Last weekend, I met up Ryan and Hil in Darmstadt (close to Frankfurt) to play some ultimate with the Mother Tongue. Delays were the theme of my weekend. Delays as follows: 1) extra trip home before the weekend started because I forgot my passport; 2) I had to send some emails out after my arrival in Darmstadt; 3) Ryan and Hil left their passports and other goodies on the train in Darmstadt. Their stuff ended up in Frankfurt; 4) Getting lost on our way to the fields – after going directly to where we were supposed to be, but not seeing the stairs that led to the fields, we proceeded to wander around the woods a while. We made it to our first game by about 5 minutes; 6) Finally, after thinking I was quite clever in getting an airplane ticket home so I could get a decent night of sleep, my airplane was delayed by over 3 hours. I was planning to be home by 10 p.m. — I made it shortly after 1 a.m.!

The frisbee was fun. A little different than other MT teams I have played with. But I guess that is the point of playing with MT. April showed up for an afternoon with the newest and future MT player. It was nice to see her again. We placed 7th out of 12 teams. On Saturday, we won our first 2 games, then lost our last 3. Sunday we played only twice, losing our first and winning the second. It was nice to play well at the end of the tournament. Hil’s post of the tournament can be found here.

It was great hanging out with Ryan, Hil, and Sophie again. Even though we don’t see each other so often, it is great everytime we do. It is pretty obvious we have played a lot together. Every tournament, I know that Ryan is going to throw me some crap that and I will have to make a SPECTACULAR (sarcasm intended) catch – or 3 or 4. But after playing together for soooo long, I know ahead of time when he is going to throw me shit and about where it is going to land. Telepathy or something — maybe just being too familiar with each other. The other thing that ALWAYS happens is that I manage to overthrow Hil in the endzone by about 1.5 cm. It had been a while since I had played in a tournament – Barcelona I think – and it showed. I felt quite rusty, dropped a number of passes that I normally would have caught, poorly executing some throws that I normally would be able to make (or know better not to attempt). But I guess that is the way it goes sometimes. I have only 2 more tournaments in my near future. This weekend I am going to a 1-day beach tournament in Leipzig and sometime in September, Potsdam is hosting a hat tournament that looks like fun.

German TV was at the field. I was interviewed, but I did not make the cut. I can’t say that I am disappointed though. Pictures – mostly of family Woodard, but some playing as well – can be found here.

The ‘winter’ portion of the winter triathlon was all but missing. There was very very little snow to be found, and what was found, was scraped up (complete with gravel, grass, branches, dog crap, …) and spread over the ski loop – only a few meters wide. The bike and run portions where completely off snow and mostly dry. I think it would be difficult to train for these conditions living in Fairbanks during the winter. Although she did not appear to be too happy with her result, it was a lot of fun to watch her compete. It was also great to really feel the sun – the first time in quite a while – and visit the Black Forest.

All images and a couple movies from the race can be found in the image gallery.