State Recap

Whew, what a weekend!

I played three matches (12:30 Friday, 12:30 Saturday and 3:00 Sunday) and now I am a tad sunburnt, my hands and feet are blistered up and I am just worn out in general. My team ended up in third place, but we were actually tied with the second place team and it came down to individual sets won and they had more. If we had gotten second, we would have gotten a wildcard entry to the sectional tournament next month. So close!

My first match Friday was my longest match of the weekend I think. Our first game alone lasted almost thirty minutes. We were back and forth the entire first set and I ended up losing the first set in a tiebreaker. My spirit was crushed and I didn’t win another game after that set. I got to watch my opponent from that match play again yesterday, and I am actually very proud that I was able to get 6 games off of her. She was good!

I didn’t play Saturday morning, so I headed down to Running Wild for our usual Saturday morning run. We had a good turnout and everyone did between 8 and 12 miles. The half and full marathon training groups start in just a few weeks and I am getting excited about that!

Saturday afternoon I headed back out on the courts hoping that things would go a little better. I got 6 games this time as well, but lost again. I was up 4-2 in the second set and thought that I was going to maybe pull that one out, but she rallied and came back strong.

The weather started going downhill Saturday afternoon and one of our doubles courts didn’t get to finish until about 7:30 Saturday evening. As a team, we won both of our matches on Saturday and we knew we were in the running for the wildcard at this point. Unfortunately, Sunday morning brought more rain and more rain delays. Our 8 am match didn’t go on until around 11:30 and we ended up losing all five courts.

We had one final match Sunday afternoon at 3. Everyone was feeling pretty beat up at this point, but we managed to put together a lineup and head back out there. I lost my match this time as well, but as a team we somehow came away with the win. My hands and feet were extremely blistered by this point, so I kind of changed my strategy and went for more winners that I would’ve typically gone for. Consistency is usually my key, which means that I end up playing some long matches, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do that this time. I don’t remember ever getting blisters on my hands, but for whatever reason, I definitely did this year.

I had such a #bloggerfail this weekend. I got zero pictures of my team or of me playing and so I took a picture of my blisters on the way home to share with you. I will spare you the feet blisters though. Lucky, lucky readers you are 🙂

Sunday evening when I got home, Daniel and I teamed up to make another Blue Apron meal. Y’all, let me tell you … that is the secret to actually making the meals in the allotted cooking time that is given on the recipe. You just need some extra hands.

We made seared salmon with red quinoa and pea shoot salad. Salmon and quinoa are probably two of my favorite foods anyway, so I thought this one was fabulous!

And we had an amazing sunset to close out the weekend (taken on Daniel’s phone, no effects added)!

I had fun playing tennis these last few weeks and I really do enjoy the competition of the state tournament, especially at the 4.5 level. A lot of the players are former collegiate players and so you get to play and watch some really good tennis! But, running is still my main passion at the moment, so it will be back to the regularly scheduled programming around here for a while. I have a tempo run, a mile repeat workout and an 18 mile long run on the schedule this week! I love it.

Gotta run!