Rugger in Pink

Your Rugby Fact-a-Day

2010-01-25T11:43:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago, my coworker cornered me in the office kitchen and told me she'd seen Invictus, loved it, but realized she knew nothing about the sport of rugby. "So I've decided that from now on, you're going to tell me a fact a day until I understand the entire game!"

Of course I agreed. Below are the "facts" I've given her thus far - I'm going to try to record everything I tell her by updating the blog, both for the entertainment of others and to keep track of what I have and haven't shared yet. Hopefully by the end, I'll have a full rugby primer!

1) You cannot throw the ball forward
In rugby, the ball must be thrown backwards or laterally. Play can only move forward through running with the ball or kicking it.

2) A rugby field is called a "pitch"

3) There are fifteen players on the field

4) Each number identifies a position, rather than a player
One through fifteen are the starting players; sixteen through twenty-two are subs. If you play different positions in different games, you switch numbers. If you're watching an unfamiliar team, you can still tell who's playing what based on what number they're wearing.

5) Backs & Forwards
(This one requires pen, paper, and a drawing that looks something like this)
The numbers 1-8 on the pitch are called "forwards." They are the ones who do most of the tackling and close-in work. They are also the ones who scrum. Technically, those eight players are only half a scrum - the eight forwards from the other team form the other half. The numbers 9-15 are the "backs". These players are the ones who do most of the running around and passing. However, backs also tackle, and forwards also run around and pass.

6) Players 9 and 10
Nine is the scrumhalf and ten is the flyhalf. They are the closest things rugby has to quarterbacks. They are the ones who usually call plays and direct the pattern of play.

7) Points
- You receive five points for a "try" - this is like a touchdown, except you actually have to touch the ball down in the try zone. If you drop it, or if someone from the other team puts their body between the ball and the ground, it doesn't count.
- After a try, you have the option of kicking through the posts. If you get it, it's two points and called a "conversion" or "converting the try."
- You can also "kick for points" during open play, either just in the middle of stuff happening or after a penalty. If you succeed, it's three points.

8) Penalties
Penalties occur when there's some sort of infringement of the law. You must kick the ball, but you can try to kick for points, you can kick the ball further down the field to gain territory, or you can "kick" by bouncing the ball off your foot and then run a play.

9) There are no rules in rugby - there are laws
The difference? Rules are always the same, but laws are interpreted. They depend on who's doing the interpreting. In rugby, whatever the ref says, goes.

10) No backchatting the ref
The only person on your team that can talk to the ref is your captain - and she'd better be nice about it. If you yell or swear at the ref, you can get a penalty called against you. If you try to argue a penalty called against you, the ref can - and will! - give another 10 meters to the penalty. Don't make the ref mad!

Rugby in the news

2009-11-23T09:48:00.002-05:00

I'm loving this post on the UBC team and women's rugby in Canada:

In women's rugby, community counts

Although rugby was played mostly by men for many decades, rugby is no longer just a “old boys” sport. Since the first documented match between English schoolgirls played in secret in 1913, rugby has been increasing in popularity and is now the largest growing sport for women in North America.

Rugby Training Video

2009-09-02T13:15:00.002-04:00

Behold: a truly inspired and thoughtful video on the basics of rugby, put together by some deadly serious lady ruggers. Starts off a little slow, but stick with it and I promise you'll be laughing your ass off by the end.

I anticipate a Furies video response. Stay tuned.

In which I glee a bit over sevens

2009-08-28T15:59:00.005-04:00

I am, like presumably everyone else in the rugby world, thrilled to hear that the IOC will be recommending rugby sevens for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic games. It's so exciting to see a version of my favorite sport gaining strength and getting increased public attention. And even though I am a fifteens girl through and through, it's clear to me that the sevens game is really the space where the opportunities are, especially in the women's game.

Rugby Canada's match report on the England/South Africa Nation's Cup game really highlighted the South Africa's sevens players as strengths of the team, stating that "South Africa Sevens’ athletes Gadu and Saloma impressed for the entire 80 minutes and were able to cleverly create chances out of seemingly dead end passages." I don't know much about South Africa's sevens program, but I have to imagine that Gadu and Saloma took advantage of what it offered, and took the strengths they gained from sevens back to their country's fifteens program.

The USA's sevens program, of course, I know a little more about - as do plenty of my well-meaning but rugby-ignorant friends and relatives who have asked me whether there are professional female rugby players, and consequently heard more than they probably wanted to know about the USA women's sevens' team, and their training camp prior to the World Cup in March (which I followed religiously via their blog).

I'm seeing a lot of momentum out there in the rugby world, not to mention the momentum a little closer to home - the Furies have been training all summer to get ready to play in the new Premiership league, which starts with our first match against Keystone next weekend. There's some big changes happening in the rugby world, and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Olympic sevens?

2009-06-19T17:20:00.003-04:00

My rugby news alerts have pointed me to buckets of articles on the seven sports vying for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic Games - because, of course, one of those seven sports is rugby sevens.

This article is one of the best I have seen (and not just because it's titled "Rugby has best shot at Olympic glory"!). It clearly lays out all seven sports and the advantages and disadvantages each one has to being one of the two chosen for Olympic inclusion.

Here's what it says about rugby:

RUGBY

What: The International Rugby Board is proposing men's and women's tournaments of 12 teams in the faster, short-format, seven-a-side version.

Why it's out: It was dropped in 1924, but it's now hard to find a compelling reason why it wouldn't work as an Olympic sport.

Why it's in: The sevens game is fast, exciting and popular worldwide. The recent sevens World Cup drew 760 million viewers from 141 countries. The sport would attract new sponsors. The IRB has promised to drop its World Cup if it becomes an Olympic sport.

Chances: Excellent. Probably the odds-on favourite.

Go rugby!

BAKE-OFF

2009-05-06T17:04:00.004-04:00

My last post was about the Furies/NOVA Beltway Battle Against Breast Cancer.

I've been informed through the grapevine (actually the listserve, which is the Grapevine of Rugby) that this battle will consist not only of the playing of rugby, but also of a bake-off.

The listserve "reply all" messages and g-chat status challenges are flying. My mouth is watering in regret at the fact that I will not be there this weekend and thus unable to sample any of the promised creations for myself. As I'm sure all of you know, rugby players are the most competitive type of people out there, and I would not venture a bet as to what kind of culinary stunts these women might pull in order to create the tastiest, most tempting, pinkest dessert all in the name of baking a better cake than everyone else (especially NOVA!) and WINNING!

I mean, in the name of fighting breast cancer. BOO, CANCER!

Beltway Battle Against Breast Cancer

2009-05-01T11:36:00.002-04:00

My Google news alert pulled up this article on eRugbyNews on the Furies vs. Nova Beltway Battle Against Breast Cancer.

The game, not this Saturday but the next, May 9th, should be a great match - not just because it'll be a tough competition between two skilled rival teams, but also because I know everyone's put a TON of work into planning a fun and inspiring schedule to raise money for a great cause.

Sadly, I'm not going to be able to make it - two of my college friends are getting married (!!!) - but anyone who's in the area should definitely head down to check it out!

Ruggerfest countdown!

2009-04-24T15:45:00.003-04:00

Ruggerfest is kind of like a rugby Christmas for me: tons of rugby teams coming together, just like families get together at holidays, and there's the same build-up and sense of anticipation. Although instead of presents - we get rugby games!!

This year is even more exciting than previous years, when I just participated in Ruggerfest as a guest. This year, I'm a host of the tournament as a player for the Furies. This means showing up early to help set up, being on my best and most helpful hostess-ing behaviour during, and staying late after to help take everything down. It's kind of like running the show instead of just sitting in the audience to watch.

Not that I won't get involved! Actually, with the Furies entering 3 sides, I'll probably play more rugby at Ruggerfest than ever before. Between playing 8 for Furies Gold, staying kit up and warm ready to sub in for Furies Competitive, and participating in Eamonn Hogan's clinic at the end of the tourney, there will only be 2 hours between 8 and 5 that I'll be able to sit down and eat my PB&J!

Add to all of that predicted highs near 90 all weekend and "isolated thunderstorms" on Saturday, and you'd better believe it's going to be a crazy fun exhausting weekend.

I doubt I'll be doing any blogging when I get home Saturday night, so if there's anyone who reads this blog who won't be at Ruggerfest themselves, I believe Jo is keeping Wendy updated on the day's scores.

Just 14 hours until the fun begins... I can't wait!

Motivation

2009-04-20T22:38:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I got back from a fun but exhausting weekend of rugby (games vs. Raleigh and Norfolk, then a fun stay at our coach's house involving a hot tub and a puzzle!). I was super tired and wanted a nap, but then I realized I had an hour before the gym closed. So I busted ass and managed to get there and finish a workout in that hour.

Today, I woke up early, intending to do the PT for my shoulder, but instead rolled over and went back to sleep.

Then this evening, practice was canceled thanks to DC Parks & Rec (dear rain: please stop making our fields too soggy to practice, this is no way to prepare for Ruggerfest!!), so I came home intending to have a nice, relaxing evening doing my shoulder PT and some ball handing.

Instead I watched a movie.

I guess some days you're on the ball, and some days you're not...

Go PRU!

2009-04-20T12:01:00.003-04:00

This is why Penn State is in the final four after this weekend's playoffs - when's the last time you had 35 members of your team show up for optional fitness, much less at 6:45am, in the rain?

Good luck to both Penn State and Navy who will be representing the PRU at nationals - and congrats to Brown and Stanford for rounding out the top four!

Austin Adventures

2009-04-07T16:21:00.003-04:00

Have you ever gotten really, really excited about something, and then for a brief moment were absolutely sure that some unexpected catastrophe was going to prevent it from happening, but then the catastrophe was averted and the awesome thing ended up being just as exciting as you expected and totally worth it?

Because that was my trip to Austin.

The unexpected catastrophe was my plane leaving late - very late - out of DC, and me (and six other hapless passengers) missing the connection to Austin, and US Airways telling me I was stranded in Charlotte, NC overnight and that they couldn’t get me to Austin until 4pm on Saturday afternoon, which would have made me COMPLETELY miss any rugby!

The “catastrophe averted” part occurred when US Airways reluctantly agreed that yes, maybe they could get me to some other part of Texas, like Houston, and my Fury ground troops in Austin (Rebecca, Jess, and Dilley) contacted the Houston team’s captain, Brandy, aka My Hero, who volunteered to pick me up at the Houston airport at midnight, let me sleep on her couch, and make sure I made it to the Austin Valkyrie’s pitch with the rest of the Houston team in time to play some rugby. Huge, HUGE thanks to everyone for making sure I eventually made it to Austin!!

The awesome part, of course, was everything else.

DC only managed to bring ten Furies down to Austin, but we were well supplemented with subs from local college teams and the Houston women. After watching the match between Houston and Austin B, the ten of us and our Furies-for-a-day warmed up and got ready to take the pitch.

I’ll admit, between our low numbers, hodgepodge of subs, and the Austin heat (85 and humid, as compared to 40 and raining at our last DC practice), I was a little worried we wouldn’t be able to deliver a challenging match to Austin. However, I’m happy to report that we definitely proved to be decent competition. Austin had us on our own try line several times, but we didn’t give up and pushed them back every time, leaving them to score their three tries on breakaways. DC answered with a penalty kick in the first half by Brenna and a try in the second, scored by Houston’s Brandy (not just Pink’s hero anymore!) and converted by Brenna. The final score was ~~I believe, a highly symbolic 15-10 in Austin’s favor.~~ I've been corrected - seems like the final score was 22-10. Ah, well, so much for symbolism!

After this match, the Houston and DC coaches decided that the second game would be replaced with a Houston/DC boat race. I am embarrassed to admit that DC was the hands-down loser in this matchup, but in the end, with beer and burgers and vegetables and cookies and other social-y goodness, everyone won.

The social also brought my first experience with a rugby kangaroo court, as the Valkyries placed offenders under “oaf” and brought charges of many heinous crimes against their players – and the ten of us! The Furies were charged and convicted of the truly heinous crime of bringing only ten players to a game of fifteens rugby; for our punishment, we performed an inspiring interpretive dance to the US National Anthem. However, in recognition of the fact that the real offenders were the other 45 rostered Furies who stayed home, we were also given the responsibility of enforcing – and recording! – the same punishment for the rest of our team.

Eventually, however, the social wound to a close, and we all headed back to our respective hosts’ homes to shower. For dinner, some of us then headed to a native Austin establishment called Freebird for burritos. Freebirds are kind of like Chipotles, except exponentially awesomer – the decorations were flying electric guitars, Lady Liberty on a motorcycle, and tin foil art.

For Round 2, we started with a gay cowboy bar called the Rusty Spur. This was definitely the highlight of my trip, especially when Pattie (my Valkyrie host) taught me how to two-step – the most Texas moment of my first trip to the Lone Star State! Later, Dilley and I attempted our own version of the two-step, which made up for in enthusiasm what it lacked in skill. I also met Heidi, who’d once played in Japan with some of my teammates from when I was in Kyoto – I love how interconnected the rugby world is!

Around 1:30am, some of us finally headed home, taking a pedi-cab back to the car. I got less than 4 hours of sleep before I had to wake up to get to the airport by 6 am, but luckily this time all my flights left on time and I made my connection.

Definitely a great Saturday, and worth all the trouble! Shout-outs to Brandy and the Houston team, for rescuing me and for helping us out with subs; and to Austin, for giving us a great game and being amazing hosts. It was my first time visiting Texas, and thanks to you all, I’m already looking forward to my next visit!

ETA: links to Wendy's video and Shalay's photos in the comments!

