Volleyball Weekend!

What a weekend!

Friday

It started off with a run from my office all the way to Bubblicity to visit a friend, who then offered me a refreshing Mango Slush (my favourite). Mmmm! :) It took me about 13 minutes, running in Chucks. It was not the best feeling for my feet but whatever, I beat the bus!

Afterwards, we crossed the street to visit the Ottawa Night Market (during the day). It was tiny. I thought the night market was going to be all of Chinatown, but that was too good to be true. It didn't get any bigger at night from what my sources told me.

Saturday

The following day, I drove to Britannia Beach to play in the B2B Beach Volleyball Tournament for iSisters. The tournament started out nice, with some winds coming in from the waters. Later, we were hit with a rather crazy wind storm, from which it turned into a sandstorm. All the participants and volunteers needed to make cover so everyone scrambled into the nearby building. The rain started to come down shortly.

30 minutes passed and the storm was gone. It was as if it never happened. It was bright and sunny again, with no winds at all.

Some of the participants ran to their cars when the storm came, and some stuck around. The tournament continued after the storm cleared.

Our first game back on, I sprained my thumb after attempting to set with my thumb + index finger (shaped like a V). The ball landed directly on my thumb, pulling it back (ouch!). The pain was quite unbearable at first, but then it felt ok during our time off in between the next couple of games. Nonetheless, our team (BIG BANG - made up of Xiong, Mike, Steve and myself) did an awesome job of holding our grounds up to the finals. We played I'd Hit That for the finals where we took it to 3 games. The final game was a close one, 25-22. In the end, our defeat didn't get to us :)

Summary of our match with I'd Hit That:

• 22-25
• 25-18
• 25-22

And.... here's a picture of my sprained thumb...

Asides from volleyball, I found out that my friend Adrienne was award first place in one of the categories at the Ottawa Lumiere Festival! Congrats Adrienne! :)

Sunday

I played in an invite only practice tournament organized by Xiong and Markus at Carleton U. The teams were put together at random and overall it was a lot of fun! I just wish I had brought an extra tee to change into at the end, because it got really uncomfortable on the drive back home!

Ever tried volleying a medicine ball?

I'm starting to see results in my sets ever since my friend Minh told me to strengthen my wrist by volleying a medicine ball at the gym. I did just that, 2 days a week (3 sets of 30 - 6 lbs), for the last 5 months. It's helped me immensely with my accuracy and strength to push the ball out on my power sets. It has also helped me develop quicker reflexes when setting quicks. If your position is Setter on the court, or if you find your sets to be weak, try this medicine ball trick, but try it out with a lighter ball first. You'll begin to realize how light a volleyball really is ;)