Pac Rim is over and that is the last squash tournament of the main season. I came off of this past long easter weekend feeling good, but at 10:00 PM Monday evening, I started to feel a little bit of sickness coming on. Little did I know that by Tuesday at 7:00 AM I'd be suffering from full-fledged mongolian death flu. And not the whimpy type of death flu that those chickens are dying from - this is the serious death flu. I lay on the couch and shivered from fever for most of Tuesday and Wednesday, and left work early on Thursday.
The timing couldn't have been better - just in time for the Pac Rim tournament and I was suffering big time. Oh well. I played three of my scheduled 5-6 matches. I beat John Foxall 3-0 which was good, but I was hitting quite a few lucky shots. The fact that I'd had luck on my side was evidenced when I played against Arnie Clark and lost 0-3 and then Bevan 1-3 on Saturday morning. After losing to Bevan (a match so ridiculous that we both lost points from laughing so much at the pathetic shot our opponent had hit) I withdrew from the tournament without any guilt. I'd given it my best, but my best pretty much sucked rocks.
I hung out at our squash club for the rest of the tournament, which was cool, and watched my friends play their matches. I tried to get into the mood of the banquet Saturday night, but was just not feeling up to it. It turns out Legends is an even worse place to be when you have the flu than a squash court is. I headed home early and got some Z's.
Sunday my friend Dan was playing in the finals for the A division. I didn't know this, but he'd only won his first ever A draw the tournament before in our club champs, so I was pretty stoked for him - the Pac Rim is the biggest tournament on the island, so it'd be a pretty sweet to win your first ever A draw and then follow that up with winning this one. Dan's opponent Brian had been matching him tequila shot for gingerale the night before, so they were both in pretty rough shape heading into the match. Dan had played Brian before in the city champs, but Brian had to concede to Dan in the fifth game due to a hamstring injury (I think that if Brian had waited another 5 minutes before conceded, Dan would have collapsed on the court and automatically given the match to Brian in a TKO though).
The game was pretty exciting, with me spending most of the time trying to drown out any of the cheers for Brian coming from his wife Sue and son Justin. Their daughter Kelsey wasn't anywhere around, but she'd already done her part to demoralize me by punching me in the ribs a few times when I was sitting at the front. You should see the bruises she gave me - she's gotta have a Bowflex (it's like having Chuck Norris as your personal trainer!!!).
Anyhow, Dan took the game down in the fifth, which was pretty exciting, and we all hung out afterwards to celebrate the outcome. I'm pretty burned out on squash right now - mainly because I've been focusing a lot on drills for the past while, and also because I'm very sick with the flu. As soon as I'm done with that, I'll be back on court, focusing mostly on games until I've got a clear idea of what I want to improve on next.
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