Photographic evidence

2009-03-27T14:18:00.005-04:00

CJ, the Furies forwards coach, has a really nice high-powered camera that she takes wonderful game photos with. Because she is awesome, she sent me these two photos, one of me running and one of me SCORING MY TRY in the game against Lancaster (click to embiggen):

To be honest, this was not the best try ever – we had a five meter scrum, and I should’ve waited until my scrummies pushed a little closer before taking the eight-man pick. You can see the green scrumhalf tackled me, and I really had to stretch to get the ball into the try zone. But – I did get it there, and a try is a try!

The other great thing about CJ taking photos is that she takes LOTS. And posts (at least some of) them online. So a nerdy little rugger like me can take the time to go through, say, almost 500 photos (from a single 40 minute half) and look at my body position in rucks, where I’m standing in the defensive and offensive lines, etc., and figure out what I’m doing well and where I need improvement. It’s SO helpful!

And I am realizing while posting this that I never did a write-up of last Saturday's games. So here's a quick run-down, for posterity: Furies had three sides, and each one played a different team. The A-side game vs. Philly went to the Furies with a score of 28-21, the B-side game vs. Chesapeake was a close, close match with a final score of 3-5, and the C-side game versus Lancaster was a Fury win with a bunch of tries (including the one above!) to not so many. After each game, everyone voted for their "Player of the Match", and during the social, our captain announced the winners: for A-side, Beth (my vet buddy!); for C-side, Di; and for B-side, ME!! I've never been prouder to receive a congratulatory cup of beer.

Overall, it was a really fun day of well-played rugby. The Furies competed with a lot of synergy, especially awesome since it was the first weekend of the season, but also identified some areas to work on over the season. I can't wait!

FINALLY – rugby is back in season!

2009-03-19T15:39:00.001-04:00

Last Wednesday, my coworker asked me if I had any exciting plans for the evening. When I excitedly told him I had my first rugby practice of the season, he looked skeptical. Hadn’t I been playing rugby for a few weeks now?

Well, okay, the Saturday before I’d gone to Baltimore with American, my alma matter, to sub in during their game against Towson. I relived my first few seasons by playing wing, and had a great time rucking it up with my old teammates.

And sure, a few weekends before that I’d driven all the way to New Orleans for a tournament, and spend two weeks before that going to practice for the tournament.

But none of that’s the same as the season really officially starting. Practices reliably occurring twice a week! Games happening every Saturday! My inbox flooded with emails about meet times and practice details and selections and kit reminders! Playing “Dirt or Bruise” and, if I win, going to work looking like I lost a fight with a staircase!

Oh yes, there’s NOTHING like rugby season.

Crazy fun rugby

2009-03-10T17:30:00.002-04:00

I love this quote from a California State article, UC Berkeley shuts out short-staffed Chico rugby team. I think it sums up rugby pretty well!

"This sport had to be invented by someone who was drunk," Kieren said. "But even though it's crazy, it's still crazy fun to play and watch."

As a bonus, there's a pretty good video of some gameplay with interviews with the coaches at the bottom of the page.

NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: the FUN part

2009-03-04T15:21:00.002-05:00

I am writing up my weekend trip to New Orleans in chunks, because it was too much experience for just one blog entry! Read about the road trip, a cemetery, and the rugby tournament too.

Crawfish and Mardi Gras

A few Stingers with our second place trophy

Post-tournament, fifteen members of the Stingers headed out to a crawfish boil. Q later reported in the Stinger's Weekly Buzz that the fifteen of us consumed:
25 lbs of crawfish
8 lbs of potatoes
15 ears of corn
1 dozen crabs
1 lb of shrimp
3 baskets of crackers
2 baskets of fries

and of course...

9 pitchers of beer

After that, it was time for showers and MARDI GRAS. We failed a little bit on Saturday night (although we did receive a truly beautiful second place ~~trophy~~ boot – painted silver and decorated with beads – at the tournament social!), but we made up for it on Sunday.

We spent the afternoon and evening exploring Mardi Gras New Orleans, doing line outs in the crowd to get MORE BEADS (even though our necks and shoulders were already sore from the weight of the ones we had!) and singing “Saturday’s a Rugby Day” as we strolled down Canal Street. We also enjoyed our share of NOLA cuisine, including beignets drowning in powdered sugar, hand grenades complete with little green plastic grenades, and hurricanes in souvenir glasses eighteen inches high. (Yes, I am counting beverages as cuisine.) Finally, we ended up dancing the rest of our night away at a bar called the Rugby Fruit Jungle.

All in all, a weekend that lived up to expectations.

More photos on Facebook: one and two and three

NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: the rugby part!

2009-03-03T20:40:00.003-05:00

I am writing up my weekend trip to New Orleans in chunks, because it was too much experience for just one blog entry! Read about the road trip and a cemetery, too.

Rugby!

Stingers vs. Buffalo Girls, photo thanks to Dee

The Mardi Gras tournament is a pretty friendly affair, and our hosts, the Halfmoons, squooze all three of our games into one Saturday so we could spend Sunday better appreciating the finer points of New Orleans at Mardi Gras. Despite these allowances, Saturday was no lazy rugby day. As both the first rugby day of the year, and my last games with the Stingers (I'll be moving to play for the DC Furies this spring), it had a lot to live up to - and it did.

Our first game was against the Baton Rouge Barbarians. It was a close, tough fought match: the Stingers scored in the first half, but after that play ranged back and forth between try lines with no further score. After two 25-minute halves of hard play, the Stingers emerged victorious, 5-0.

Later in the afternoon, the Stingers took the pitch again, this time against our hosts the Halfmoons. Play in this game was looser and messier, with a lot of pick-and-go from the forward packs. However, the Stingers were able to capitalize on the chaos and play another shut out game, with a final score of 19-0. A highlight of the game for all was when Jen Dean, in her last games as an active rugger before retiring, not only scored a try but kicked a successful conversion!

Finally it was time for our last game, with no break. We were playing the mysterious Buffalo Girls - up until Saturday morning, I figured they were some D2 team from Kansas or something. But over a Continental breakfast at our hotel, a chat with one of the players from the Oklahoma college side enlightened me: "The Buffalo Girls? Watch out! That's the Old Girls - they're tricky!"

Tricky indeed! For when we took the pitch, we found that we recognized more than a few Buffalo Girls from Back in Black, who narrowly defeated the Stingers at Ruggerfest in the spring. Determined to turn the tables, the Stingers played a good game; but, true to predictions, the Buffalo Girls were full of tricks, as well as hard tackling and good footwork. It was a well-fought match on both sides, but in the end, the Buffalo Girls shut out the Stingers for tournament gold and we received the silver.

More photos on Facebook: one and two and three

NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: tourist time

2009-03-02T17:33:00.003-05:00

I am writing up my weekend trip to New Orleans in chunks, because it was too much experience for just one blog entry! Read about the road trip, too.

New Orleans: The Educational Part

Our tour guided at the family tomb of Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen

On Friday afternoon, because I have never been to New Orleans before and really wanted to get to know a little bit about the city, I went on a Cemetery and Voodoo tour with Kelley B, Kellie Cav, and Tiff. Our tour guide was a very energetic blond woman who gave us lots of fantastic background about New Orleans as we walked to St. Louis Cemetery - for example, did you know that New Orleans was Spanish for just as long as it was French? The thing is, it was French first, so when the Spaniards came in and changed the street names and insisted everyone spoke Spanish, everyone basically ignored them, and just changed the street names back to French when they left.

St. Louis cemetery was one of the several Catholic cemeteries in the city. It is full of those above-ground tombs that I'd always figured were popular in Louisiana because the ground is too marshy for underground burial. But, our tour guide explained, they were popular because they're a very efficient use of space: a family (or neighborhood association) would own a plot in the cemetery, and build a tomb on that plot that had a number of casket sized spaces - one, or two (like Marie Laveau's), or in the case of the neighborhood-owned or common tombs, more like fifteen or thirty. When you died, your body would be put into a coffin, which would go into that space in the tomb. Not so efficient so far, right? But here's the nifty part - after a minimum of a year and a day (this amount of time has something to do with Catholicism), when, say, your cousin dies and needs that space, they take out your coffin, take out your decomposed remains, shove them to the back of the tomb where they fall into a little cave in the bottom along with all the bones of your previously dead relatives. And hey presto! A new storage space for your dead cousin!

After wandering around the cemetery for an hour or two and learning lots more fun facts about New Orleans, burial grounds, and voodoo practices (those triple-X marks on the tombs of voodoo queens [and they are always queens, never kings] are a silly tourist thing. You shouldn't mess around with someone else's religion if you don't understand it, and anyways, all real voodoo practitioners are also staunchly Catholic. Our tour guide was also very opinionated), we went to visit a voodoo temple. There, we visited a room absolutely full of stuff - hangings on the wall and trinkets and statues stacked on the furniture and rolled up dollar bills and cigarettes stuffed everywhere. Then a woman (I guess... a voodoo priestess?) talked to us - or rather, at us - at great length about staying true to ourselves and not changing the outside because that will never change our insides. She seemed both insightful and a bit crazy - definitely an experience.

This was the end of our tour, and by then, having driven all night and then walked around a cemetery all afternoon, I was exhausted, so I met up with Dee and Q to head back to the hotel for a nice early bedtime of 5pm.

More photos on Facebook: one and two and three

NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: the road trip

2009-03-02T17:25:00.004-05:00

Oh, man. This trip, as might be expected, was absolutely EPIC AND AMAZING. So much so that, in order to be able to handle it, I had to break up it up into a few different sections - I'll post them one by one as I finish them!

Road trip

Q and Dee in their killah shades, somewhere in Alabama

1,200+ miles, 7 states, 18 hours of driving - and that's just one way. But Dee, Q, and I are all both dedicated to rugby and ~~cheapskates~~ adventurous, so we decided to drive from DC to New Orleans, Louisiana - overnight Thursday and Friday morning to get there, then all of Monday (day and night until it was almost day again!) to get home.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected - mostly because I sleep like a baby in moving cars. But there was also scenery, and rest stops (6 am McDonalds!), and late night discussions about all the important things in life (sex, love, and rugby), and the license plate game. Q and Dee laughed at me, but pretty soon they were just as excited as I was when they saw a state like California or Minnesota. By the time we'd gone to NOLA and back, we'd seen 31 states, plus DC, diplomat plates, and two Canadian provinces.

More photos on Facebook: one and two and three

NOLA road trip: T minus one day!

2009-02-18T16:00:00.001-05:00

This is the route I'll be driving overnight on Thursday to get to Mardi Gras tournament in New Orleans.

View Larger Map

I AM SO EXCITED!

Spring is in the air

2009-02-17T12:07:00.002-05:00

After four years of college, I started measuring time by the patterns of class – fall semester, winter break, spring semester, summer.

Now that I've graduated, however, things haven’t changed much. Thanks to rugby, my life follows nearly the same pattern: fall season, winter break (fitness), spring season, summer (sevens).

To be honest, there’s not a whole lot I like about winter. It’s cold, it’s dark, and – worst of all – there’s no rugby. Just going to the gym when it’s already dark, talking myself into layering sweats over underarmor to go running, and missing scrumming and tackling and contact.

But I can feel winter finally coming to an end. Not only did DC just have a week-long warm snap (it’s hard to hate global warming when you get seventy degree weather in February), but rugby is starting back up again!

Last week I started preseason practice with the Stingers to get ready to compete in the New Orleans Women’s Rugby Club’s Mardi Gras tournament. Though I’ve been working out and playing touch whenever I can, all the fitness and ball-handling in the world can’t compare to finally getting out on the pitch with some ruggers to do contact!

It would sound crazy to any non-rugger, but I LOVE my sore, rugby shoulders the day after a tackling and scrumming practice. I love it because I know it means I’m getting stronger and better, because it means I’ve been pushing people around with my body, and – best of all – because it means I’ll soon be out on a real pitch playing a real game.

Soon, rugby will start for real and it will finally be SPRING!!

2009-02-11T09:19:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to a pre-season practice with the Stingers to prepare for the Mardi Gras tournament in two weeks.

My ankle is inexplicably sore. There is sticky residue on the back of my hand from taping my wrist. Chewing my oatmeal hurts, because my jaw is sore from when I got a stiff arm to the chin.

Oh rugby! I missed you.

Accountability and the fitness game

2009-01-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

My, but this blog has been getting a bit dusty around the corners, hasn’t it? But that’s off-season for ya – kit bag kicked under the bed, boots shoved in some corner where hopefully the smell won’t bother anyone, and rugby pushed, if not to the back of my mind, then at least less constantly at the front of my thoughts.

Instead, like any dutiful rugger, the off-season brings for me a new obsession: fitness. Lifting, core workouts, sprinting, nutrition, when can I get to the gym?

After all, this is my first off-season as an Official Adult, without finals or new classes or shuttling back and forth between home and campus. No traveling to foreign countries and (knock on wood) no long, drawn-out illnesses to keep me from finally focusing all my energy on Being the Fittest Rugby Player I Can Be. For the first time, I should really be able to set some serious goals and meet them… right?

But it’s been harder than I thought. There are the usual distractions – after all, now I’m earning a paycheck which can be spent on Happy Hours and new books and Netflix – but that’s not it. I also can’t blame the cold weather or my new neighborhood not being safe to run in at night or my mysterious shoulder injury for making me skip workouts or shave the end off of my sprints or occasionally eat a bag of popcorn for dinner instead of a well-balanced meal.

It’s a lack of accountability.

See, back when I played for American, we spent the off-season playing The Fitness Game. Workouts had a point value, and at the end of every week you’d add up your points and send them to a team leader to be totaled and reported in a summary to the rest of the team. I’m sure that some people cheated, gave themselves points for workouts they didn’t do, or “forgot” to report their negative points (incidentally, a three-drink minimum doesn’t result in less drinking, merely VERY strong drinks) – but the cheating didn’t make a difference. The thing is, everyone knew – we were all in the game together. We badgered each other to go to the gym or to go running between classes, we noticed who was getting the highest point totals and talked about who was slacking, we could tell during that first week of practice who had been keeping up their fitness in the cold or the heat. Even after I graduated, I spent the summer in a house of ruggers and we dragged each other to the gym and sprint workouts before sevens practices.

