12-19-16 HY: Pickleball + Cycling + Splits + TCF.

12-19-16 HY: Pickleball + Cycling + Splits + TCF.

Last Pickleball day of 2016.

And it was a DOOZY!!!  No blowouts today.  Each game was a hard fought, up hill, knock down, drag out, barroom brawl.  This was the scrappiest we've played so far.  It was a ton of fun, to be sure.  The first game, we were both just inching up the point ladder.  No really "WOW" shots, but just a lot of well constructed points.  Not a lot of unforced errors, but mostly forced errors.  I took the game 15-13.  The second game, I had a big lead, then got stuck on 8.  I just couldn't convert.  He kept chipping away at my lead and then, before I knew it, he had taken the lead and extended it.  He had game point, but that is when I finally got off 8 and worked my way to 11, but that is where the come back stalled.  I lost it 11-15.  The weird thing is, the exact same thing happened in the third game.  I had a nice lead, then lost it.  Then I let him get to far out in front, and when he had 14, I mounted a weak come back that ended at 10.  I lost 10-15.  These three games took up a lot of time, and if we were going to play another long game like these, we didn't have the time.  So we decided to play one last game to 11.  This time, things were almost different.  I jumped out to a 10 - 1 lead in like three minutes.  Then I fell apart.  He scrapped his way back.  I was missing shots left and right.  My short cross-court backhand just wasn't working for me today, everything was flying way wide.  From the second game on, it was really noticeable.  He worked the score back to 10-10.  Finally I got a point, but couldn't close it out.  It took a few tries before I finally took the game 12-10.  It really was an awesome game!  Well worth the energy spent, and the sweat dripped.  Burned a ton of kilo-calories as well.  Oh, the gym was frigid cold, but we warmed up pretty quickly.

I was planning to do my splits early so I could relax in the evening, but my daughter called just a little ways out from her school from a friends house and said that her bicycle light suddenly just went off.  So, my wife and I went to see what happened, and sure enough. the light just wasn't going on.  It was already night, so I decided to ride her bike home.  Japan is a very hilly/mountainous country, so although it was just under 5km home, I worked up a good sweat on that ride.  The final hill leading up to our home was a burner.  But the ride felt good.  If there is a next time, I'll have to take the time to raise the seat of the bike!  I don't know how many calories I burned, but it was a nice burn.

I was sweating like crazy when I got home, so I figured I would take another shower.  But before that, I did my Splits and Flow.  My legs were still pumped from the ride, so it took a little longer for me to hit the sweet spot, but once I got there, I was going low.  Flow was good.

In the end, (of the Pickelball) I torched a nice round 1175kcals.  Feeling the BURN!!!