My NEW Sport- Lesson 1

Sooo, I have been a little unmotivated, and indecisive when it comes to racing triathlon this year. I do love the sport and I am not finished with it yet, but I am just not excited about choosing a coach, a goal, any races. Then this opportunity happened to just show up in my inbox WOMEN'S BOX LACROSSE!!! Well, the idea intrigued me; talk about an opportunity to GROW and LEARN! It would put me in a whole lotta uncomfortable situations at once: team sport, using fast twitch muscle fibres, hard rubber balls flying at my head and body, hand eye coordination and other fine motor SKILLS! Sign me up!

STEP 1: GEAR

The typical lacrosse gear is MUCH different than the mounds of triathlon gear that I already own. Luckily, my husband and his extensive lacrosse career has LOTS of extra stinky smelly gear around our condo. Soon enough I was equipped with gloves, a stick, shoulder pads, helmet and facemask, slash guards (NOT to be called elbow pads.... ).

STILL NEEDED:

kidney pads, appropriate footwear, mouthguard and a "jill" (figure this one out!)

Tryouts consist a few specific skill requirements:

1. Timed Sprints/Runs

2. Catching and passing from a stand still

3. Catching and passing on a FULL RUN

4. Wall Ball - throw the ball at the wall, let it bounce on the ground and catch it.

5. Quadrants- 4 boxes drawn on the wall and you have 10 shots to hit all 4.

6. 10 shots on an empty net from the top of the dotted line- you must hit the net or a post EVERY TIME.

My husband, with 30 years experience playing lacrosse, and a current Senior Men's Salmonbellies player, took me out to the outdoor box today to check out my lax skillz. Here's his recap of the session: "You improved very quickly within the session and as long as the ball doesn't come within a 3 foot radius of your head, you will be fine." -Kevin Lunnie, #47.

I agree that I DID improve immensely over the hour, as I got more comfortable. I was suprised that with a little coaching from Kev I was pretty good at the accuracy stuff, but I must also agree that my major weakness was the ball coming near my head. I welled up at one point, but it was because the ball hit me right in the tear duct :) I figure I will be a lot better wearing a helmet and hopefully I will feel invincible in all that equipment.

My challenges this first lesson were passing while running- especially when the stick was behind me.. I will need to practice that one more, and I am not very good at "scooping" the to pick it up from the ground. But again with Kev's brilliant cues, I was able to get the way it was supposed to be done.

One of the many outdoor boxes in New West. Site of lesson #1.

Stay Tuned for details from Lesson #2, where I am expected to be challenged in FULL GEAR, and Kev states that he's not going to take it so easy one me!