Pumping Irony

Craig Cox, EL’s managing editor, chronicles his adventures into the frightening world of middle-age exercise.

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Numbers Game

By Craig Cox / June 3, 2011

Exercise, like anything else, gets easier the more frequently you do it, so I was rightfully concerned last week when I met my old tennis buddy, The Baseline Machine, over at the Nokomis courts for our first match of the season. TBM, it seems, had been playing indoors all winter and had joined a league this spring, while I was nursing my bum left knee back to health.

Worse, she informed me that she was undefeated in her spring league and arrived at the court with something resembling a swagger. This could get ugly, I thought. What if she’d developed a devastating serve or a savvy net game to go with her punishing forehand volleys?

I’m not a competitive guy, but tennis is one of those sports that loses its appeal when the person you’re playing is a whole lot more talented than you are. You can only flail away at so many serves scorching the center line or stare helplessly at so many backhand winners before your interest in the game begins to wane.

Thankfully, TBM’s winter on the indoor courts hadn’t significantly altered the balance of power. Warming up, it became clear that she still was nearly automatic from the baseline and, though her net game had improved, her serve remained as returnable as ever. Game on.

My serve, of course, is eminently returnable as well, and my fortunes tend to rise and fall based on my ability to control my often wayward ground strokes. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover I could still hit the ball over the net with some regularity in the early going. My knee seemed pretty stable, if not particularly strong, and I managed to eke out wins in the first two games before TBM settled down and began whacking forehand winners down the lines to take game three.

We split the next two games, with TBM appearing to gain some momentum. And as she prepared to serve the pivotal sixth game, trailing 2-3, I could feel the tide shifting.

It’s been said of most of the great tennis players that their will to win, their sheer desire to get to every ball, was a greater factor in their success than even their shot-making skills. And that in every match there are a handful of pivotal moments when one player’s stubborn refusal to lose that point makes the difference between winning and losing the match.

I’m generally not that sort of player. In game six, I fell behind 15-30 and watched one of my feeble backhands land wide before declaring, more contentedly than I had intended, “That’s three games to three.”

TBM volleyed a quizzical glance my way. “No, it’s only 40-15,” she said helpfully.

“Really?” I ventured, a bit surprised.

“Yeah,” she affirmed, sounding mildly annoyed. “It was 30-15.”

“OK,” I said, and proceeded to win the next four points and the game, to go up 4-2. I’d like to say I gutted it out through sheer force of will, but that would be a slight exaggeration.

In fact, it was TBM who then began to channel Chris Evert, rocketing cross-court winners and forcing me into numerous errors until she had prevailed in three of the next four games, knotting the set at five games apiece. Then, inexplicably, her game descended into a series of muffed volleys and wayward service returns and I cruised through the last two games without losing more than a couple of points.

Winning is always nice, but it’s better when your opponent is on her game. TBM confessed later that she was a little distracted. I wanted to confess that I was having a little trouble keeping score, but I didn’t want to push it. She might have demanded a recount.

Tennis Bum

By Craig Cox / May 8, 2011

My old tennis buddy, The Baseline Machine, emailed me last week with an offer to join her and two of her pals for a regular weekly match. The idea was that, if the four of us committed to playing once a week, even if one or two didn’t show, there would still be the possibility of getting in some games on a regular basis. Plus, by getting it on our calendars, we’d gradually incorporate the weekly game into our busy routines.
Everyone knows that making time for exercise is easier when it becomes part of your daily or weekly schedule, so I was quick to congratulate TBM for her initiative. Then I told her I couldn’t make it last Tuesday because I was traveling to Michigan to help my daughter move out of her college dorm. And now it looks like this Tuesday is not going to work out either, because I have a meeting that I may skip to go to the ballgame with said daughter, who’s suddenly become a big baseball fan. (There we were Friday night, sitting on the couch with a couple of beers watching the Twins trounce the Red Sox . . . . gets me all misty-eyed just thinking about it.)
There’s another small problem with TBM’s otherwise salutary plan: I seldom have an automobile at my disposal in the evening, so unless our tennis soirees are located within a couple of miles of my homestead, I’m not inclined to participate. I can’t see pedaling five or six miles just for the privilege of getting pounded by TBM or whoever else may show up – and then pedaling five or six miles home in the dark.
I did suggest that we reconnoiter at the Nokomis courts a couple of miles from my home, but that idea doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of traction with TBM and her pals, who live farther west. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
With my left knee finally ready to do battle, it’s kind of ironic that I haven’t been able to get out on the courts yet. Of course, the weather has not been cooperating — snowflakes were reported at the May Day Festival last Sunday — and I’ve lately been slightly obsessed with house projects on the weekends. The basement TV room is coming along quite nicely (see above). Plus, it’s the NBA playoffs. And the past three Monday nights have been taken up by a community ed French class that My Lovely Wife talked me into during a weak moment. (Nous allons parler francais!!)
That’s not to say I’ve been avoiding exercise. I’ve been mostly keeping up with my morning kettle-bell routine, and just this afternoon I dug out one of Harry Johnson’s cement-laden posts over on the side yard and managed to transport it (this could be a great sort of “paleo” workout; wish I had video) out to the alley without any discernible injuries. I just haven’t been playing tennis.
I know this is all about momentum. Once I get on the court again and get a couple of sets under my belt, I’ll be more motivated to get back at it on a regular basis — or at least less willing to make excuses for not doing it.