Now instead of heading to the university gym, I come home and lift in my laundry room. Instead of sprint sessions on the track, I try to find a well-lit park somewhere in the neighborhood. Instead of tallying my points once a week and having to admit to someone when I’ve slacked off – well, no one knows the difference if I go home and watch TV on my couch instead of going into my freezing cold laundry gym. And without that accountability, it can be awfully hard to give into temptation.

So what’s a rugger to do?

At first, I just got frustrated and criticized myself for not doing better. Don’t I have more willpower than that? Aren’t I committed to being a better rugby player?? Skipping workouts makes me a TERRIBLE PERSON and I should be ASAHMED OF MYSELF for being such a PITIFUL EXCUSE FOR A RUGBY PLAYER.

But yeah, that didn’t work. Turns out I’m not a great self-motivator.

So now I’m trying something new. After all, there’s still plenty of ruggers in my life, and we’re all on Gchat all the time anyways. If every morning, Caboose and I agree to talk about our workout plans for the evening and whether we did what we’d meant to the night before – then she’ll know if I slack off. If I make gym and sprint dates with my teammates and the DCers I know from the U23 team instead of going out for a drink – well, there’s temptation gone and it’s not like I’ll stand anyone up for a gym date.

It’s a new fitness game. It’s sort of like being a responsible adult. And so far, it’s working. Which is good for me, because after all – there’s that first spring practice coming up. And no matter what happens in the off-season, there’s still those fourteen other players on the pitch that I’m accountable to as soon as the season starts.

MARFU U23 Tournament, 2008

2008-11-24T16:36:00.002-05:00

There is nothing like waking up two hours before the sunrise to start a rugby weekend.

Our game versus the VRU team had been moved up out of concern for the weather, so departure times had to be moved up as well. It was still dark all the way through DC and Baltimore as I drove to pick up teammates, but even when the sun did rise we couldn’t see it through the clouds and rain.

However, by the time we made it to Edgely Field, conditions had cleared up. The pitch was pretty water-logged, but there were no standing puddles and the sun actually came out a little. As we warmed up, the wind began to pick up, but the weather stayed clear.

Finally, we kit up into our white-and-red jerseys and shorts and took the field. It was my third year wearing the number 8 to represent the PRU, and I was nervous and excited. We played a hard match in the first half, but still let the VRU get four tries through. After the half and some substitutions, however, the PRU really pulled together and held the scoring even. Supporting from the sidelines, I was excited and proud by how well the team played – it was a clear improvement over past years.

At the end of the match, the Philadelphia Women’s Club awarded lock Laura Miller the Player of the Match award – well deserved for a great player!

Next we all stripped out of our no-longer-white uniforms and piled into cars for an adventurous caravan back to the hotel. After snacks and showers, a group of us took our sore bodies downstairs to take advantage of the hotel’s pool and hot tub (!!) before heading to a delicious pasta dinner.

Post-dinner, we had a brief team meeting to go over strategy and talk about strengths and weaknesses of our performance on Saturday. We then split into forwards and backs to talk about what to focus on for our match against the MARFU U19 squad on Sunday. Sadly, we didn’t get to watch a copy of the game tape as planned (I was really looking forward to this, as I’ve never gotten to observe myself play!) but Coach Kenny Pope and assistant coaches Tosan Tutse-Tonwe and Deanna Church had some great insights despite our lack of technology.

KP also announced that the time of our Sunday match had been pushed back and that the pitch had been moved to New Jersey. In light of our later kick-off time, everyone was free to stay up late, hanging out and getting to know each other and generally enjoying the concentrated awesome that occurs anytime a big group of ruggers get together. But we did, after all, have another game on Sunday, so eventually everyone headed to bed.

Sunday morning, after taking advantage of the complimentary breakfast buffet as only rugby girls can, everyone packed back into cars to follow a circuitous route (more so for some than others!) to our pitch in South Jersey. As we arrived one by one, it became very clear to us that this would be a COLD match – the temperature had dropped and the wind was blowing hard. But we were warmed up and ready when the whistle finally blew.

It was clear from the start that this would be a very close match. The U19 players were tough and ran hard, but we fought for the ball and made it clear that we wanted to win. The score stayed close the whole first half as the wind pushed kicks and line-out throws completely off-target. Towards the end of the half, however, the PRU pulled ahead with a full-team try, slowly but surely punching the ball forward meter by meter, calmly making the gain line every phase until finally the ball crossed the line to be grounded by team forward effort.

The second half began as the day faded into twilight. The U19 team scored another try to bring the score near even, but the PRU team answered with a try of our own, putting us back in the lead. Still, it was by no means a sure thing, with the U19s forcing us back into our own 22. However, we successfully defended our turf (“PROTECT THIS HOUSE!!” as Dominique reminded us), and before the final whistle, we pushed another hard-won forward try into the try zone to finish with a 22-12 win.

By the time the game was over, the sun had nearly set and everyone was frozen numb, but we were ecstatic. We’d worked hard and played hard and had a great weekend. We got together one last time for a team photo and for Philly to name Lyndsey “Nips” Gibson (the AU captain) Player of the Match, then bundled up to finally head home, cold and exhausted but happy.

Photos on my Facebook

Congratulations to all my teammates for a match well-played, and I look forward to playing with and against every one of you!

2008 PRU U23

Sarah Brown (American U.)
Sarah Buhlman (Chesapeake)
Dominique Bunai (MD Exiles)
Julie Butner (DC Furies)
Loretta Charles (George Washington U.)
Sarah Childers (MD Stingers)
Jane Dewire (Georgetown U.)
Jessie Garth (MD Stingers)
Lyndsey Gibson (American U.)
Sara Gimmy (DC Furies)
Tanya Gouws (MD Exiles)
Krysi Hermes (American U.)
Liz Hilliard (American U.)
Alysia Holsey (U. Maryland)
Sarah Holzman (NOVA)
Bridget Kapinus (Georgetown U.)
Maura McGraw (George Washington U.)
Laura Miller (St. Mary's C.M.)
Lindsay Nugent (American U.)
Anne Paschke (MD Stingers)
Olivia Payne (U. Maryland)
Caitlin Webster (U. Maryland)
Mary Emma Young (DC Furies)

Coach Kenny Pope
Assistant Coaches: Tosan Tutse-Tonwe and Deanna Church

Hyde Rugby

2008-11-15T05:58:00.001-05:00

I love this article from the New York Times on one of the boys' rugby teams here in DC: High School Team Breaks Down Barriers. My favorite part is:

All sports can help break down racial and cultural barriers, but certain elements of rugby make it especially suited. With its raw physicality and traditional postgame bonding, rugby forces an intimacy among opponents not found in many other sports.

A little early morning reading before I head off on my road trip to play some U23 rugby in Philly!

Excitement

2008-11-12T16:41:00.003-05:00

On Monday I crashed GW's practice to keep my head and body in rugby-mode - I want to be sure I'm prepared for the U23 tournament this weekend. I had enough fun that I'm going again today.

I'm sitting here at work, trying to get a little more work done before I have to leave, but I'm finding it hard to concentrate. I keep bouncing my foot and looking at the clock - is it rugby time yet? Now? How about... now?

And I realize that this is why I'm so committed to rugby. I've been playing for a few years now and been to dozens and dozens of practices, but knowing that in half an hour I'll be out on a pitch (albeit rocky, slanted, and covered in DUCKS), my adrenaline starts flowing and I start getting excited. Because soon, I'll be doing what I love - RUGBY!

Spectating!

2008-11-10T14:53:00.002-05:00

This weekend was an exciting one for women's rugby, as D1 and D2 teams from around the country battled it out in Florida. However, considering that my participation in nationals was limited to the occasional text message update ("We lost our morning game," etc.), and the weekend is well documented elsewhere (Blondie, Wendy, USA Rugby, D2 website), I will post about MY weekend.

For the first time in ages, I had no rugby to play for myself - no Stingers matches, no PRU U23 tryouts, no MARFU camp, nothing. Faced with the odd experience of no rugby games to play, I found myself two rugby games to watch!

On Saturday, I went to see Georgetown and George Washington face off in the D2 championship. As I understand, both teams have gone undefeated all season, and the match was expected to be quite the standoff.

I'm happy to report that both teams lived up to expectations. George Washington scored a try in the first few moments of the game (sadly, before I made it to the pitch), but after that, it was a deadlock. Play ranged up and down the pitch, and both teams spent considerable time in their opposition's 22, but neither could penetrate the defense long enough to score a try. The ball was evenly contested in scrums and lineouts (the latter particularly fun because two of my PRU teammates were jumping against each other in the first pod), both teams forced turnovers and displayed some crafty back play, and all in all it was a very exciting game to watch.

In the end, neither team could make it through to the tryzone, so GW's first try made the difference and won them the game. Congratulations to George Washington as the PRU D2 champs! But kudos to Georgetown as well for a match beautifully fought.

On Sunday, I headed over to American to watch my old team play Penn State. Unfortunately, that game was not nearly so even - over the past few years, Penn State has consistently remained one of the top college women's teams in the country, while American remains a club sport at a small liberal arts school without a lot of emphasis on athletics. Still, it was good to see my old teammates in action, say hi to everyone I knew, and see the new rookies play.

I brought my camera to both games and got some good photos, posted on my Facebook page for anyone to check out.

PRU U23 selections

2008-11-06T16:29:00.004-05:00

Just got the official selections for this year's U23 team! I'm really excited about the skill and range of the players - we have representation from all three local D1 women's teams and two of the D2 clubs, as well as players from both local D1 college sides. On Sunday, we had an invitational scrimmage to help K. Pope finalize selections. We played Chesapeake, one of the local D2 women's clubs headed to nationals this weekend, and I was really impressed with everyone's performance.

The PRU hasn't won a game in the MARFU tournament for a few years now... maybe this year's our year?

2008 PRU U23

Sarah Brown (American U.)
Sarah Buhlman (Chesapeake)
Dominique Bunai (MD Exiles)
Julie Butner (DC Furies)
Loretta Charles (George Washington U.)
Sarah Childers (MD Stingers)
Likfung Laurel Chor (Georgetown U.)
Jane Dewire (Georgetown U.)
Jessie Garth (MD Stingers)
Lyndsey Gibson (American U.)
Sara Gimmy (DC Furies)
Tanya Gouws (MD Exiles)
Krysi Hermes (American U.)
Liz Hilliard (American U.)
Alysia Holsey (U. Maryland)
Sarah Holzman (NOVA)
Bridget Kapinus (Georgetown U.)
Maura McGraw (George Washington U.)
Laura Miller (St. Mary's C.M.)
Lindsay Nugent (American U.)
Anne Paschke (MD Stingers)
Olivia Payne (U. Maryland)
Caitlin Webster (U. Maryland)
Mary Emma Young (DC Furies)

Schedule
November 15 (Edgely Soccer Field C)
11:00 Game 1 EPRU v MARFU U-19
1:00 Game 2 VRU v PRU

November 16 (Edgely Rugby Field)
11:00 Winner Game 1 v. Winner Game 2
1:00 Loser Game 1 v. Loser Game 2

"Women love contact"

2008-11-04T15:56:00.005-05:00

I am thinking up a nice post about the PRU U23 scrimmage this past Sunday, but I'm currently far too distracted by the Election (yes! capitalized!) to sit still long enough to write it.

In the meantime, I found this lovely article on women's rugby, focusing on St. Mary's and NCAA recognition:

Women find rugby a good match
By Carl Steward

An excerpt:

"What I like about it is it can be pouring rain and you're dead tired but you're still having so much fun," said Wendy Amador, a Saint Mary's sophomore from Livermore High. "You don't want it to stop."

Women's rugby literally bashes all stereotypes about a female's ability to play a rough sport with the same verve and volatility as men.

"I like intense games, and rugby gives me an adrenaline rush," said Hayward native Bianca Mira, who attended Bishop O'Dowd High in Oakland. "It's way better than basketball, where you just get elbowed here and there. Rugby dispels myths. Women love contact."

Chesapeake in the news!

2008-10-28T09:15:00.004-04:00

Interesting article in the Sunday Baltimore Examiner on Chesapeake making it to nationals (although I'm not sure where they got the idea that Chesapeake is the only women's senior team in Maryland - USA Rugby claims three and I can think of at least two more!)

These women really love a good scrum

By Emily Campbell
Examiner Staff Writer 10/24/08

The Chesapeake Ospreys is only senior women’s rugby team in Maryland.

In her junior year at LaSalle University, Baltimore resident Jillian Szczepaniak-Gillece started a women’s rugby team. The reason?

“We were bored, and we wanted to hit people,” she recalled, laughing. “Stupid things seem really smart when you’re in college.”

But the “wrong” decision turned out to be quite right. Now 27, Szczepaniak-Gillece is the vice-president and an active member of the Chesapeake Ospreys, the only senior women’s rugby team in Baltimore.

“I really missed being on a female team. And this is a very diverse group. We have girls that have never played a team sport in their lives; we have some girls who have played rugby for 10 years,” she said. “It’s not a group you would necessarily see put together in public, but we look really mean on the field.”

The team is made up of 30 women, ranging in age from 19 to 36. There are teachers, scientists and financial advisors among the group. Szczepaniak-Gillece, a social worker, said that playing on the team serves to relieve aggression from everyday stress.

“It’s a lot of discipline and teamwork, and it’s tremendous to be able to play with such great people. The camaraderie is just outstanding, and being competitive in a sport is something a lot of people don’t have access to. Plus, once you get into it, you get really hooked. Not only is it a neat sport to watch, but there’s a very social aspect to it as well.”

