What I did on my Summer Vacation

Big changes this year. Normally, my off-season has consisted primarily of riding my bike once or twice a weekend. This year, I had planned on doing just that and had even picked up a new carbon fiber bike to enjoy but things didn't quite work out.

Chris and Chenault had been talking to be about trying basketball all spring and I had considered it but had never really gotten around to it. Saturday football usually wiped me out pretty good and I work out on Sunday mornings during football season so by the time that was all done, the last thing I had was motivation to go out on Sunday afternoon to play basketball, particularly when playing in the afternoons in late April or May meant playing in much hotter temperatures than is my preference.

I'm really glad that I didn't go out and play with them this spring but I'm even more glad that I did go out to play this summer. I was horrible at basketball for my first several weeks and had I tried playing in the spring, I would have never stuck with it. But without football to focus on as my primary activity, when I started playing in June, I was able to keep playing and get passable. I say passable because even though I am still only good for 4 points per day (as in, over the course of 5-6 games), my defense got good enough that I felt I was able to contribute (thought probably not enough to make up for my poor offense as of yet). During my last games yesterday, I found myself getting much more comfortable with the whole court while on defense - able to slide over and stick a hand in on a drive by another man's player - little things to try to do more than just mindlessly follow my man around the court.

In any case, I'm thrilled to have found another sport so that when that day finally arrives that I can't play football anymore, I'll still have a competitive sport that is a hell of a lot of fun and that I can continue to learn and hopefully get better at.

And then I'm hoping that there are some benefits to playing basketball during the summer. I am famously heat intolerant - in fact, my football season pretty much normally doesn't begin until week 6 or so when it starts to cool down a bit. I'm hoping that playing basketball in 90+ degree heat for 3+ hours on Saturdays and cycling on Sundays will give me a better heat acclimation than just cycling has in the past.

I'll find out soon because football season is upon us.