End of Conversation

By Craig Cox / October 30, 2009

I think I’ve mentioned once
or twice on these pages how I used to play basketball back in the day with a
bunch of guys who were within shouting distance of my age. We got together one
night a week at a local school gym (and, in the summer, at a local playground).
We’d run up and down the court for a couple of hours, talk some trash,
occasionally twist an ankle or dislocate a finger, and then go have a couple
beers. I did this from 1985 until after my 50^th birthday in 2001. I
recall attempting a poorly calculated comeback a year or two after that, but
I’ve basically been out of the game for the better part of a decade.

So, I was a little taken
aback recently when my tennis buddy, M.E., told me that the old gang was
reconstituting the weekly game and was extending an invitation to him and me to
return to the court. I was flattered, of course, but circumspect. I mean, on
the one hand, I really don’t think I can recapture whatever skills I once
owned. And the chance of injury is pretty good. On the other hand, these guys
haven’t exactly grown younger in the past decade; I suspect the game would be
played more or less in slow motion.

There was some fine print to
be considered in this deal, as well: It wouldn’t just be old guys on the court,
actually. Apparently, there was a gaggle of twentysomethings that kind of
filled out the roster, M.E. noted. Could we convince them to let us old guys
slog along on our own while they pranced, gazelle-like, on a neighboring court?

Part of me — the
testosterone-fuelled idiot part — loves the idea
of playing against guys young enough to be my sons. It would be a great
challenge. It would push my limits. Clear out the cobwebs in my fitness
routine.

I was kind of in that zone
Wednesday night, when M.E. and I arrived at the LTF Crosstown club for a 9 pm
tennis match. We had about a half-hour to kill, so we tossed our tennis gear
into a corner the gym, grabbed a basketball and started reliving our former
glory on the hardwood. I was surprised to see that, after a few bricks clanked
off the rim, I began draining 18-footers like the old days (which is to say,
intermittently). Meanwhile, M.E. was starting to feel pretty good about himself,
which meant he needed a little one-on-one.

That was OK. He’s not as
tenacious as he was in his 40s. And nobody was going to be driving the baseline
for reverse lay-ups. Just a couple of middle-aged guys reliving the good old
days. But, here’s the pathetic part: We went at each other for maybe 10
minutes, neither of us presenting much in the way of defense, and the ball
never actually managed to travel through the hoop.

Hmmm.

We grabbed our stuff and silently
shuffled off to the tennis courts, where we battled through an exhilarating
14-game set before I prevailed 8-6. It was the best tennis we’d played all
season: long rallies, great shot-making, much scampering from baseline to net.
We worked up quite a lather.

And on the way home, I don’t
recall any talk about basketball.

Now, a Racket Rut

By Craig Cox / September 11, 2009

For months now, I’ve been
struggling to find ways to “mix up” my workout routine. Loyal readers may
recall my foray onto the basketball court awhile back or my occasional yoga
adventures. Well, now that I’m everyone’s favorite tennis opponent, the problem
isn’t so much finding a way out of my tried-and-true EDM/lifting/sometimes-stretching
rut; it’s all about getting back into the gym!

Since my Belgian Waffle
revelation a week ago, I’ve not had a chance to visit the gym (or to eat any
waffles, for that matter). I was consumed by various tasks at home over the
Labor Day weekend, I played tennis on Tuesday night, had a meeting after work
on Wednesday, and last night played tennis again. Not against my regular tennis
buddy, M.E., but instead I squared off against an old magazine colleague of
mine, J.W., who apparently reads these pages from time to time and, noticing my
current obsession, challenged me to a match.