Jeff Adamczyk, head coach for the women’s rugby team at Towson University, has been playing rugby for the past 15 years and coaching for seven. “Rugby is an emerging sport,” Adamczyk, 35, said.

“Most people my age started playing rugby in college, but there are a lot of high school teams now, both boys and girls. It’s in a different mindset than it was five years ago. There’s a barrier to be broken, but it’s getting there, and [the sport] will continue to grow.”

Adamczyk said a lot of people are surprised by how popular rugby has become.

“Pretty much every college in the country has a rugby team. I think it’s around more than most people think,” he said. “And it’s one of the true gender equity sports — the rules are exactly the same for men as they are for women.”

The Ospreys are heading to Florida Nov. 7 to compete at the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union Championship. They are the only Maryland team competing.

“When we’re out on the field, we’re definitely having a really good time, but we’re really ferocious and competitive,” Szczepaniak-Gillece said. “We’re the third birds in town, and we’re just as tough.”

LEND THEM A HAND
The Ospreys are hosting a benefit on Wednesday at Padonia Station, 63 E. Padonia Road in Timonium, to raise money for their championship bid in Florida. For information, visit chesapeakerugby.com.

Nationals part 2

2008-10-27T12:16:00.003-04:00

Spent most of Sunday driving to and from the PRU U23 tryouts all the way out in Salisbury. Turn out was pretty low, owing to the location (sorry, Salisbury, but you're in the middle of nowhere) and to a number of PRU college teams having matrix matches. The day ended a bit earlier than expected, so my Furies carpool-mates and I stopped on the way home to buy pumpkins and feed goats.

We also got real-time text updates from Missouri on the Furies game vs. Beantown... as you'd guess from the final score (86-5), it was none too pretty. Bummer for them - looks like DC and NOVA are going all the way to Florida just to play each other!

Full results:

Day 2
Minnesota Valkyries 31, Keystone 0
San Diego Surfers 36, Philadelphia 8
New York 28, NOVA 5
ORSU 27, Glendale 24
Beantown 86, Washington Furies 5
Seattle 13, Chicago North Shore 12
Berkeley All Blues 64, Twin Cities Amazons 8
Atlanta Harlequins 19, Boston 5

And games for D1 national finals in Florida:

Championship Semis
Berkeley All Blues vs. Minnesota Valkyries
New York vs. Beantown

Plate Semis
Twin Cities Amazons vs. Keystone
NOVA vs. Washington Furies

Down in the Bahamas, the women's US 7s team lost 14-19 to Canada in the finals, qualifying both teams for the world cup. I believe the game will be posted online at some point... can't wait to watch it!

Couch rugger - NAWIRA and Nationals, day 1

2008-10-25T23:22:00.004-04:00

It's been a pretty good rugby Saturday even though I haven't played a minute myself - spent the day watching the NAWIRA qualifiers live, which was wonderful even though I could never really figure out who was playing who. It seems that the US women kicked ass, though.

And out in Missouri at Nationals, MARFU women had a pretty good showing - NOVA beat ORSU 15-5 and Furies beat North Shore 37-12, though Philly lost 10-41 to the Minnesota Valkyries. Can't wait to hear how the matches tomorrow go - although I'll have to wait until I get home, as instead of watching the itty bitty feed from the Bahamas and refreshing USA Rugby looking for scores, I'll be spending the day up in Salisbury trying out for the PRU U23 team. Mmmm, rugby weekend.

From USA Rugby:

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – The USA Rugby Senior Women’s Club Playoffs kicked off at Sportport sports complex on Saturday, with all but one of the higher seeded teams emerging out front in day one of competition.

The day kicked off with the No. 4 seeded Minnesota Valkyries taking on Philadelphia. In the end it was the Midwest team that prevailed, 41-10 at the final whistle. Minnesota will take on Keystone RFC, who started out its playoff run with a 17-5 victory over the San Diego Surfers in the first match of the day when competition resumes on Sunday.

No. 3 seeded New York pushed past Glendale 43-12 and will now face Northern Virginia (NOVA) in Sunday’s competition. The No. 11 seed NOVA team pulled the day's only upset, muscling past No. 6 Oregon Sports Union (ORSU) in the first round 15-5 to stay in the hunt for the title.

Meanwhile, last year’s Championship runners up from Beantown put up the strongest showing of the day, putting down Seattle 89-12 in their playoffs opener. The Boston team now goes on to face fellow Mid-Atlantic competitors the Washington Furies, who defeated Chicago North Shore 37-12, in tomorrow’s competition.

Rounding out a full day of play, reigning champions the Berkeley All Blues topped the Boston Women 45-10 and will now face the Twin Cities Amazons when the tournament resumes tomorrow. The Minnesota squad shut down the Atlanta Harlequins 45-12 in day one

Competition picks up again bright and early on Sunday morning, lasting from 9:30 a.m. through about 4:30 p.m. Please see below for the complete match schedule. Tickets to the event will be sold at the gate for $5 per day.

As the road to crowning the 2008 Women’s Club champions continues, the top eight finishers will next travel to the Seminole Soccer Complex in Sanford, Fla. for the Championships on November 7-9, 2008.
For more information on the USA Rugby Women’s Club Playoffs or Championships series, please visit www.usarugby.org or contact Director of Competition Dan Payne at dpayne@usarugby.org.

Senior Women’s Club Playoffs
Results – Day 1, October 25
Minnesota Valkyries 41, Philadelphia 10
Keystone 17, San Diego 5
New York 43, Glendale 12
Northern Virginia (NOVA) 15, Oregon Sport Union (ORSU) 5
Beantown 89, Seattle 12
Washington Furies 37, Chicago North Shore 12
Berkeley All Blues 45, Boston 10
Twin Cities Amazons 45, Atlanta Harlequins 12

Day 2 Schedule, October 26
9:30 a.m. Field A – Minnesota Valkyries vs. Keystone
9:30 a.m. Field B – Philadelphia vs. San Diego Surfers
11:15 a.m. Field A – New York vs. NOVA
11:15 a.m. Field B – Glendale vs. ORSU
1 p.m. Field A – Beantown vs. Washington Furies
1 p.m. Field B – Seattle vs. Chicago North Shore
2:45 p.m. Field A – Berkeley vs. Twin Cities
2:45 p.m. Field B – Boston vs. Atlanta Harlequins

D2 Nationals

2008-10-22T16:49:00.002-04:00

Found the D2 Nationals info! Apparently Women's D2 Rugby has its own website... who knew?!

November 8/9, 2008
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE!!!
Saturday

Game 1 - 9:00am: Detroit vs Chesapeake
Game 2 - 9:00am: Miami vs Northeast #1
Game 3 - 11:00am: Cincinnati vs Brandywine
Game 4 - 11:00am: Orlando vs Northeast #2

Game 5 - 1:00pm: Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2
Game 6 - 1:00pm: Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2
Game 7 - 3:00pm: Winner Game 3 vs Winner Game 4
Game 8 - 3:00pm: Loser Game 3 vs Loser Game 4

Sunday - Times TBA to coordinate with DI National Finals

Game 9 - xx:xxam: Loser Game 6 vs Loser Game 8
Game 10 - xx:xxam: Winner Game 6 vs Winner Game 8
Game 11 - xx:xxam: Loser Game 5 vs Loser Game 7
Game 12 - xx:xxpm: Winner Game 5 vs Winner Game 7

Standings for Nationals

2008-10-22T15:44:00.000-04:00

I will admit, I'm not usually very good at following rugby outside of my own union. But whenever playoffs roll around, my interest in the state of US women's rugby peaks - especially this season, my first on the club side of things rather than the collegiate. And since the first round of nationals are this weekend, I've spent the afternoon figuring out which of my MARFU teams are playing who:

MARFU D1 rankings:
1 Washington
2 NOVA
3 Philadelphia

And MARFU D2 (even though it seems they play nationals Nov 1/2? I'm having a hard time figuring this out, if anyone wants to help!):
1 Brandywine
2 Chesapeake
3 Norfolk
4 Severn River

October 25th schedule:

Saturday
1 Minnesota Valkyries (MW #1) vs. Philadelphia (MARFU #3)
2 Keystone (NRU #3) vs. San Diego Surfers (SoCal #1)
3 New York (NRU #2) vs. Glendale (West #1)
4 ORSU (PC #2) vs. NOVA (MARFU #2)
5 Beantown (NRU #1) vs. Seattle Breakers (PC #3)
6 Washington Furies (MARFU #1) vs. Chicago North Shore (MW #3)
7 Berkeley All Blues (PC #1) vs. Boston (NRU #4)
8 Atlanta Harlequins (South #1) vs. Twin Cities Amazons (MW #2)

Sunday
9 Winner match 1 vs Winner Match 2
10 Loser Match 1 vs. Loser Match 2
11 Winner Match 3 vs. Winner Match 4
12 Loser Match 3 vs Loser Match 4
13 Winner Match 5 vs. Winner Match 6
14 Loser Match 5 vs. Loser Match 6
15 Winner Match 7 vs. Winner Match 8
16 Loser Match 7 vs. Loser Match 8

WNT MARFU camp

2008-10-20T20:01:00.000-04:00

This Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a MARFU camp led by Women's National Team coaches Kathy Flores, Candi Orsini, and Krista McFarren. It was a great experience to be exposed to some very high-level coaching with a group of high-level players. The group was mostly Maryland, DC, and NOVA, with pretty good representation from Philadelphia. I have to admit, it was a little intimidating to be out there with such a talented group of women – I had to keep reminding myself that I'm a Division I A-side athlete, too, even if I'm nowhere near the same level as most of the players!

We warmed up with a game of double-touch and stretched before splitting into backs and the forwards. We forwards spent our entire split time on the same drill - running it, stopping and discussing, then running it again, over and over. It was incredibly rewarding to learn so much from a very intensive session with one simple drill.

Next, backs and forwards recombined to do a tackling drill working on body position in the tackle, with the tackled player trying to pike or lay full-out to provide the smallest gate possible and the tackler attempting to get up facing forward ready to poach the ball as soon as possible. Eventually one offensive supporter was added to protect against the poach by staying low and directly over the body of her tackled teammate. Then our last drill before lunch worked with different decision making in a wide field versus a narrow space.

After lunch, we warmed up with a game of ruck touch before spending the afternoon working on defensive alignment. We focused a lot on defending against an overload - Kathy introduced the concept of setting up a slightly staggered defensive line, so that the defender on the outside would be able to watch her teammate on the inside, who focused on "pushing" the line out.

We then did a few drills on the defensive alignment around a ruck, focusing on positions I've previously called "post, guard, runner"; that Kathy called "post, X, Y"; and that the Furies called "anchor, guard dog, ATTACK DOG!!" Regardless of your terminology, the first position focuses on the ball and the channel directly next to the ruck; the second takes care of forwards on a punch, the scrumhalf on a scoot, or the flyhalf; and the third position guns it for "one" or the flyhalf position. Finally, we combined these concepts with our earlier drills on overloads and "pushing."

All in all, it was an extremely educational day. I took a lot away about how to improve my personal performance and about new ways to think about my team on the pitch, and went home full of a love of the game - and a strong desire for a nap!

ACL injury prevention

2008-10-16T22:11:00.001-04:00

Ages and ages ago, I read and bookmarked this New York Times article, The Uneven Playing Field, that talks about how women and girls tear their ACLs disproportionately often in comparison to men.

One of the causes of this (according to the article) is that females tend to move differently than men - for example, "Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps."

The article also describes "a customized warm-up of stretching, strengthening and balancing exercises," designed to prevent ACL injuries. Of course I read that and thought, Sign me up! Like most rugby players I've had teammates tear an ACL (or MCL, or meniscus...) and it's something I want to avoid if at all possible.

Of course, the New York Times article didn't actually describe what those exercises were.

But recently, I found this American Physical Therapy Association pdf - Exercises to Help Prevent ACL injuries. Six exercises designed "to improve strength, flexibility, and coordination,
as well as to counteract incorrect existing patterns of movement that may be damaging to their joints".

Score! I know what I'm adding to my fitness routine.

Philadelphia vs. Maryland

2008-09-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

Philly is, by all accounts, a difficult team to scrum against.

To be a lock on the smaller side of locks, against a pack on the large side of packs, is especially difficult.

And when I ended up being the larger of Maryland's locks?

Let's just say that those scrums were very inspirational, in the sense that I am now extremely motivated to head to a gym. Because my lack of gym-going recently was very, very unhelpful on Saturday.

Locking body position

2008-09-24T21:57:00.000-04:00

When I first started locking - that is, when I first got dragged over from wing to be a flanker, and occasionally got thrown in to lock during practice - I learned to start on my knees. Put my head in low between my front row, then go up and make eye contact with the lock across from me.

Then I went to a MARFU scrum clinic with Lisa Rosen, and we talked about good body position and the advantages of second rows starting in a stable body position on her feet. Putting the head straight between my prop and hooker, and keeping it in a neutral position, looking through my eyebrows and "over the sunglasses".

After that, I felt much more comfortable when I needed to step in at lock, whether during practice or in games. I was more stable starting on my feet, instead of frantically trying to pop up and readjust my body position in the seconds before "Engage!" So I became a huge advocate of starting in that crouched position, stabilizing myself with my prop and ready to power forward instead of just resting on the ground.

That is, until I started locking for Maryland. We're short on second rows so I've primarily been playing there rather than in the back row. However, I've been having trouble getting stable - the front row has a different cadence than I'm used to, and it gets them lower, but has been throwing me off.

Until last night, when Maria suggested that I start on my knees, and wait to get up into good scrumming position until after the front row had dropped - but well before the ref starts calling the cadence.

