Double-header basketball and a long run

My son has been playing basketball for the first time ever. The season is almost over, and we’re planning on continuing to play. He’s played baseball before, and while he was ok at it, the speed of play couldn’t hold his attention. Basketball is better for him since it’s constant motion. And, he’s really good at it too! We had a double-header weekend, with a game on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The Saturday night game was one of the best games they’d played. The team we were playing was #2 in the league. We went down pretty quickly in the first half, but by the second half, our boys just started to ‘get it’. We outscored the team in the second half, but not by enough to even up the score for the whole game. But it was great to see the kids start to gel and play like a team. I don’t know that I’ve been more proud of my boy recently! Sadly, the Sunday game wasn’t as good. It was pretty much a slaughter, and Z got really frustrated, but he pulled it together and stepped up in the second half again, giving me more reason to be proud.

Then, I managed to squeeze in my long training run this weekend. It was a bit warm out, but the trail that I run on is fairly shaded, so I just took some extra water with me. And, I broke down and bought some short-tights and a tank. I don’t like traditional ‘running shorts’ for some reason. I just prefer the kind that don’t move when I run. I have plenty of tights for cooler weather running, but it was too warm to wear the long ones yesterday.

I had to run a hour and fifteen minutes. My coach’s hubby inquired how far I intended to run…at least 6 miles right? Uh, maybe I thought. If I get in 5.5 I’ll be happy, since it was warm. But, I managed to surprise myself, and in 1:13:42 I managed to get in 6.4 miles! Over distance, that was an 11:30 average, which again, is a PR for me. The consistent running is starting to pay off, and I am very, very happy! More speed work tonight. A longer tempo run. Which, is, IMO, better than those sprint things, but still is hard work. Thank goodness it’s supposed to be cooler this week. Can’t wait till the real Texas heat hits and I’m training for a marathon. Oh yes, I can.

Desperado Friday Night

What do four otherwise normal adults do on a Friday night? They take their kids to see the Dallas Desperados play the New York Dragons. Yes folks, it’s the Arena Football league. What could make me yearn for real turf, goal posts and 100 yards…arena football. But, Christy, Tracy (Christy’s sister), and Keith (Judy’s husband) and I fortified our resolve and dared to venture out with six children under the age of 12.

Of course, at any good game, there are giveaways. Last night’s giveaway was “Thundersticks”. Plastic tubes you blow up and beat together to make a most annoying noise. Each child had a pair of these noisemakers, and there were 6 kids…12 thundersticks, 6 water bottles, 6 mini-footballs and the top of the arena later, and we were in our seats. Who’s idea was this anyway…oh yeah. It was Judy’s idea, and she wasn’t even there!

Every major (if you can call these guys major) sport teams have silicon-filled, over-made, college-age girls busting out scanty clothing and doing suggestive dance moves. My nearly 10-year old son thought this was absolutely wonderful. I’m surprised his eyeballs didn’t fall out of his head. Evey time we got a close-up of one of the girls he begged me “mom, take a picture!”. Lordy.

Keith equated arena football to tennis. You’re expected to score on every possession. Basically it’s the defense that wins the game for you by preventing scoring on a drive. Needless to say, the Desperados lost. The game was extremely slow, but we got a good chuckle out of the alternate entertainment. Every penalty flag was sponsored, every timeout was sponsored, they played silly games during timeouts, and took breaks where we couldn’t figure out why they were breaking (no TV timeouts here).

The kids had a blast, the adults had a few laughs, and it was better than McDonalds. So, all in all it was a good night. But, there’s just no substitute for the gridiron. I never thought I’d say it, but give me some NFL football!

Fiery Entry

We’re having fun!

Go Desperados!

Go Team!

Halftime

Back from the fourth trip to the loo…

We had fun