Smack my beach up 2009
As i get to work this morning, i’m tired and my body aches. Its normally the sign i’ve had a great weekend and i wouldn’t have changed it for the all cuts, bruises, aches, pains, washing and sand to clear out of my car. What was i doing? Well, this weekend i was playing ultimate at the ‘Smack my beach up’ tournament in Swansea, Wales.
Unlike playing on grass, beach ultimate is played with a slightly different sized pitch and with 5 players rather than 7. As you can imagine 25 minute games of hard running on sand is quite hard work and so typically you’d like teams to be 9+ players. We had 6 for Saturday! Fortunatley the weather was kind and after a 12:30 start the games went on into the early evening. Other than a first game loss, the rest of our games had demonstrated how we’d improved as a team over the previous months, often beating teams we didn’t expect to, and playing well together. It was then off to the campsite, ontop of a hill to shower, beer up, tent up, play a bit of hacky before heading out into town. By this time it was about 10pm and Swansea was in full swing. It was quite like anything i’ve ever seen. We had been prepared for it after seeing a local gig down by the beach but the evening was quite something. People everywhere in all kinds of get-up. Police everywhere too. A few drinking games later ( this is a what! ) and before we knew it we were being kicked out of the pub. The day had gone so fast and yet so fun.
Because of a fantastic win the day before ( including a point i’m particularly proud of : awesome pull to back corner, ran down, got the point block inside their zone, then proceeded to score the point too! Yeah MVP! ) we didn’t have to start games until 3:30 the next day. This meant we had time to explore the three cliffs bay and even get a chance for a bit of a swim. Even that was so refreshing in more ways that one. Was great to play around in the waves, surf, and just generally soak up a glorious day. Another convincing win put us in the top 4 and already beaten our seedings. Unforunately what followed were two other games where we didn’t seem to get going at all but none of that spoilt what had already been a really great weekend.
Driving back i can remember thinking over what we’d done and it had been like any other tournament i’d been to. We had played a lot of good quality, hard work ultimate and yet still had plenty of time to enjoy the company of friends and relax a bit. And that is what i love about ultimate. Its not just a sport. When we play we play to enjoy it, and when we aren’t playing, we know how to enjoy each others company. A really great weekend for so many reasons.