And wouldn't you know, it worked! I guess there are advantages to both methods; now I'm just trying to figure out what, exactly they are, so I can begin using both more intelligently depending on who I'm second rowing behind.

On losing

2008-09-22T17:26:00.000-04:00

There was recently an interesting article in the New York Times called Lessons Learned in the Losing. The author's basic point is that, in a winning-obsessed culture, there's still plenty of good to be found in a loss.

It's a particularly appropriate article considering how the past two weekends have gone for Maryland.

Two Saturdays ago, we played a heart-breaker against Raleigh in skin-melting heat and humidity. Despite the weather, it sure felt like we were winning - we kept up a strong defense, forcing turnovers, and kept possession well while moving the ball up the pitch - but when it was all said and done, we couldn't finish it. Though we spent a good chunk of time inside Raleigh's 22, we only managed to get the ball across the try line once. Added to a brief breakdown in our defensive line which Raleigh quickly took advantage of to turn the corner and run in a try, and we ended up on the losing end of a 5-7 scoreboard. It was an incredibly frustrating loss.

This weekend felt much, much different. We met the DC Furies on the PAC pitch across from the Washington Monument - the weather was beautiful, and we should've been ready for a great day of rugby, but everyone started out off. Our warm-up was messy and full of dropped balls; not surprisingly, the beginning of the game wasn't much better. As we missed our tackles, sat on our heels in defense, and got dominated in our own scrums, DC ran in try after try.

We were losing, no question about it. Standing in our own try zone as the Furies kicked yet another conversion, we weren't talking about winning anymore - just about how we were going to play.

And we pulled it together. First in the scrum - we stopped losing our own scrums and controlled a few defensive scrums well enough to wheel. Then out on the pitch, we got lower and hit harder on the tackles, keeping DC out of our 22 for the majority of the half. Alas, we never scored our own try, but even with a losing score of a lot to nothing, knowing we could pull ourselves together in a bad situation felt pretty good.

Two different losses, neither of which felt like winning. The first was a solid, well-played game where our performance didn't translate to the score board; the second showed how much passion we have for the game. Now our task is to hold onto our strengths and improve our weaknesses to play a coherent game that puts points on the board and a W on our record.

3 reasons...

2008-09-20T00:59:00.000-04:00

Our assistant coach Maria asked us all to think of three things that make us want to play rugby. At first I kind of rolled my eyes - geez, that's awfully touchy-feely! - but then I stared to wonder:

What is it that makes me keep coming back to this sport? Keep playing when it's so hot I get dizzy and wobbly, or so cold that it goes from numbness to pain? Come back from a Saturday that leaves me bruised and sore and achy to go to another practice to get ready for another Saturday? Push myself to go to the gym and do sprints because I just want to get better on the pitch?

Here's my top three:

1) Hitting a ruck and feeling it move backwards because of you.

2) Teammates - no game is won on one player alone and working 15 as 1 is a goal worth getting out on the pitch for.

3) Being able to walk off the field at the end of the day and think, I did something good today. I hurt but it's worth it. That sense of accomplishment that goes down to your bones.

And that's what I'll think about up until tomorrow's game.

Pumpkinfest 2008

2008-09-11T16:04:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was my first time at Pumkinfest. After a long drive, made longer by getting lost before we found Pennypack Field (tucked cozily between a river and a jail-slash-mental-hospital), I was ready to kit up, get out on the pitch, and play. The weather was oppressive - ~~Hurricane~~ Tropical Storm Hanna was heavy in the air, and everyone was drenched in sweat just a few minutes into warm-ups.

However, that did not deter the Stingers. Our first match was at 9:00am versus Atlanta, and we were ready for what would be a long, tough game. Though we only played two 20-minute halves, it felt much longer to me as I locked in scrum after scrum after scrum, painfully aware both of how out of shape I am and that Maryland had no second row subs.

When the ball stayed in tight, the match was fairly even, and neither team could create enough of an advantage to score. However, Atlanta clearly had the upper hand on the outside, scoring two tries in each half by capitalizing on their speed and ball-handling skills and our slowness in spreading the defensive line to turn the corner on the wing. With no conversions, the final score stood 20-0 in Atlanta’s favor.

Shortly thereafter, it began raining, and park officials announced they were closing the park at 1:00, effectively canceling the rest of the games for the afternoon. We headed back to the hotel to check in, shower, and relax for a few hours.

The Maryland Stingers, dressed en theme as Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkinfest, met up for team dinner at Lucy’s Hat Shop. Over french fries, quesadillas, chicken fingers, and adult beverages, a great time was had by all.

After finishing off our food and figuring out the tab, most of us headed over to Cavanaugh's Riverdeck for the official social. It was great to see all the teams’ costume themes. Personal favorites were Nova as secret agents, the Raleigh superheroes, and all of Frederick as Rosie the Riveters. Philly handed out glow bracelets freely, and the weather had cleared up enough to open up an outdoor dance floor overlooking the water and the night skyline; however, it had been a long day and it wasn’t long before your humble Pink headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Sunday dawned beautiful, clear, and breezy – perfect rugby weather. The Stingers kitted up to play New York at 9:40. We played another strong game, improving our defense to put pressure on NY, but despite an excellent performance on our part, the game still ended a lot to nothing in New York’s favor.

We wrapped up the tournament with a consolation match versus a motley side of Rochester and Frederick (some of whom were still sporting their Rosie lipstick from the social!). After prepping against two very tough teams, the Stingers came out strong to set the tone of the game. We kept up a strong defense and were able to put into play an aggressive offense with great support, resulting in several tries. I was overjoyed in the second half to be relieved at lock by my old teammate and American’s current captain, Nips, who capped off her Stinger’s cameo with a try. Final score was 26-7, Stinger’s favor.

Didn’t stay long enough to figure out what the final tournament results were, but I will be sure to post them when I can find them online!

And we're open!

2008-08-28T17:24:00.000-04:00

So here it is - my official rugby blog. Finally up and running, after months of dreaming. Please excuse a bit of roughness around the edges; after all, I've never had a proper blog before.

Though the archives in this space go back three years, they have all been transferred from my "personal" journal; I created this blog for myself as more of a public space, a platform from which I can interact with other ruggers-who-blog without linking back to the more intimate, non-rugby details of my life.

Plus most of the readers of my personal journal are friends who, while I love them dearly, aren't ruggers and don't know a line-out from the touch line, and I wanted a space where I could delve into the finer points of rucking with at least a theoretical audience of sympathetic readers.

So that's what Rugger in Pink is for - and here I go.

And rugby's officially back in session

2008-08-25T16:54:00.000-04:00

If this Saturday was any indication of how my rookie season with the Stingers is going to be, you can expect me to be quite the happy Pink for the next few months.

Exhausted.

But happy.

Our first game was an A-side match versus Chesapeake, played at the so-called Holocaust Field located next to the Smithsonian Holocaust Museum, across the street from the Washington National Monument. I haven't played on the mall since Cherry Blossom sophomore year, so that was quite a treat.

Apparently, the last time the Stingers played Chesapeake, the results were not so good, and everyone was determined to come out and show them who the better team was. I'm proud to say that we did, with gusto. The Stingers kicked ass 39-0, scoring six tries by six different people, with Heather kicking three conversions and one penalty. We worked at the early-season kinks as we played, improving the further into the game we got - at the half when the score stood at 12-0, Maddy insisted on another 30 points, and we did our best by adding 27 to the score board.

As for myself, I went in at lock in the second half, and ended up coming out a bit early when I hurt my shoulder [nothing serious, fine with a good stretching]. However, in the thirty minutes I was in, I managed a pretty decent showing - one of those six tries was mine. My first game, too! It was a "support" try; a few of my teammates had a good breakaway, and all I did was keep up with them in time to pick the ball out of the back of the ruck and dive the few meters into the tryzone.

Following the main event was a two-thirds Pax River/one-third Stingers side playing the Furies B. Pax River is a small side that has trouble getting a full side out to games (thus the Stinger supplements), but played a pretty decent game, though our motley didn't score any tries. I played the first twenty of this match as strong side flanker.

After the match finished up and we all slapped off most of the dust from the pitch, we headed to the Bottom Line for pasta and beer. With representatives from all four teams - Stingers, Chesapeake, Pax River, and Furies - it was a pretty busy time. I got to know my own teammates better, sat down and chatted with players I'd never met before, and reconnected with acquaintances I rarely see off the pitch.

Post-social I ended up heading straight to Baltimore for a teammate's bachelorette barcrawl - rugby-themed, so no need to stop home to grab clean clothes! It was a diverse collection of friends, from rugby, work, and school, and all of us did our best to give her a proper send-off before she heads into the wilds of matrimony.

All in all, a good Saturday to start the season.

Now I'm a Stingers rook

2008-08-17T16:53:00.000-04:00

RUGBY SEASON HAS STARTED! We had our first practice Thursday and I am MAD EXCITED to have my favorite thing back in my life. It's kind of interesting to be a rookie on a team where, between AU alums and Stinger 7s, I already know and have played with 90% of my 'new' teammates. Lacking in the excitement of meeting tons of new people, but of course a little less stressful.

At the first practice, there was also a legit rookie rookie, who's never played rugby before ever, but I think she's going to be a great player - she'd done soccer and football before, but she also got lifting in the lineout done perfectly by her second lift. Yay!

Rugerrama 7s

2008-07-14T16:52:00.000-04:00

This turned out to be the last week of sevens for the Stingers - indeed, a truly sad state of affairs - but Ruggerama was definitely a good ending note.

The tournament is hosted by the NoVa women at Rosecroft Raceway right outside DC, and it's the only all-women's tournament we've been to this summer. After seeing most of the same teams every weekend for the past month or so, playing a tournament that was both local and single-sex felt kind of cozy. There were only two pitches to play on, 11 teams in 2 divisions, and lots of camaraderie.

The Stingers entered in the social division, and in the morning we played the Furies' second side and Georgetown for two wins before losing to the Maryland Exiles' second side. After a short break (during which I was convinced to buy one of the awesome tournament T-shirts - I am so broke, but it was so cute - green with a pink fish!), everyone was seeded for the finals.

We were seeded third (I believe) to play the Exiles 2 again. We lost (again), and ended up playing Furies 2 (again) and won (again). It was overall a great day of sevens rugby - I felt like I was finally getting the hang of how to play this bastard step-child version of the fifteens game I know and love... just in time for the end of sevens season. Oh, well!

NoVa 4 ended up winning our division, and then everyone was treated to a U15 exhibition sevens game. I hadn't even realized that there were U15 girls' teams in the area, but apparently there are two! Both were from Virginia, and we were all pretty impressed with the girls' skills. They had a lot of smart runs and good tackles, and all the spectators were cheering hard for both sides. I hope most of those players stick it out through college and club-side teams - I'm sure ten years from now, some of them will be playing for the national Eagles team and representing the US at the world cup!

The day finished up with a game slightly closer to Eagle-level as NoVa 1 played the Furies to win their tournament (again). Everyone then gathered for a raffle and presentation of our winnings - pitchers for the teams that placed, and bottles of champagne for everyone who participated!

And thus ended my first sevens season. I have to say, I really enjoyed this new kind of rugby. It's much faster and more dynamic than fifteens, and the game gives me an opportunity to do the things I don't get to do as much when I play in the scrum, like passing the ball and making long runs. I think I definitely improved my ball-handling and sprinting skills, and I might be starting to figure out my footwork as well. I also ended up playing scrumhalf, which was a new position for me (though very different from a 15s scrumhalf) and quite fun. I do wish that our season could have run longer (or that fewer of the Stingers took the summer off!), but I'm already looking forward to next summer.

Cape Fear

2008-07-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

Rugby, the beach, fireworks, hot athletic women, meeting new people in hilarious and alcohol-tinged escapades... if Julie Andrews and I were hanging around in lacy nightgowns talking about my favorite things, the list might go a little something like this.

But as much as I love Julie Andrews, that's not what I'm thinking about to distract me from a big scary thunderstorm. That list's more like my schedule of events from this past July 4th weekend.

A seven-hour drive, thirteen ruggers in a six-person hotel room three blocks from a beach in North Carolina, the "oldest and largest sevens rugby tournament in the United States," and a stream of alcoholic beverages as steady as the crashing of the waves on the sand. That, in a nutshell, is Cape Fear Sevens.

The weekend started off at the ungodly hour of 5am on July 4th. But though I might have been reluctant to leave my warm, cozy (and, might I add, double-occupancy) bed at an hour when even the birds were barely beginning to consider that perhaps it might begin to be morning soon, I had to admit that the timing was right when we arrived at Wrightsville Beach by noon with plenty of time to pull on bikinis, slather on some sunscreen, grab a cooler full of beer and enjoy the sand and the sun like the proper American citizens we are.

I must take a second here to mention how much I love the beach. It's not often I get an opportunity to visit one, but when I do I can't help but gush over the beauty of a carpet of shells ground to a fine powder by the hypnotically mesmerizing repetition of beating buckets of salt water. And you'd better believe that we hit that beach every single day that we were down there, and that every time we were there I made it out into the ocean to play chicken with the cresting waves.

But one cannot live on beach alone (much as I'd like to try!), and after all, it was July the Fourth, the Day of Our Nation's Independence Celebration - and being as I haven't been in the country for the holiday for the past two summers, I couldn't wait for that seminal expression of what countless generations of patriotic American citizens have fought, bled, and died for: the freedom to ignite large, loud, colorful explosives in front of crowds of hot, sweaty people.

And oh, but friends, those fireworks were worth the wait. Though only Nuge and I were interested enough in our country's freedom to fight through the crowds to find a small square of sidewalk from which we could watch the show, instead of staying home and drinking by the hotel pool, we definitely felt that it was everyone else missing out on all the fun. It's been so long since I've gone to see a firework show, I forgot how fantastic they were - the explosions! the colors! the rockets that screech on the way up and the ones that sizzle on the way down! rainbow fireworks, red-white-and-blue fireworks, silver and gold and purple and green fireworks!

