in any sports museum! ;-) Went down 1-8 quickly, but could pick up the pace and my game and was able to come back to 7-8 with chances for more, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Well, besides the fact that I felt a bit bittered about loosing while being so close to victory, the satisfied feeling took the overhand quite quickly when driving home. It was a great game and good exercise again! And amazingly enough my legs didn’t feel that bad after the cycling yesterday. Or was it the second day you have to worry about?! ;-)

Crack!

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I put it down as nr. 11 on the 43 things list… ‘get in shape’… There is no real order in the list yet, just wrote them down as I made them up. But yesterday it became quite clear I am still far away from achieving that goal so maybe I should make an order and push this one up high on the list. Playing squash was great fun again, I actually missed it after not playing for almost 2 months. But where we normally play a best of 5, we now played a best of 3. On my request actually, but fortunately on quick agreement! ;-)
After loosing the 3rd set, and therewith the match, a bad idea, but after the 2nd set and wildly encouraged by my physical state it seemed the best plan at the time. Now I just tell myself I could have won it in 5! :-)
But this morning… the day after the afternoon before… Oh my lord… Waking up, no problem. Watching some tennis from the bed, quite good. Getting out of bed to get some breakfast, outch!!! Muscle pain all over… Especially my butt and my legs… But well, it all belongs to the game of course and not having played for 2 months doesn’t help much there! Plus it was very good for morale to read that I am not the only one with a muscle pain this morning. Bastiaan just wrote me the following (freely translated):
“Getting out of bed this morning was quite hard… Kinda forgot what muscle pain feels like ;-)”
Made me laugh, as I felt exactly the same! Wonder how I feel next time, after playing 5 sets again… Either way: bring it on! I am looking forward to it! Shape or no shape :-)

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