On the ride home from the airport tonight, Beth asked me, "What are you going to do in the off-season?"

Although my first thought was, "Sit around, eating bon-bons, gaining weight and just healing," I did pause long enough to think about her question and give her an honest, non-flippant answer.

I'm going to continue with my Monday-Wednesday-Friday morning fitness classes at Velocity Sports. Partly because I've already signed a contract with them for another six months, partly because I really like the instructor, and party because inertia keeps me going that way. Tuesday and Thursday mornings I'll stsart back up at the yoga/pilates fusion class I've been going to off and on. It's a good stretching program, if nothing else. I don't feel I get a good "workout" going, but I do use my abs for about 3 minutes. That part, the stretching part, and fact it gets me up in the morning so I can keep my regular sleep schedule means I'll keep going.

The part that I'm toying with, however, is the third idea I had for what to do over the winter. A few years ago, I asked Lisa what her fastest mile time was. My plan was to add a minute to her time and try to run that time.

I didn't realize when I asked that her personal best was a 5:30 mile.

Meaning I just set my goal at 6:30.

Gee, that's only 45 seconds faster than I've ever run a mile, and that success was on a treadmill with the machine helping me along. My fastest ground time was around 7:45.

I mentioned my goal to Kris, and, in his wonderful, adorable way, he immediately drew up a training schedule that would, in his words, have me running gazelle-like to a 6:30 mile.

I didn't make that mile time that year, but I'm seriously considering trying this winter. Until I commit to it fully, it's just a idea, but I'm thinking I'd like to try. I'll dig up the program Kris designed and add a tweak to it. Following the thought, "A person cranking out 7 minute miles never learns how to move his arms and legs fast enough to run a 6 minute mile.", I'd like to try Kris' workout with a twice-weekly or so workout where I run a 6 minute pace as long as I can around the track.

A 6 minute pace is a 90 second 400m. That's a completely doable pace for one lap. So, I start at one lap and run that pace for the lap, then continue for another 100 meters. If I can keep up the pace, then I'll keep going. I might try 50m increments instead of 100m increments, not sure. But, my watch has an interval timer on it, so I can use it to beep at me at 11 second intervals: I'll need to have run about 50m in each of those 11 seconds.

With this plan, I'll be learning how to move my arms fast enough to run a 6 minute mile.

Of course, the goal is a 6:30 mile.

I just need to decide if I want to commit to it. If I do, it'll be a lot of hard work, but oh so very worth it in terms of personal satisfaction in the end.

DanO: "Lyndsay's are better. Sorry, Kitt."

Me: "If you say so."

"I haven't seen yours."

"If you want to, look at Andy's yearbook."

"You two went to school together?"

Andy: "Yeah. Kitt asked me out, too."

Me: "!!!!!!!!"

Next morning, me: "Uh, did I really? Because I don't remember that at all."

Andy: "Yes. Fairly vivid memory of it."

Crap.

I'm completely mortified by this revelation. I thought I recalled every guy I asked out in college. I have exactly no memories of asking Andy out. Zero. Zilch. None.

Suddenly my crush on him has taken on new dimensions. Like, over a decade old dimensions.

Might have to stop with the Office + hot-tub journeys.

And the debauchery begins. This time, with a ro-sham-stick your head in the ceiling fan.

Kevin won.

Question: How amazingly cool are the Mischief folk?

Answer: Incredibly so.

Brynne had Pickett as her psych-up buddy. He made her a special batch of beer for her as a psych-up gift. The name of the beer?

Big Booty Ale.

So, the layout.

I don't layout in ultimate. I can count on one hand the number of times I've laid out (4), but I've wanted to be able to do so for a long time. Actually, I've been wanting to be able to be able to reach a disc, increase my range of reception, be a bigger target.

So, to overcome this "limitation," I've been visualizing. My body can't do what I want it to do if even *I* don't know what I want it to do. I've been watching videos, and live games, watching for what I want to learn to do, imagining myself doing it. Mostly what I'm trying to figure out is how to lay out in stride. I recall seeing Dave Brokaw lay out in stride by reaching by just running and reaching out straight, and that seemed the smoothest way to go.

Figuring out the movement has been the challenge. I'd settled on a one-two-boom! step where the first two steps set up the launch.

Not sure it helped though. I've asked Doyle to teach me, but his response has always been, "No, you just have to do it."

Somehow, today was the day. I had cleared to the back of the stack, and saw the disc swing from the sideline to the dump straight in front of the stack. I started cutting in as the disc was swinging, as hard as I could. Ryan threw the disc, but it was low.

Just as Doyle say, "You just have to do it," I got low and tried to reach low. It wasn't graceful. It wasn't pretty. I held my right arm tucked into me as I landed, slightly jamming my shoulder as I landed, my left arm reaching out for that disc, I wanted that disc.

I missed. It hit the ground and bounced up. I don't know what my legs were doing during the attempt. I could have looked as much like a dork as I fear I did, but I don't care. I had one arm stretched out and I tried for that disc.

Shirley congratulated me on the attempt, and included a "so close!" A couple other people commented on it. I've heard a few comments on my attempt from other teammates when they didn't realize I was listening. I've been so happy to hear their praise. It means I didn't look like the dork I think I might have been at that moment. *smirk*

Odd that I'd post on just one play in one game in the entire tournament, but I'm happy that, on my last tournament at the elite level of ultimate, I managed to achieve that one elusive goal.

I can retire satisfied.