You can, I hope, forgive my mature, adult, twenty-two-year-old self for literally jumping up and down and clapping and laughing with glee.

The long traffic-jam home, followed by a joyful reunion of friends, beer, and splashy fun in the hotel pool rounded out my happy celebration of our Independence Day.

***

Saturday dawned on phone alarms and joking and the organizational acrobatics of thirteen girls with one bathroom. Eventually, however, everyone had successfully collected themselves and their kits and we headed off to the Cape Fear pitch, where the tournament coordinator (happily lurching about under a fisherman's hat and a boozey aura) directed us towards our first match. We kitted up, donned our warm-ups, and headed over.

Now, a quick word about our team uniforms: our usual jerseys are heavy, tough affairs, several sizes too large for just about anybody and as breathable as your average raincoat. Not ideal for a game which is essentially two seven-minute halves of sprinting in the Carolina heat. So on the way to the beach, a car full of teammates was dispatched to Target to pick up some nice, light, sleeveless tops - which they did, choosing a not-quite-eye-scarring shade of greenish-turquoise.

On the way to the register, however, they chanced to pass by the sale rack in the Outrageous department, and impulsively decided that we required warm-up jackets as well.

Short-sleeved, midriff-baring, zebra-lined, gold-accented, big-hooded warm-up jackets.

Which we all wore with the necessary accessories of sunglasses and acapella renditions of J Lo.

Representing the "Stingers From the Block" in the Women's Social division, we played "Whores R Us" (Savannah/Charleston) and won, then lost to the Raleigh Venom and the Hustlers. The team took a bit to gel - a lot of players who don't normally do sevens show up just for this tournament, so we hadn't exactly played together before - but we had some pretty nice plays, including a try by yours truly who managed to get the ball down in the try zone despite a rather speedy Hustler having caught up enough to get one hand in my waistband and the other on my collar.

Between our games, we guzzled water and Gatorade and wandered over to watch some of the excellent matches in the Women's Premier division. DC area represented with NOVA and the Furies, who were in turn matched against the Northeast territorial team, two USA developmental sides, and the Atlanta women. It is always a treat to be able to observe a field full of fit, talented, experienced athletes match their skills and speed against each other, and the games this weekend were no exception.

But let's be honest - Cape Fear is only somewhat about the rugby. The rest is about the socializing and the drinking. So we prepared for an evening of just that, lazing about on the beach, taking naps and showers and generally refueling. Our relaxed evening was only breifly interrupted by two of our teammates getting caught in the elevator and having to call 911 for a firetruck to come get them out.

It's perhaps one of my favorite scenes from the weekend: two of us hidden in the elevator, one (soberly and anxiously) standing on the street corner watching for the fire truck, the rest of us standing on the balcony, beers in hand, excitedly pointing out the flashing lights we'd just sighted a few blocks away.

After that, it was a typical long night of story-telling and making new friends to the tune of $2 beers, and the clock was reading well past midnight by the time we made it back to the room to crash three-to-a-bed to sleep. But come morning, we were up and at 'em again - after all, there were bagels to eat, teammates who came home at 7:30 am to tease, and most of all, rugby to be played.

Not that we seemed prepared for an intense day of athletic endeavor. The sunglasses were on, the zebra-striped hoods were up, and to call our warm-up half-hearted would be generous. By some coincidence of bracketing, we were playing Whores R Us for the second time, and they seemed determined to make up their loss of the day before: while we stood in a circle and lazily tossed around a ball, they ran opposed plays off of scrums and lineouts.

I've got to admit that in the first moments before stepping onto the pitch, I did not feel optimistic about our chances. But when the whistle blew, it was like a switch had been flipped, and we abruptly forgot that we were supposed to be tired and hungover and started doing what we do best: playing rugby. All our playing time together the day before finally paid off, and we started playing together like a team instead of seven individuals. We not only beat the Whores for a second time, but also kept them from scoring a single try of their own.

Walking back to our tent, warm-ups on and a teammate holding up speakers blaring "Move, Bitch, Get Out the Way," I did feel like a giant asshole, yes; but a try-scorin', ass-kickin', rugby playin' asshole.

Our momentum held up for the first half of our second game against Raleigh (which I did not play, since I was also feeling like a slightly concussed asshole who forgets that she ought not pull people down on top of her head in the tackle and whose vision has gone all spackled on one side), but by the second half it became obvious which was the better team. Raleigh's speedy wingers took advantage of our untidy, bunchy defensive line to run around the outside and score a bunch of tries.

After their win, Raleigh ended up in the final against the Hustlers (I swear there were six teams in our division, but we didn't ever see the other two). It was an exciting, close-fought match that displayed the skills of both teams, but the Hustlers clearly had a tighter, faster game, and swept in an excellent win before a crowd of cheering spectators.

Having finished with the rugby portion of our weekend, we said goodbye to those of us who had not been fortunate enough to get off work on Monday, tracked down some food and then went off to the beach again before we headed out to the NOVA house for more genial socializing.

The NOVA women, it turns out, had not been lazing about. They had gotten right into the business of partying, partially in celebration of someone's birthday but mostly just because that's what you do when you have a rugby house on the beach. We had dance parties and sing-a-longs and (as per the birthday girl's request) a drinking game to the Beep "http://coachingrugby.blogspot.com/2007/02/you-love-to-hate-it-beep-test.html">Test, which was simultaneously the most terrifying and most fantastic method of imbibing alochol that I have ever been fortunate enough to participate in.

Then, of course, it was out to the bar again. It's hard to pin down the best story of the evening - was it the over-enthusiastic 'cheers' that ended up with a smashed Corona bottle? The two girls who had hooked up the night before and studiously avoided each other all day collapsing on each other and then disappearing into the night for two hours? Our declaration that we would find a man for our single straight teammate, followed by her taking out a cute man with a British accent to the beach until 4 am? Or perhaps the local lesbian who showed up and practically went into shock to see the numbers of hot lesbians who had inexplicably shown up at her favorite beach bar, who of course twenty minutes later was my best friend? Or how she became the second hot girl of the evening to show up with (and make out with) someone else, but spend a good chunk of time flirting with me before insisting that we exchange phone numbers so we could maybe hang out again later?

And those are only the best stories.

Eventually, though, all good times must come to an end. Last call inevitably comes, beers must be finished, tabs closed, and beds (eventually) returned to.

Morning on Monday was a sluggish affair, as you may well imagine. But we managed to roll out of bed, rescue any remaining food in the room (all the alcohol was unsurprisingly already gone), and checkout of the hotel in time for a last few hours at the beach.

And then it was home again - home by way of Wawa and outlet shops, home slowly but surely. And by ten at night, I had returned, exhausted and salty with sand in places that sand really shouldn't be, but infinitely content.

2008-05-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

Fort Reno Park Closed Immediately and Indefinitely

Fort Reno Park... is closed immediately and indefinitely after United States Geological Survey satellite imaging reports found high levels of arsenic in the soil.

This is the park that we use for rugby practice. We are supposed to be reassured by the fact that you can only get arsenic in your system through ingestion... but this is not particularly reassuring when you play rugby, a sport in which you use a mouthguard (that you'd better believe is frequently dropped in the mud) and spend a lot of time on the ground literally "eating dirt."

I guess this is what happens when you attend a university that was a WWI military base/weapons development center...

Live! Rugby! Online!

2008-05-02T16:47:00.000-04:00

I am a happy, happy Pink: USA Rugby is broadcasting the collegiate women's D1 championships LIVE online!!

At first the page just flat-out wouldn't load. I was stuck g-chatting with everyone else who was (unsuccessfully) trying to get it to work, and I ended up just refreshing the USA Rugby homepage to get the scores of the Brown/Penn State game.

But then, about twenty minutes from the end, it started working! And oh man, but I just about had a complete scrumgasm. This is my division of rugby (even if these teams do honestly play on a different level than AU does). And it was pretty exciting to watch PSU beat the pants off of someone that wasn't us.

Right now it's half-time in the Stanford/Navy game. I was rooting for a Navy/PSU final (wouldn't it be cool if PRU D1 was AU, UMD, and the two best teams in the nation?) and for awhile, it looked possible - Navy spent a considerable portion of the first 30 minutes in Stanford's 22, but Stanford's defense was pretty impenetrable, and Navy finally took a 3 point kick off of a penalty.

However, in the end of the half Stanford scored not one, but two tries... here's hoping the next 40 minutes will go Navy's way!

AUWRFC and Pink: together for the last time

2008-04-07T16:45:00.000-04:00

This weekend I played for AUWRFC for the last time. We entered into Ruggerfest, an all-female tournament hosted by the DC Furies.

Saturday, we played and beat Towson, then played (well) and lost to Nova's C side. The combination of the win/loss record and our point differential put us in a semifinal game vs. Lancaster. We lost, but it didn't feel like it - we played hard and well and scored two tries.

Now, one of those was a very special try - I scored it!!!! My third and final try for AU, in my last game playing for them.... and it was caught on video!!!!!!

What a way to end my AUWRFC career. Man.

However... the day wasn't over yet. Lancaster ended up needing subs for the final match, and I and one of my teammates volunteered. (My logic was that we'd played so well in the semifinal, AU deserved representation in the final!).

The ref we had was... abominable. Now, there are some pretty horrible refs out there... but this guy was the WORST I've ever had.

I bring this up to justify how I actually ended my season... not with an awesome game with AU in which I scored a fantastic try.

Nope.

Ended it with a sin bin. A yellow card. Kicked out of the game to spend ten minutes in the try zone while my team played one down.

In my defense, both Lancaster AND Nova (the other team) thought it was a BS call (which was also what we thought about... well, all of the ref's calls). My coach (now ex-coach, I guess?) also thought it was the most hilarious thing she'd heard all day and got really excited to tease me about it (she proposed that they change my nickname to "Sin Bin").

So that was it - a try, a yellow card, tons of bruising (including a few on my neck that look like hickies), a golfball sized lump on my shin, and lots and lots of mud.

And thus ends my AUWRFC career...

Cherry Blossom Tournament 2008

2008-04-07T16:22:00.000-04:00

For some odd reason, I'm feeling pretty good about life. That's odd because nothing has been particularly good in the past week or two, but I've just been generally more cheerful.

Maybe it's the spring - things blooming, getting warmer? Maybe it's the planets aligning? Who knows.

One of the effects of this renewed happiness has been me falling back in love with rugby. Now, don't get me wrong, I never really fell out of love... but sometimes, when I'm busy and tired and it's cold/rainy, I get a little cranky that I still need to go to rugby where I will inevitably get hit and be sore and be even MORE tired and I need that time to do work! Not to mention all the business I have to take care of as treasurer.

But over the past week or so, I remembered how much I care. Not for any particular reason, but instead of "oh MAN, something else to do!" I've been working hard in the gym and trying to find time to watch the World Cup games I still have on my DVR and generally having "rugby player" moved up on my list of priorities.

This weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Tournament, a big annual tournament that used to be on the mall (under the cherry blossoms), but isn't anymore because... well, spring = rain + ruggers = really messy ground = not nice for tourists. So now it's held at a racetrack.

Saturday was supposed to be awful weather, but ended up beautiful - mid-fifties, cloudy but with patches of sun. We started off the day playing West Virginia on a muddy pitch with quite a few lakes and patches of ankle-deep mud. I was flanking strong-side (MY FAVORITE, especially when the opposition's flyhalf is a cute as the WV's was - I do enjoy tackling an attractive rugger girl!). AU played really, really well - especially considering the ref was about as bad as you can get: we scored a try that he wouldn't call because "he couldn't see it".

However, we just went back and scored another try about 30 seconds later. So that worked out okay. I was very proud of us, because usually we get really upset at bad refs (or other teams playing dirty, i.e. the UMD game in the fall) and we get caught up in our heads and don't play as a team, but Saturday we realized that "you can't do anything about the ref" and kicked ass despite having an AWFUL ref. Final score: 12-7, AUWRFC.

In the afternoon, we played Xavier University, which is apparently located in Cincinnati? By then the sun was out and the ground was much dryer (we were on a different pitch, too, which had fewer puddles to start with). This game I locked, and oh man... I have NEVER wanted to be flanking instead so badly! AU had a little more trouble with this game, even though when we'd watched Xavier play WV earlier we'd thought they'd be easy (big girls, but slow, didn't run low, and didn't come up hard). AU was not nearly as aggressive as we needed to be (thus me DYING to be flanking), but we did well enough to keep them back and score one try of our own. FInal score: 5-0, AUWRFC.

This put us in the top bracket for Sunday - which dawned as cold and miserable as Saturday had been supposed to be. We played Army at 9:30 am on a pitch that was part mud, part lake.

It's been a long time since I played a game that messy, but AU played REALLY well. Despite the mess and the cold and the wet and the mud (I probably weighed about ten pounds extra, between the mud and the water soaking me all the way to my underwear), we never stopped and never slowed down and kept coming up hard and aggressive. I was strong-side flanking again, though I ended up eighting for a bit at the end. We lost, not too surprisingly, but we definitely kept them from scoring as much as they could've AND scored a try against them! Final score: something - 5, Army.

I haven't done a lot of game writeups this season, but generally I'm beginning to feel really good about my playing. Between being sick and busy, I'm still not as strong or fast as I'd like to be, but technically I think I've really improved. I've started making different decisions in rucks (like long-body rucking or sealing over my teammates) and reacting to how both AU and the other team are arranged across the field. I've also gotten a lot better at scrumming - I've figured out flanking much better, and over just the past week or so I've really figured out a good locking body position.

