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Here's me about to be outsprinted by a 65 year old during a 5K yesterday. My excuse is that I am currently writing my dissertation and have no time for training (though the diet of jaffa cakes and coke doesn't help either)

https://picasaweb.google.com/106903963001792128140/EastleighParkrun67200811?authuser=0&feat=directlink#5642967738843947346

My triumph is finishing an olympic distance triathlon (including 1500m sea swim) with no training to speak of (my son was born shortly before the race, ergo I was busy). I came last in my age group though.

I did a black rated mtb trail on tuesday which I hadn't done before. Turned a corner at full speed to find a stupidly difficult drop, gak myself, pulled the front brake hard and flew over the handlebars. Still sporting a mentally slowed limp.

...the bike was fine though, which is good since it's worth 1500 quid. It had a nice cushioned fall. ....I was the cushion.

Went skiing once...
Fell all the way down a black run... into a tree... very quickly.
Nothing broken but damn it hurt.

High points:

I went from being a 250 lb nose guard to running half marathons in 3 years. As a 250 lb nose guard I finished in the top 3 in tackles every year, lead in sacks one year, had 5 career picks (all screens), and 1 touchdown (stripped off the RB on a draw, ran for 70 yards when no one was looking). When I was significantly lighter I scored 3 tries in 1 rugby match. My senior year of high school I had a wrestling record of 27-2.

Low points:

Broke my nose running face first into the ball carrier in my first rugby game. My entire baseball and basketball playing history. Hitting my goalie in the head on a clearing pass in bantam hockey.

Ha, well...Like Dogma I too was a nose guard, first string varsity and racked up more than my share of tackles/sacks...
Unfortunatly in my Senior year, while coming off an extraordianary slippery line of scrimmage , I took a pretty damn hard hit resulting in my ankle twisting completely around and my knee snapping...that was pretty much the end of my football "carer".

Made back 9 points for my fencing team in Italian relay* vs an opponent with about 3 years more experiences that me (I'd only been fencing for half a year)



*Italian relay is when a team of 3 fencers play another team, each bout lasting 5 points, meaning it goes up to 45 points.


Edit: a failiure for me is me playing any of the following;

- cricket
- field athletic events
- swimming
- basket ball
- volleyball
- pretty much anything that isn't football, hockey, rugby at a really low level and fencing...

FITZZ wrote: Ha, well...Like Dogma I too was a nose guard, first string varsity and racked up more than my share of tackles/sacks...
Unfortunatly in my Senior year, while coming off an extraordianary slippery line of scrimmage , I took a pretty damn hard hit resulting in my ankle twisting completely around and my knee snapping...that was pretty much the end of my football "carer".

I tore my ACL in freshman year of high school, that shazz sucked and never healed properly.

Maybe it was the 50 mile per week running regimen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

wizard12 wrote:
- cricket

Bah, that damn game. Somehow you Brits invented something I'm even worse at than baseball.

dogma wrote:

FITZZ wrote: Ha, well...Like Dogma I too was a nose guard, first string varsity and racked up more than my share of tackles/sacks...
Unfortunatly in my Senior year, while coming off an extraordianary slippery line of scrimmage , I took a pretty damn hard hit resulting in my ankle twisting completely around and my knee snapping...that was pretty much the end of my football "carer".

I tore my ACL in freshman year of high school, that shazz sucked and never healed properly.

Maybe it was the 50 mile per week running regimen.
.

Yeah, mine was (is) pretty much shot, after my injury I was laid up for a while, had reconstructive surgery...the whole nine yards, now..almost 25 years later I still have a lot of problems with my knee...but of course that's to be expected, most days I'm just happy if I wake up and it isn't hurting.

I lost like 20 degrees of extension, which has subsequently caused me back problems, shoulder problems, and now ankle problems. Yet I still play contact sports, go figure.

Played baseball a lot when I was a bit younger, in my early teens and younger, once hit a home run. Not a big deal to some but I almost never got a piece of the ball...also managed to snag a ball out of the air on a diving play and toss it to the second baseman for a double play...that was nice.

Worst moment: Was practicing on a "Hit-away" (basically a baseball on a tetherball cord) and the bat recoiled on one wing, came back and snogged me in the mouth. I was wearing braces at the time and it cut my upper lip up pretty badly...

Redeeming moment: I played the game that night, my lip was swollen and hurt like hell but my team won that night so I was happy.

dogma wrote:I lost like 20 degrees of extension, which has subsequently caused me back problems, shoulder problems, and now ankle problems. Yet I still play contact sports, go figure.

