Aussies with altitude

Yo!

This is Pottsy on Gussy's computer.

We are currently in Boulder, Colorado. Much has happened. We flew to Denver from a long but reasonably controlled night in Vegas. We came to play Johnny Bravo, runners up at UPA Nationals last year, and so one goal shy of representing the USA at worlds.

It was a tough game, we were warned (by our hosts) that the disc flies differently up here, and they weren't foxing. There were quite a few pulls and hucks that sailed well out of bounds.

In the end it was a pretty disappointing game for us. Many uncharacteristic turnovers from us, both short and long, and spread amongst our gun players. And we failed to effectively shut down Bravo's deep game.

We could blame the changed conditions and poor preparation (ie Vegas and all that went before), but I think a fair amount of credit needs to go to the Bravo defence, which was fast and unrelenting. A pressure defence creates unforced errors from the offence, as throwers suddenly become less certain of which players are free and want to get rid of the disc before the count gets high.

To our credit however, our defence had a similar effect on Bravo, and there were many points where their offence struggled to advance the disc. We actually came out strongly and were up 2-0 before Bravo rallied and got on D and took the lead from us. We managed to contain the half-time score to 9-5. It was looking a bit like our 2004 semi (vs Condors) all over again, but to our credit, we regrouped and the second half was a lot tighter. In fact, we had the disc after time cap to bring the score to 14-12, but failed, and in the end they took it out 16-11.

No excuses from us, we were beaten soundly by a better team, and we learnt a huge amount from this game, which is why we are spending so much time and money on this tour. Sadly we are still missing some top players (but so were they), we are confident that they will play an important role in Vancouver and I can say personally that I'm looking forward to rejoining my teammates on the field of play.

Post-game the Boulder frisbee crew put on a killer party up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Played some fun party games with them till late in the night. A last hurrah for the Dingos party crew. We are each dedicated to putting in some more fitness work between now and worlds as we go our separate ways in the next week.

Those who've stayed in Boulder took in a 2 hour session at the track yesterday, followed by a creek swim and dinner at a local brew-pub and then BATMAN!

Today, 7 Dingos went up to 14000ft, twice. Man, that was the most demanding hike I've ever done. Walk 100m, heart rate in the mid 100s, just putting one foot ahead of the other, and then rest till you don't feel so dizzy any more. Repeat many times. I think there will be some good photos. We continue our altitude training over the next few days.

More later...

Pottsy.