J.W. is a kind-hearted soul
who, I figured, would show some mercy on an elderly player who also has fed her a good deal of freelance work over the years (I’m just sayin’ . . .),
so I accepted her challenge and we met at the lovely Nokomis tennis courts
after work last night. I also figured I needed some more practice before my
scheduled match with the ultra-competitive M.E. on Sunday; he’s been playing
several sets of doubles each week and on Tuesday it showed — his serve is
getting faster and more accurate, and even though I played pretty well, he
still beat me 6-3. (His Achilles has healed also, I should point out. . . and
he’s seven years younger than me.)

Anyway, it turned out that J.W.
and I were pretty well matched. Neither of us has a big serve, relying instead
on solid ground strokes, so we had some great baseline-to-baseline rallies, and
we each hit our share of winners. In fact, J.W. is kind of a machine on the
baseline — she doesn’t make a lot of unforced errors. Which is great fun, if
you can keep up, which I mostly did through the 11 games we played. She went up
2-0, I rallied to win the next two, she went up 4-3, at which time I noted with
some false bravado that I’d have to win the next three games to take a 6-4 set.

It nearly proved prescient,
as I proceeded to take the next two games, losing only a single point. But, at
5-4, my game suddenly deserted me and I put up only weak resistance as J.W.
surged to a 6-5 lead. We didn’t play the tie-breaker, as it was getting dark
and J.W. was nursing a bit of a strained hamstring, but I was confident that, had
we continued, my superior conditioning would prove pivotal to the outcome (ha
ha).

And, speaking of superior
conditioning, I’ll be heading cheerfully back to the gym tonight for a little
cardio and some stretching. I might even venture down into The Pit to do some
squats and deadlifts. I gotta get ready for my next match.

Tennis Bum

By Craig Cox / July 16, 2009

True to my word (see previous post), I actually did pedal over to the local yoga studio with My Lovely Wife yesterday for a noon beginner’s class. And it went fine — except for the Eagle Pose, which probably takes a little more practice.

But I can’t blame 45 minutes of yoga bending for my overall soreness this morning. It must’ve been the tennis.

A couple of days ago, my good friend M.E. e-mailed with the cryptic subject line “Tennis?” and asked, simply, “Do you play?” I replied that I was third singles on my Edgewood Junior High School team back in ninth grade (when the rackets were still made of wood and you needed that rectangular screw-down thingy to keep them from warping). I also played a bit in the mid-’80s and hit it around with my son, Martin, a few years ago when he was briefly interested in the game. I had never known M.E. to be a tennis buff; we played basketball together every week for many years, and he once won 30-odd consecutive games of driveway one-on-one against me and driveway owner S.C. — a feat he’s not shy about recalling more than occasionally. He did not share his own tennis resume; he simply was pretty anxious to get across the net from me.

When he picked me up last night, he had already stopped at a nearby big-box retailer to buy a new racket and two cans of balls — a move that immediately raised some suspicions. “What’s up with this tennis thing,” I inquired as we headed toward some unpopulated courts near Lake Hiawatha.

It turns out that his pre-teen daughter is taking lessons and some friends had dragged him out on the court over the weekend. Plus, he divulged that he actually played quite a lot of tennis back in high school (a decade later than me, BTW), and that he wasn’t half bad.

I should note here that M.E. is kind of a competitive guy. No, that’s not really accurate: He’s a very competitive guy. It’s not that he’s a sore loser, or anything. He just really, really, really likes to win. Back in our hoop days, he was the guy when the team was getting creamed who would yell, “Don’t give up!!!”

So, I’m thinking maybe we’ll just whack the ball back and forth for awhile, but he’s thinking: Game. Set. Match.

Anyway, we get going a bit and it becomes clear pretty early on that he’s an OK player and that we’re pretty evenly matched. Neither of us are smashing aces or whacking winners down the line, though he does have a nice little drop shot and a backhand with some spin. And I’m pretty much content to try to keep the ball in play. (Actually, I’m kind of surprised that I could still hit it OK; it’s been awhile.)

But this is M.E., so we have to keep score. He wins the first four games, then we split the next two before my return catches the net at 15-40 in game eight. M.E. raises his arms in victory, I pretend to assume we were playing the best two out of three, he pretends to agree, and we gather up our stuff and head back to my place for a cold one.

M.E.’s already talking about recruiting S.C. and my son for some regular doubles play. That sounds fine to me. Tennis is a great whole-body workout (or so my body’s telling me today). But part of me is recalling those one-on-one games in the driveway and I can’t help but wonder whether we’re about to become part of another record winning streak.

Pumping Irony

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