I do still need to work on my form in tackles (I am aggressive and effective, but with better form I'd use less energy and hurt myself less), and I'd like to be a bit better at lineouts. Flanking, I'm not always off the scrum fast enough, and overall I do still have some work to do on field awareness and strategy - for example when to use a short vs. long lineouts, etc.

But there will always be room for improvement. Overall, I'm definitely feeling good!

More or less related: on Saturday, I experimented with wearing my new molded cleats (the ones with spike cleats) instead of metal. And, oh man, RIGHT CHOICE. Maybe not if I'd been locking, but my feet felt SO much lighter without those nasty heavy metal spikes weighing me down. If I ever feel the need to get metal again, I've gotta look smaller and lighter, but I think I'm sticking to molded for now.

The photos I promised

2008-03-02T16:21:00.000-05:00

Can you tell I'm avoiding doing lots of work?

Facial turf burn on my eye and chin. I was not happy - especially since everyone was telling me I'd gotten a black eye, when CLEARLY it is just turf burn.

Me rinsing dye out of my hair... I mostly include this photo because it's kinda hilarious.

Purple hair! (And Law & Order!)

Me and my two teammates who willingly subjected themselves to my dye escapades.

My knees, aka the reason I will be using an entire tube of neosporin in the next week.

VWIT

2008-03-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

I have returned from Charlottesville, where I have been all weekend playing rugby for VWIT (the Virginia Women's Invitational Tournament).

I have returned with the knowledge of how it feels to have the U.S. Military beat up on you for two hours: we were seeded with Women's Army Rugby (WAR) and Women's Navy Rugby (WNR). We played two thirty-minute halves against each, and lost by... considerable amounts.

I have returned without skin on my knees and portions of my face: we played on not particularly kind turf, and the turf burn was horrendous. I also am very stiff and sore and will probably have trouble walking for the next few days.

I have returned with purple hair.

But I have also returned... with VICTORY.

Our consolation match was on Sunday, with the University of Maryland (UMD). AU and UMD have some beef - they recently moved up to D1, and beat us in the fall (in a game that no one at AU wants to talk about or generally remember), so they are going to playoffs and we are not.

But today, we played them for two thirty-minute halves and ten minutes of overtime. No tries scored in the first half. We then scored our first try fairly early on the in the second; later, they caught up with us by scoring their first try [illegally, but let's not dwell on that]. Then in overtime, we put our try in and held them far away from our try zone the whole time.

It felt AMAZING - not just winning, not just being matched up against a team that we could REALLY compete with, but playing such a good, tight game. UMD made some mistakes, definitely, but they played really well; we just played better.

We played really and truly fifteen-as-one, everyone on the field paying attention to where their teammates were and where the other team was. We supported each other, reset fast and came up aggressively on defense, made smart decisions on offense, and (a big deal for my team, which usually loses their heads in these circumstances) kept out of our heads and on the pitch in the face of some questionable tactics used by the other team and some interesting calls by the ref.

It was what we'd been working for all weekend - we'd started off slow in the first half with Army, but picked it up, and played pretty decently against Navy, but we still weren't at our best; it's hard to keep your head and your aggression up when the other team is running tries into the tryzone every few minutes. But today, it just all came together and looked beautiful.

As for me personally, I had a pretty fantastic weekend (as a first, I played the same position all weekend: strong-side flanker). I didn't do as well as I could've in the first half against Army, but after the game was over, Deanna came up to me with a very serious expression on her face and said, "Pink. Do you know what you did? Pink," and just as I was getting worried that I'd done something very wrong, she finishes with, "You did exactly what a strong-side flanker is supposed to do. You made their flyhalf look for you every play because she was so nervous you'd hit her! You came up hard and aggressive on defense and wanted the ball every time."

And I don't think I've gotten a better compliment in my life.

And that's how I played all weekend.

And it was SO GOOD.

[PS - photos of the hair and the facial turf burn and the skinless knees whenever I get off my ass and upload them!]

I get a little excited by rugby, okay?

2008-02-23T16:16:00.000-05:00

OH MAN RUGBY IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER EVER EVER IN LIFE.

First game(s) today. We played Georgetown and Catholic on the most ghetto-ass pitch ever - that is, it was to one side of a REAL pitch (because that wasn't open until NEXT weekend), and instead of like, touch lines and all that OFFICIAL stuff we had... cones. And flags.

And okay, so both the team and I did decently but need to work on continuity - Georgetown (which is D2 to our D1) beat us in the 3x20minutes we played, but we beat Catholic HARDXCORE in the 3x20 minutes WE played.

BUT OF COURSE - the most awesome part was fo' sho the social. Since we played Georgetown first, they left, but we did social with Catholic, which is absolutely my most favorite thing in my life. It was everything a social should be.

And, of course, I reconnected with the 5 or 6 Catholic girls I already know (from PRUs or from the last time I socialed with them) and they were all "YES! AU and Catholic should see each other more often! Catholic should see YOU more often what is your phone number." I mean, basically I adore these girls and would most definitely hang with them again HURRAH.

And SERIOUSLY - does life get any better than this? Does it?!

NO. No way :D

Quotes from a snow practice

2008-02-20T16:15:00.000-05:00

"You know, I really wish we had some good grass."

To a toddler:
"Aw, are you a hooker? Yes you are!"

"No, I'm not sure if it's okay or not... I'll let you know when I can feel it."

And life is good

2008-02-19T16:14:00.000-05:00

Today, I had one of those days where, after leaving the house, I had literally 30 minutes to myself - 10 minutes for "lunch" (a quesadilla and a green tea protein shake - tasty, but slightly odd) and 20 minutes for dinner.

One of those days where, though nothing actually bad happened, you just get frustrated and feel this need to HIT something.

Well... lucky for me I'm a rugger!

Second real practice of the season; my first full practice (had to leave early for class on Thursday).

Oh man oh man oh man. Did it feel good.

Never mind the cold, the fact that I couldn't feel my hands or that I was shivering in underarmour and a nice thick jersey. Never mind the wind that made it hard to throw a ball or hear the coach.

It was RUGBY.

We ended practice with Real Rugby (a little scrimmage), and wow, it felt so good. Rucking and passing and even a little scrumming (I got to hook a little, and you know how I feel about being a hooker - whee!). Honestly, I feel so good about our team - even at the second practice of the season, we're looking good. Yes, our defensive line looks a little straggly; yes, there were a LOT of missed tackles; but we had a lot of good continuity, communication, support, etc. Definitely a good base to work off of.

And we'll get a good glimpse of HOW good a base this weekend - round robin with Catholic, Georgetown, and VCU (I don't think we're all playing everyone, but I'm not 100% sure on all the details).

Three tournaments to go for trophies in... this could be a VERY good season for my last one with the AUWRFC :D

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T16:13:00.000-05:00

Today was definitely one of the best Valentine's Days so far.

First off, I actually Had A Valentine. As in, I asked her with a home-made red-and-white paper card covered in glitter, and she said she'd be my Valentine. Yayyyyy :D

But second, I had my first real date with the real love of my life, the abusive lover that I've been in an emotionally and physically intense relationship for going on three years now.

That's right - RUGBY PRACTICE.

Practice was moved inside/made into a chalk talk Tuesday and Wednesday because of the weather, but today it was FINALLY nice enough to have it outside.

And it was SO FANTASTIC. It wasn't that cold, and the ground was nice and soft and muddy thanks to the rain, and I got to HIT PEOPLE OMG. Seriously, tackle grids feel soooo good.

Plus, to warm up for tackling we did this picking-people-up drill where you run at people as if you are going to tackle them, with good tackling form, but instead of tackling them you pick them up. And I'm usually not very good at the "picking people up" thing, but I got Adi off the ground EVERY TIME. Guess all those squats are paying off!

2007-11-21T16:12:00.000-05:00

So I'm checking out the high school girls rugby photos at DropKickPhotos (because I think it's just awesome to see young girls playing rugby! COME TO AU!) and I think this is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.

So much for standing water on the field!!

PRU U23 All-Stars 2007

2007-11-18T16:09:00.000-05:00

Guys. Guys. Did I ever tell you how rugby is my favorite thing ever? And ruggers are my favorite people ever?

This weekend I went down to UVA in Charlottesville to play for the PRU U23 All-Star team in the MARFU tournament. For those of you to whom that means very little, basically I got to play select-side rugby with some totally awesome girls.

AU had eight girls selected (six plus one alumni plus one alternate), so we set off together in Garthie and Petrides' cars early in the morning Saturday. Once to the pitch, we engaged in (true to AU form) spooning and karaoke, before doing a walk-through with the whole team. Then we kit up and watched EPRU beat VRU2.

Once that game was over, we warmed up and prepared for our game vs. VRU1. I started at flanker, and played for a half. I was... well, not really happy with how I played. I cleaned it up somewhat before I was taken out at the 40, but still wasn't very happy with myself. The whole team was a little off, I think largely due to the fact that we didn't get any practice time together (last tryout was last Sunday, and it's logistically difficult to get girls from all over the area together for a weekday practice). The more we played, the better we look, but we basically got rolled over.

Not too disheartened, however, we all showered up at the hotel and then met at the Mellow Mushroom to fuel up for Round 2 vs. VRU2. In the evening, a bunch of us hung out and watched Free Willy 2 (that movie is surprisingly dirty, if you watch it with the right people). Afterwards, we tried to go hot-tubbing, but it being closed, a group of us ended up sitting in the "exercise room" just chatting for an hour or two before bed.

Sunday dawned bright and a little warmer than Saturday, and we rolled out of the hotel at 9am for our game playing VRU2. I didn't start (I was not surprised, considering how I'd performed the day before), but all the AU kids that hadn't started yet were in the starting lineup (even our alternate!). The game was much closer and much better played than the day before, but we still lost by two tries. I got in for the last 20 minutes and (go figure) played about ten times better than I did on Saturday.

And as Tosan said after the end of that, "Losing ain't a loss unless you don't learn from it." There's a lot I have to work on before the beginning of next season and before I go to MARFU tryouts in the spring, and a lot for the team to work on together. Definitely not a loss.

Then it was kitting down, a flurry of pictures, and back in the Garthmobile for the trip home. And my season is officially, completely over - I won't get to play rugby again until February. Depressing.

But I'll still get to play with ruggers! This weekend was an amazing experience not just for the gameplay, but for all the awesome girls I got to hang out with on and off the pitch. I'm totally looking forward to seeing them at games and tourneys and socials in the spring, and hopefully hanging with some of them before then!

2007-11-11T22:43:00.000-05:00

I just took 2 ibuprofen.

Then, ten minutes later, totally forgetting I'd taken the ibuprofen, I took 2 dayquil.

My body is kind of spazzy and dizzy feeling, and I'm running a baby temperature.

More importantly, PRU HASN'T SENT OUT SELECTIONS YET!!!!

6:30 my ass.

ETA: THEY SENT THEM! I AM ON THE TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHH PRU U23 2007!!!!!

ETA2: Okay, now that I have calmed down - I should point out my pride in AU's representin'. Out of the 22, we have SIX players (two of them ROOKIES) and ONE alumni, and one of the four alternates. That's like a quarter of the team! MAN AM I EXCITED!!!!

Oh, abusive lover

2007-11-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

Last night I had so much trouble sleeping, as my plague-touched mind kept running through rugby scenarios (you're in a tackle, place the ball, get up off the ground, get back in the game, hit the ruck, back ten for a penalty, etc etc) and refused to settle down for some rest. Then at 7am I inexplicably woke up again, and the brain went straight back into rugby mode.

Sigh.

So I got up and did my gay class readings and found some breakfast and was internally whiny about how miserable I was (I have some sort of cold/flu/plague thing) and then packed up my shit for - another day of rugby! PRU U23 tryouts.

Three or four hours of passing drills and contact drills and scrumming and lineouts and full-on scrimmaging. I almost completely forgot about the plague and threw myself into it and I think I did okay. Wasn't my best playing ever - I couldn't hold onto the ball for love or money in one of the drills, my tackles were too high in the scrimmage, and I had some trouble locking - got folded in half by an amazing opposing prop.

Well, selections are supposed to be out by 6:30... I will sit here, plaguey and sore, and wait.

Feeling good

2007-11-07T16:02:00.000-05:00

So life is pretty damn good right now. So what if I didn't get any of the work done today that I planned on; it was just working ahead anyways. So what if I was working ahead because I have a rugby game (OUR LAST GAME AND ONLY HOME GAME!!!!!) and PRU tryouts this weekend, and a 10-page paper due Monday. So what if I have another 10-page paper due the Monday after that, the Monday after I may be in Virginia all weekend playing rugby if I make the U23 team. So what if this is the fifth sentence in a row I began with "so".

I'm feeling good.

I'm feeling good about rugby. We had fitness testing Tuesday, and even though I'm only average on most of it (sit-ups, push-ups, other tests that Deanna pulls from lord knows where), I beat everyone in the beep test. Didn't do as well as when I took it this time last year, but that could be a number of things (it was fucking cold, it's a little awkward to keep running with the whole team watching you and no one to run against). I realized a few weeks ago that I was kind of mentally standing on my heels and not putting as much into my playing as I could be, so I stepped it up, and I think that showed at Navy on Sunday.

And I'm feeling good about Navy. We lost 0-75 but you would not have known it. We played hard and well. We came up hard on defense and it showed in the number of scrums we got for Navy knocking on the ball. We dominated in the scrum - which showed in two brilliant 5m scrums that we pushed into the try zone (no try off of it, but Coach Amy called it "the best tactical rugby I've ever seen this team play", and man was it beautiful to see those tough Navy girls bent up double and helpless as we pushed them back). And we hit hard enough that Navy got whiny and slow in the end of the second half, calling for minutes and switching players in and out. Total catharsis for last year's mess.

