Category Archives: sports

Panamerican Ultimate Championships

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We found ourselves in a Spanish speaking country again last week, although very temporarily. Our visit consisted of a lot of ultimate, some relaxing, and reconnecting with some of our Uruguayan friends. Seeing them and chatting made me remember the joy and pleasure that writing this blog gave me when we were living in Uruguay and beyond.

I have decided to re-kindle my relationship with the blog. In reacquainting myself with the blog I noticed that I had several drafts of half finished posts. It seems that the longer I neglected sharing our adventures, the more burdensome it felt to catch everyone up. The end result was just a void. So… that being said, I’m not going to try to catch you all up. I’m just going to jump right in!

We (the husband, the roomie – yes the same one from Uruguay, and I) traveled to Cancun, Mexico the week before Thanksgiving to participate in the Panamerican Ultimate Championships. It is a 4 day tournament  of teams from North, Central, and South America competing, coexisting, and interacting in the wonderful world-wide ultimate community.

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I was playing for a master’s women’s team from Atlanta, the Atlantiques! Yes, I know the name is awesome 😉 The husband and roomie played with Team Uruguay. They could only field a men’s team so I was out of luck, but that’s okay. It was the first time in about 4 years that I have played on a women’s team and it was a blast! We won the third place trophy in the women’s division with 14 players all over 30. For those of you who can’t quite grasp the awesomeness of this feat, just picture a small number of slow ladies schooling an army of 20 year olds for nine games over three days. Experience counts!

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The Uruguay team almost made it to the quarterfinals, but a weird three-way tie in the pool threw them into the bottom brackets. It was disappointing, but everyone just seemed happy to be there and playing! Watching my old friends play made me super happy. They have come so far in the three years that we have been gone and it’s really gratifying to know that we have had a part (and continue to have a part) in their development and growth.

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The weather was awesome in Cancun, especially for all those teams from Canada! The fields were really great, although they got a little muddy after a downpour on the second day. The only complaint I have, and I hear this is pretty common for international WFDF tournaments, is that the field site was really far from the lodgings and the arranged bus service was limited. All this basically meant was that we went to the fields in the morning and came home at the end of the day. This usually isn’t a horrible thing, but the AC of a hotel room is awful nice in the middle of an 85 degree F, 100% humidity day. We just kept telling ourselves… “We’re in Cancun! Life could be a whole lot worse!”IMG_0700.JPG

All in all… A fantastic experience and one to be remembered!

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Back for 2013, Just a Little Late

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So I think the last place we left you was with Matt in Thailand and Asa and I in some kind of crazy limbo living situation.

Well, I am happy to report that we moved into a nice two bedroom apartment near the beach in Jacksonville. We are planning on being here until August when I will surely have a job. Regardless of the job situation, we will find ourselves seeking a new abode somewhere.

Being near the beach is great and we are within biking distance of the grocery store, the gym, the bank, restaurants, the beach, and a dog park. Riding our bikes has been great and we hope to keep up the habit regardless of where we end up.

In other news, Asa will be trying out for Team USA (Ultimate Frisbee) in a couple weeks. This year’s competition is called the World Games and it will be held in August in Cali, Colombia. The USA is taking a 13 person mixed gender squad to compete. We’ll keep you posted on any news we hear.

With that, I think I’ve caught you up on the major events of the past couple months (yeah, not a lot going on). I will try to be better with posting fun stuff we do around Jacksonville. I even pulled out and charged my camera in anticipation!

I’ll just leave you with some nice pics of the St. Augustine Turtle Trot (5K) that Asa’s mom and I ran together a couple weeks ago. I won third place in my age group and got an awesome hand-carved wooden turtle medal (that the cat promptly knocked of our table and the dog promptly ate!).

Us after the race!

Us after the race!

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The beach at St. Augustine. Flat, warm, and sandy!

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Cars are allowed to drive/park on the beach as long as they have 4-wheel drive and pay the parking fee. I had to laugh at the little sedan that we saw driving down there. Hope they didn’t get stuck!

Another Triathlon

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Alright, so this one I didn’t do. I was planning on it, but a good friend convinced me to come to her wedding instead. It really didn’t take much convincing, just a one sentence email! But more on that later.

I didn’t do this triathlon, but my dad did. So I went to see him off on the swim before heading to my friend’s wedding. This was the Morro Bay Triathlon, right in our own backyard. In fact, the bike course goes near our house. The swim is a nice out and back course in the bay, the bike heads up Highway 1 towards Cambria, and the run is on the beach near Morro Rock.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures from the morning. And in case you were wondering, my dad got first place in his age group and beat his time from last year!!

Dad on his way to the swim.

Yep, the buoys for the swim were big happy faces!

Here is Dad’s wave in the water, headed out the channel towards Morro Rock.

It was early. Even the seal lions were tired!

 

 

 

Bakersfield Triathlon

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I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been busy.

Last weekend we were our usually busy selves and took a trip to Bakersfield for the Bakersfield Triathlon. I know what you’re saying… “Who in their right minds would want to do a triathlon in Bakersfield at the end of the summer?” Well the only answer I have is that we were definitely not in our right minds! We had fun anyway.

My dad has done this triathlon every year for the last 4 years. This was my first triathlon after an 8 year hiatus of playing frisbee. Before that I used to do a couple of triathlons each summer. Lucky for me, the Bakersfield Triathlon has both an olympic distance and a sprint distance. Dad did the olympic and I did the sprint.

For those that aren’t familiar with the sport of triathlon, it is a race that combines swimming, biking and running in that order. An olympic distance consists of a 1.5 K swim, a 40K bike, and a 10 K run. A sprint distance consists of a 0.75 K swim, a 20 K bike, and a 5 K run. Some competitions allow relays where one person does each event and the individual times are added up, but most competitions are a grueling endurance event in which one person does all the events by themselves.

Well the day dawned bright and sultry. The temp was about 75 degrees F when we woke up and above 90 degrees F by the time we finished. The swim took place in Lake Ming on the East side of Bakersfield (despite the swimming prohibited sign!). The water temp was perfect and no wetsuits were necessary.

The bike was a nice out and back course along well-paved and relatively traffic free roads. The olympic course had a couple of good hills before turning around and coming back.

The run was advertised as a little long, more like 6 K and 11 K. It was mostly on trails and bike paths, but was dusty and had little to no shade. This was a bit problematic in the heat and most of the crowd just “survived” the run instead of “racing it”.

In the end, Dad and I both had a great time. Dad came in 2nd in his age group and with a time very close to his last years’ time. I came in 3rd in my age group and 10th out of all the ladies in the sprint race. There will definitely be more races to come!