My holy grail

Last week I stumbled on something amazing. I was looking for co-ed volleyball and I got to Overland Park's co-ed leagues. I scrolled down to the volleyball part, but I noticed there was a part that said Women's Basketball. Wait, what? I scrolled back up and looked. There was a Monday night league with only women. I saw there were 8 teams and they started 2 weeks ago. Oh man, I just missed it. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I called the league coordinator and he suggested writing an e-mail to him and he would pass it to all the team captains, and if they needed an extra player they would contact me. I sent out the e-mail, and waited. Nothing happened. I guess everyone already had their teams. I could always do it next season. I wasn't too discouraged because before this, I didn't even know Women's basketball was an option here. But, then later, I got a call...

One of the team captains asked if I wanted to be on their team. Oh boy, would I? She gave me the logistics and I was to start playing on Monday night. The first game was at 9:30pm. This made for a very busy and long yesterday. After work Henry had soccer (see picture above). Then, I had my session with my personal trainer. I didn't want to cancel because it would be too short notice. In hindsight, maybe I should have. My trainer has been very impressed with my strength progression and promised to make this lesson harder. That he did. This time he taught me super sets, which is very exhausting. I felt that at the end of each set I could not even lift a pencil. After my session I read a book to Henry then went to my game. I went an hour early for check in and also a team meeting. I found my team pretty easily and they were all really nice. This whole night, I never got too anxious. I felt like aerobically I was ready, but I knew my basketball skills were sleeping. I was going to play good defense to make it up.

Pretty soon the game started. Quickly a girl on my team got fouled shooting and had free throws. On the second shot the ref said " has to hit the rim." I thought that meant the ball has to hit the rim to count, but apparently I was wrong. You are not supposed to move until it hits the rim. When I played before, you were able to move as soon as the ball left the shooters arms. Well I got out of the lane right away, the shooter made the shot, but it didn't count because of me. Whoops. Mistake. That's okay, brush it off, no problems. The next time the ball was in our possession I made a shot and it went in. 2 points! Woo! Maybe I redeemed myself. So, I guess technically I made our first points of the game (but it should have been the second).

In the first half we were playing man to man. I realized that maybe I wasn't in the shape I needed to be in. This was a lot more intense than my jogging or even circuit training. Maybe it was because I already worked out, maybe it was because we only had one sub, but I got tired. I wasn't too bad and kept up fine, but I had to limit my explosiveness. Later we changed to zone and I felt much better. Funny that my basketball skills weren't too bad but my aerobic capacity was my limiting factor.

During the game I scored 5 points, 2 shots and 1 free throw (1 for 2). Not too bad. The game was a blast! We ended up winning in double overtime. Very exciting. Everyone there (including the opponents) seemed to be playing for fun. That's exactly was I was looking for. Can't wait to go next week.