Since the dawn of man....

Since the dawn of man... men have engaged in battle to determine who is the strongest and fastest.  I the early days it was to determine supremacy of the tribe... who would be the best leader.  It is a tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation, and last night I partook in this... the grandest of human traditions.  We were battling for the right to where funny little metals of fake gold, silver, and bronze around our necks.  What could be more glorious?!

Luke and I were part of the racquetball team for our company in the Las Vegas Corporate Challenge.  There were also men's singles, women's singles, and a women's doubles team.  The first up on our path to glory was the women's side of our team.  They fought strong and brought home the medals for us.  We took the bronze in women's doubles and the gold in women's singles.  I do have to say that the gold in women's singles doesn't surprise me.  Shirley tends to wipe the floor with most of us when we play mano-o-womano.  I should also mention that Shirley is our coach.

I was able to watch one of the women's doubles matches before I had to go warm up.  They fought hard, but in the end victory was not going to be there for them.  After facing defeat, they were asked to play again to determine 3rd/4th place.  I did not see that match, but judging from the shiny medals hanging around their neck I knew that they won!  Two medals for the women's side of the team!  

And then it was time... Luke and I entered the court for our match in stone silence.  As we all hit the ball a few times against the wall to warm up I tried to measure our opponents to find which was the weaker player.  I was not successful... they both seemed a bit weak.  We had no problems and it was a good opponent to work out our jitters.

As the night wore on, Luke and I continued to slay our opponents.  We seemed to slowly get a better feel for these courts with really dead walls.  In our second to last match it was a much tougher opponent.  We ended up winning the match 2 games to 1... but if we had not stepped up our game a bit... it could have easily gone the other way.  I think Luke had one run where he served and we scored 6-7 points in a row... and I had a run like that also.  When your opponent starts to get flustered, you just step up the pace and keep hitting to them.  That's what we did and they ended up falling apart.

The team that ended up knocking us out was really really (OH MY GOD!) REALLY GOOD.  It is one thing when you loose to somebody you know you have a chance of beating, but when you aren't even in the same league as your opponent you have to just shrug and thank your lucky stars you didn't end up playing them in the first round.  After watching those guys play, I now know the level to which I want to elevate my game.  We walked away with the bronze medal. Time to take a week or two off... and then time to start practicing!

--C