WUCC 2010

Hello again, a little update? This season has been pretty strange so far for me. With MT3 this weekend I see the end of the mixed tour while having not played a single game. All the while training 4 or 5 times a week and getting fitter, faster and stronger and leaving the memories of my injury as just that, memories. Weird. Really loving playing again, and can't wait for the beginning of the open tour where I'll be playing with Tooting Tigers. I already know I can only make the Sundays of each tour, but I can't wait to give my all over a one day period consisting of probably three games. Deadly serious when I say we want to challenge the top 4, bring it...WUCC 2010? yes please. A last minute drop out from another country has meant that Thundering Herd got a last minute bid to WUCC 2010 and yours truly has just booked flights and a place on the squad. What an experience that is going to be...

Writing has taken a back seat since being back from injury but as the Open Tour starts we'll see if it picks up again, nice to see a few other UK Ultimate blogs have popped up in my absence!

I'm going to be one half of the coaching team for UCL Ultimate next year too. I may write about that in the future if I think it will be interesting but mostly just looking forward to playing hard again. I'm down to a 12.82s 100m sprint and improving each session. Don't let me mark you because I will get the D.

7 weeks to mixed tour 1...

It's looking like I'll be playing at MT1, I really can't wait. I've upped my track workouts to at least 2 lengthy sessions each week. I do fartleks, tabatas, core work and throwing if I go with someone else. At least once a week I go for a swim and twice a week to the gym alternating between upper and lower body. Then on top of this I started going back to actual training sessions, monday and wednesdays. Sure it's just my uni team and I go more as a coach figure than a player but I find I'm now able to play, somewhat, in the games.

I've got an image in my head that I'm aiming for, I'm on D and I'm completely shutting my man down. He can't get free whatever he tries and every time a disc is thrown to him, I beat him to it. I'm just faster and in better shape than he is.

So that's the vision...I find it helps to focus on when the burn starts to kick in and I've still got 8 x 100m at 100% to go.

I'm willing to give it a real go, the time investment on the track, the determination and the motivation to be better than my opponent. After almost 6 months (?-dont care to check anymore) of not playing I feel so close to getting back out there and having the opportunity to give 100%. Everything that has happened with my knee is just history and bad memories and I can almost leave it all behind and just look forwards.

Windmill Windup 2010? Mixed nationals 2010? Open nationals 2010? Hell yes.

Happy New Year!

2010...should be interesting. The closer I'm getting to being back at 100% post ACL tear, the less enthusiastic I am about writing about Ultimate. Its been 133 days since I last played a game of ultimate. I'm very much out of the Ultimate Frisbee way of living where weekends are mostly spent training or at a tournament, most parties are with frisbee friends and most travel is frisbee related. Just need to vent...give me a minute. I'm still motivated to get back to playing but with (what feels like) so long away from it all, I think I've started to forget why I care so much. I'm swimming, running and cycling at a good level everyday, I could compete in triathlons as I am but could I play ultimate yet? no...regardless of how well I can travel in one direction there's still a high risk of re-tearing for at least another couple of months if I play ultimate. It's such a bitch!

Not playing has, as expected, resulted in my not feeling the need to talk about UK Ultimate on a regular basis. I'm now just thinking about being able to get back on D...

Tournament Ideas

Get ideas for running your own tournament from others who do it in a professional manner which results in good times all round!

No Wisconsequences 2009 from Cultimate on Vimeo.

Hosting a Tournament - The Venue.

There are a number of ways we as a community can all contribute to the sustained growth of our sport. With so many tournaments having taken place across the UK in so many different venues, it would be great to have all of these available to view in one online resource. So if in the past few years you have been a Tournament Director or have helped run a tournament, you would be helping the UK Ultimate community if you took 2 minutes to pass on some very useful information regarding the venue. I may make this a series of posts covering other aspects of running a tournament that will help future TDs in their planning.

So either respond in the comments section below or email me directly at greenie141(at)hotmail.com. Other comments regarding +ve and -ve things about venues you've experienced will also be very useful!

Let everyone know:

What was the name and location of the venue?
What was the name of your tournament?
Was it indoors/outdoors or beach/
How many players did the venue host?
How many teams?
How many pitches did you use?
How many days did you tournament last?
Was there food on-site?
Was there on-site camping?
How much did the venue cost per day?
How would you rate the venue facilities out of 10?
How would you rate the playing surface out of 10?
Would you use it again?
Overall subjective score of the venue you used out of 10
Want to add anything else?

Great! If everyone comes together on this and actually contributes a bit of information and time then I'll put together a list of sorts and send it out. I can't help but think that a list of 100 or so venues across the UK will be a great place to start for wannabe TDs.

For everyone to do their own research seperately, when for years the same questions have been asked of the same venues doesn't make any real sense when we all have the same goal of good quality Ultimate Tournaments. Some venues are Ultimate friendly while others aren't, so let the rest of the community know!

A very useful resource to get you started on planning your tournament can already be found on the UKUA website with the UKUA guide for TDs as well as others specific to running tour events.

Related posts:

Tournaments Over The Festive Season

Pre Tournament Hype

Monkey Foo - What a Venue

Indoors, State Side

Referees?

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, for almost as long as Ultimate has existed, so has the debate about referees. There are valid arguments for and against, take a look here for some of them. The recent goings on with Henry and his now infamous handball triggered a whole load of discussion with not a great deal of new content but still. I personally think that an active linesman role is required while the players continue self refereeing.

Heres the incident with Henry



And his interesting rection to the situaiton highlighting perhaps the dangers of taking a level responsibility away fromt the players.



Heres an extreme case of what can happen within a sport here players see the opponent as the enemy and disregard all else.



This video came up when I was looking for 'Dirty womens football'...disgusting.

ED, work, bike and technology

I had planned to write a post on the recent discussions taking place on the EuroDisc mail list. There are plenty of interesting, if not original, suggestions and comments going around regarding the age old referees/observer quandry we find ourselves in. Unfortunately, I ran out of things to do at work today and so went for a swim instead. This meant I wasn't at the computer from which I post here. On the way home from work I got my 2nd puncture while cycling this week (different wheel each time) and so had to get the bus. With little to do with my time I looked to see if I could have a read online via my phone, whaddya know, I could! As you may now have guessed, I am now having a go at writing a post from my phone. I'm not technophobic, I'm sometimes just a bit slow at seeing how a particular new technology may benefit me. Once I see it however, its all good! Anyway, this I mostly just a test really. I imagine something funky will happen with the formatting. Either way, here's to technology making it all the more difficult to get away, hurrah!