I think some of us are just "hardwired" that way, even with my fouled up knee ( and other subsequent problems) I'm the first guy at work to grab some ridicously heavy object and sling it onto a truck, or climb under a car and twist into some unnatural angle.( or ten)....even when all common sense is telling me " Hey! Idiot, your going to regret doing this later tonight."...I just can't seem not to engage in some strenous activity on a daily basis....go figure.

Did a vault off of a police car
jumping off a 2 story into a roll. fun fun fun.

My basketball team was practicing layups, and there was a wrestling mat leaned up against the wall on which the backboard was mounted that will feature prominently in this tale of woe.

I was doing okay with my drills until I ran up, made the shot, the ball hit the bottom of the rim and bounced off of my face. I fell backward but my momentum carried me up against the wrestling mat which then fell over on top of me. I wish I had it on tape.

Wrestling mats are heavy, that sounds unpleasant.

It was pretty hysterical, actually.

We laughed for about an hour straight; practice was effectively over at that point.

Triumph: Getting on the mat with a former Spanish kickboxing champion.

Failure: Getting my arse handed to me by a former Spanish kickboxing champion who just so happened to be roughly half my size.

There was one time i got smashed in the face with a baseball bat because the guy on the other team didn't like that I had got him out.

I once tried to play football for the first time, I broke my nose and smashed my teeth when trying to header the same ball as another chap.

I once tried to play cricket for the first time, this was during secondary school where the stumps were spring back steel tubes and somehow one managed to tear open my eyelid.

However I was on the school rugby team for a year or two and suffered no injuries playing rugby four times a week near enough...

I grazed my knee in P.E. once, does that count?

corpsesarefun wrote:
I once tried to play cricket for the first time, this was during secondary school where the stumps were spring back steel tubes and somehow one managed to tear open my eyelid.

How the...? You're a pretty tall chap too, yeah?

My word.

Triumph: Getting on a 70 foot America's cup boat

Failure: Getting knocked out by the swinging of the boom, and being from on the deck to in the water, and having no memory of the trip.

Albatross wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:
I once tried to play cricket for the first time, this was during secondary school where the stumps were spring back steel tubes and somehow one managed to tear open my eyelid.

How the...? You're a pretty tall chap too, yeah?

My word.

And the teacher didn't bat an eyelid (probably not the best phrase to use here...) when you took up the bat and knelt down behind the wickets?

corpsesarefun wrote:
However I was on the school rugby team for a year or two and suffered no injuries playing rugby four times a week near enough...

Lock?

Is it really the teachers fault that corpses misheard "take care of your wicket" as "keep an eye on your wicket."

It wasn't one of my greatest moments.

i played sports...without dying or getting a major injury

corpsesarefun wrote:It wasn't one of my greatest moments.

I don't see why.

Well, I played high school rugby for three years and managed to make it out alive. . . guess that counts as a triumph?

However, I did participate in my first mountain biking race a few months ago, and I rode an old road bike with a chop-job single speed conversion and no brakes! I consider the fact that I only ran into one tree and finished 16th out of 24 a shining accomplishment.

And I had a perfectly decent bike as well, I just decided to ride the POS bike with no brakes instead. Maybe it's sorta the same disease that apparently afflicts FITZZ and Dogma. . .

Failure - Playing fullback in a hockey semi final, I messed up a simple trap in the dying seconds, only for the opposition inner to pinch the ball and run in to goal on his own and put it past the keeper. In the last 20 seconds of the match. To lose 1-0.


Success - Needing to win our last game of the season to make the finals, we were chasing the very modest total of 110. I opened the batting, and after a decent start, I stood there and watched as wicket after wicket fell at the other end, until we were left at 7 down, needing another 40 runs to win. I then had a long partnership with the number 9 batsman, we put on 37 to bring us just short of winning, at this point I'd scored 70 out of the team total of 107 (and there were about 15 sundries, which tells you how well the rest of the boys had done).

With just a few runs to get I got ahead of myself and called for a run that wasn't there, running my partner out. This exposed the remaining two batsmen - who were both absolute bunnies. The number 10 nodded in absolute agreement when I told him to to just get forward, protect off stump and leave everything outside of it - he was bowled second ball trying to sweep (?!) the medium pace bowler. This left the last batsmen two balls to survive - he played at both, missed both, and I watched as the first just bounced over the off stump, the second just wide of it.

I faced up next over, for four balls they kept the field back, willing to give me the single, while I tried and failed to hit one past them for the winning boundary. On the fifth ball they brought the field up, but the bowler gave me something full on legstump and I launched over the mid-on for four, to win.

I took two off the last ball, with the win it was okay for my partner to face again. He was bowled first ball of the over. I carried my bat, scored 76 out of a total of 113, and put my team in the finals. In which we were utterly thrashed, beaten by an innings inside a day and a half, but whatever.

Wait, so do a lot of schools in the USA play rugby now, or something?