Perfect rugby forecast

2007-10-26T16:01:00.000-04:00

It's supposed to rain throughout the night, tapering off around 10am, an hour before kickoff.

At 11, kickoff of the A-side game against Georgetown at the Colmar Manor field for AU's parents weekend, it's supposed to be cloudy and 66 degrees.

You could not ASK for better rugby weather than this.

We played Penn State today

2007-10-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

AU vs. Mary Washington, 2007

2007-09-23T15:58:00.000-04:00

When we played Mary Washington last year, we didn't exactly get our asses kicked but we didn't exactly do particularly well, either.

This year, on the other hand, we were the ones kicking ass. Not that Mary Washington wasn't playing really well - they're a good team and fun to play against (except that they looooove mauling and are quite good at it). But we just played so well. It feels like we're two months into the season instead of two weeks - mistakes are still being made, of course, but everyone played with their heads in the game, kept the communication up, hit the rucks, made their tackles, made smart decisions in the mauls, and our scrums are looking beautiful - despite the 85 degree heat and humidity.

The other looking fantastic? Our rookies. I think pretty much everyone on the team was impressed by how well our baby rooks performed out on that pitch. For sure, there were still plenty of the normal rookie mistakes - some playing the ball on the ground, a lot of standing lost in the holy zone, and a few deer-in-the-headlights instances of "oh GOD I have the ball what do I do now?!" But it didn't feel like playing with rookies at all - they're all picking up the game really quick, and are developing some field awareness already. One rookie, Perri, even picked up her first try!

For me personally, it's also feeling pretty good. I weak-side flanked for the first half of A-side and locked for the first half of B-side. I wasn't happy with my stamina - I was VERY happy to come out at both those halves - but I think it was more the heat than anything. Overall, though, my tackling form is improving (NO high tackle warnings), I finally feel like I know what to do with my body in the scrum (that scrum clinic last Sunday was AMAZING), my field awareness is slowly but steadily improving - and I scored another try!! In all honesty, it was basically Fill's try - I just took her pass and stepped it over the try line. But after 3 seasons of not scoring, making two tries in two weeks feels pretty good!

Don't remember the final scores exactly, but I believe A-side was 6 tries (plus conversions) to 3 tries (no conversions?), and B-side was 25-5 (?).

Injury update!

2007-09-18T15:57:00.000-04:00

Today I got my face stepped on. By a girl in metal cleats.

It was one of those moments where everyone stopped and went "OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY!?!?" and I said yes, because I was, but I had to really think about it because that answer did not seem quite right.

Now my face is a bit sore, and I have a big red mark up the side of my face (sadly hidden in my hairline), and there is a slight chance I'll get my first rugby black eyes.

Scrum clinic!

2007-09-16T15:55:00.000-04:00

I have three papers to do for tomorrow, but since I have finished one, gotten as far on the second as I'll probably get without a serious "what's going on here" meeting with my professor, and don't need to turn in the third until 8 pm tomorrow, I'm going to take a break and write about the scrum clinic today!

(If you don't want to read the long version, here's the short: I learned a lot, it was really helpful, and I got to be a hooker).

The clinic was led by Lisa Rosen, the MARFU* U23 coach, as well as Gabe Ortitz (who I worked with for PRU U23s last fall) and several players from the national level (U23 and otherwise) whose names I don't remember because I fail like that. I was the only AU player to make it there, but I was not lonely! There were at least 40 other players there: Catholic had their full men's and women's packs (since it was on their turf), and there were also players from Towson, Philly, UPenn, UVA, and all over the MARFU area.

We started out the day with dynamic warmups, then went over scrumming body position. First we went over having a good, flat profile (shoulders up, not rounded; hips tight, pulling your belly button to your spine; back flat; head neutral, looking over your eyebrows with your tongue pressed against the back of your teeth); then we made sure we could drop down several inches maintaining the same profile. Finally, we talked about the "angry cat" position - being on all fours and maintaining the same characteristics as the standing profile, and also keeping all leg angles at 90 degrees: thighs straight down, calves parallel to the ground, feet dug straight down.

Next we divided up into stations to work on that body position. I ended up with the VRU group, as they were a bit short-handed, and we started at the ab/core station. One drill we did was for one partner to be on her knees, with her hands supporting a leaning partner at the shoulder. Then the kneeling partner would switch moving her hands (so she'd be supporting the leaning partner with only one hand at a time) while both partners worked to keep their profile straight and tight. Then we did the highly entertaining "monkey" drill, where one partner picks up another in a firemen's lift, and the lifted partner climbs full circle around the standing partner's head while the standing partner tightens her core to support the monkey partner.

The next station we went to was the bungee station, which involved harnesses and rubber straps (fun!) Strapped first to a lamppost and then to each other (in a diamond pattern, so we were all going in opposite directions), we worked on keeping body position and driving against the backwards bungee pull. I apparently have good body position, but wasn't able to keep myself from lurching side-to-side in the drive, and actually was snapped backwards on my ass in the diamond formation. It really hit home for me that if I am going to physically be able to play a forward position at the level that I'd like, I'm going to have to find time in my schedule to go to the gym or at very least do some ab/core work at home.

The last station we went to was the Predator. We just lined up and took turns hitting individually until the end of the rotation. Again, I learned that I have good body position but not enough force. I'm so little! But as Lisa pointed out to me, there are plenty of great, little, strong rugby players out there. So the gym it is.

Before lunch, we took a little time to talk about binding. Instead of binding across to hips or sides, which distributes some force sideways, Lisa talked about having everyone in the scrum bind at the midline to distribute (or punch) force forward into the opposing scrum. Additionally, everyone enters the scrum on their feet in the same body position we'd practiced earlier - no going down to one knee for the locks. It's something Deanna's been working on with us for the past few seasons, but it still feels a bit odd.

In the first part of lunch, we also talked about hooker and eight footing. Both act as "brakemen" on the scrum, setting up with one foot forward, one foot back, and at "engage" they (counterintuitively!) move the forward foot back to move weight forwards. Weird, but it works (oh gravity!)

Then we broke for lunch. Yay lunch!

Following lunch we had Scrum Time. We practiced binding into our scrums and doing sprint engages, where instead of hitting anything we just sprinted forwards. The groups also rotated through using the Predator, and man was it nice to use a scrum machine! Then we graduated to hitting other packs, but by that time we were all getting a bit worn out and tired and the engagements weren't as clean as we'd like. The difference with the body positions and binds were still quite clear, though - the drives were hard and everyone's power went straight forward.

The best part, though, was that I got to play hooker! Our group was a bit short, and I'd mentioned that I'd like to learn how, so I ended up spending almost all my time rotating in and out at hooker, with only a few turns at lock and flanker and none at eight. I do wish I would've gotten a bit more practice locking and eighting in that setup, but on the flip side I'm now okay playing every position in the scrum but prop!

*Quick rugby hierarchy lesson: I play for AUWRFC (American Women's Rugby Football Club), which is in the PRU (Potomac Rugby Union), which is in MARFU (Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union), which feeds into the national pool. MARFU is made up of the PRU, EPRU (Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union), and VRU (Virginia Rugby Union). U23 is short for Under 23 All Stars.

And Saturday is a rugby day once again

2007-09-15T15:54:00.000-04:00

Today started with a phone call from Jacqui at ten minutes past meet time, wondering where I was with the large blue minivan (retrieved from Sketchy Dave's Vans the night before, prior to an "I don't want to talk about it" adventure through DC) that drove like a baby arthritic elephant. The phone call made me realize 1) I was late, 2) I'd never turned on the alarm I'd so carefully set for an hour before I needed to get anywhere, and 3) I was late.

Two and a half hours of driving later, we made it to Salisbury for our first contact of the season - six twenty minute periods of scrimmaging rugby! (That's two hours, or a game and a half). I played two twenties locking, one at flanker, one at eight, on off, and then another at eight - where I scored my first try!!!! It was just a case of doing what I was supposed to do and being where I was supposed to be, but I guess that's still pretty good, right?

The team played really well, considering it was our first match. We got a little frantic at times, but calmed it down. Overall, we have to work on organization, making our tackles, and hitting rucks - but even those things got better while we played. Deanna also cycled in a number of rookies who looked quite nice out there on the field. I think good things are coming this season.

The rest of the night was another "I don't want to talk about it" situation. Sketchy Dave has no love.

Getting back into the swing

2007-09-13T15:52:00.000-04:00

The semester's finally kicked in, and life is crazy. I'm taking 17 credits again, and though five of those are art and water aerobics and six more are gender classes, it's still a ton of classes and all three of the real-life classes have three page papers due Monday (boo!).

Rugby, of course, is also taking up a shitton of time. Besides the administrative stuff (taking care of the dues and trying to get 50-some people to Salisbury without spending all those dues) there's praaaaaaactice! We have rookies (and, oh lord, do we have rookies) so practices are a little more thrilling with so many new people to meet. Plus today Deanna started integrating the rookies with the returners during more specialized drills, and I'm really excited to play with these girls.

Personally, it's been a bit of a slow start. I made the conscious decision in Japan that I was going to focus on my classes and experiencing the culture while I was there, instead of trying to get to the gym every day or even every other day. Definitely the right decision, but it means I'm not as fast or as ready to be back in the game as I'd like. But I'm putting my all in at practice and I can feel my body getting back into rugby shape - I'm getting sore in all the right places, I'm slowly but surely being able to ramp up my intensity, I'm getting more focused and less lost in drills, and (the surest sign!) my boobs are getting smaller. I'm really looking forward to what this season will mean to me personally, as well as the AUWRFC as a team - we've got a big group of very experienced seniors, talented underclassmen, and really promising rookies.

Oh man - I just got real sappy. Tear.

Rugby boot camp!

2007-09-01T15:49:00.000-04:00

Today our coaches ran a 5-hour (plus an hour for lunch) boot camp, which was basically an excuse to get us all together and get us back on the same page with a continuity we can't get at 2-hour practices that not everyone can get to.

It was a really excellent use of a Saturday. We got together at ten and started with some basic ball-handling before having a "reintroduction to tackling" session - progressing from tackling on our knees all the way to full contact drills. Then we took an hour break for lunch, and when we returned we split. We did lineouts and scrums!!!

Oh man I missed scrums.

I was locking (no idea of this is an indication of the position I'll be in for the rest of the season), and originally was in the same situation I've always been in previously locking: usually my body position was off, and at best I got in the first hit before becoming useless, and at worst I was actually holding back my prop. Then someone basically grabbed me and pulled me into correct body position while my head was in, and it clicked! It was like my muscle memory was like "Oh that's how you lock!" and after that, I was able to hold myself up without pulling back on the prop, make the first hit, and keep the pressure on until the ball came out of the scrum.

Oh man... scrumming... did I mention I missed that?

We ended the practices with a scrimmage. It was pretty messy and chaotic, and I felt like a rookie again ("I'm supposed to be where? What? Okay, okay, do this.... wait! No! Do that! ...who has the ball!?), but it was a scrimmage on the first practice of the season.

And now I'm tired (the parents are in town, and they took me to dinner and then to Linens and Things where we bought $85 worth of things that did not include the two items we went in the store for) and I have a large bruise on my hip and so, so happy that my favorite thing ever is back in my life.

PS TRUE OR FALSE I AM FACEBOOK STALKING POSSIBLE NEW ROOKIES.

I adore my Kyoto ruggers <3

2007-08-13T15:42:00.000-04:00

I just checked the KWRFC website and photos from my going away party have been posted. Oh man... how much will I miss hanging out with these girls?!

Whoever typed up the commentary (probably Shima) said so many sweet things about me. For example, that I was a positive force since I joined the team, that my funny/strange Japanese is endearing, and I sing karaoke well ("even though they don't have karaoke in America, she was good!"). Besides all the ridiculousness of my teammates.

I can't believe I didn't spend more time with these girls. I mean, I can - my Japanese is just not up to snuff, although it is MUCH much closer after 4+ months - but they're such fun, and I say that when I didn't even know what was going on most of the time.

Rugby 10s tournament in a typhoon!

2007-07-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite a tournament: two men's teams played a game, and then we played, and that was it.

And though a typhoon was certainly making its way up the island of Japan, it didn't feel much like one on the DoCoMo* sponsored field in Osaka - there was a pleasant light rain, but no torrential downpour or bone-chilling winds.

Despite that lack of excitement, last Saturday's 10s game was still totally fantastic.

I'd never played tens before; the main differences are the lack of players (scrums are the tight five with no back row, and the back line is comprised of only one center and no fullback), and the time difference (three 10-minute thirds, instead of two 40-minute halves). Additionally, our Kyoto team was playing with several girls from another team - I played wing with an unfamiliar scrumhalf, flyhalf (called "standoff" here), and center.

Since we had no fullback, I spent any time on the weak side running back around to stand in at full back position. Because there were so many fewer people, it was MUCH easier for me to get into trouble as a wing than in 15s - I had several nice tackles, including two or three throw-downs where I didn't even lose my feet, and got into quite a few rucks. On the other hand, I missed a number of open-field tackles,** lost a ball much earlier than I had to in a breakaway to the try zone,*** and got a penalty for holding on to the ball on the ground.****

We were playing the Hyogo Ladies, who (as in our previous game) had excellent communication, fast tackles, good ball-handling, and space awareness, so we lost 25-0. But Kyoto (et. al.) still played the best I've seen them - no one hung back from rucks or tackles, we were aggressive to get the ball, and we didn't stand around surprised whenever the other team got the ball.

Afterwards, we had a sort of "social" with a bucket of beer, lots of meat, and some sad salad for me. (Although I also had the spaghetti and pretended the small chunks of beef were either not there or tofu. :( I was hungry.) We also had our team meeting, and I was interrupted out of my usual reverie (our main coach talks very fast and imprecisely, so I don't catch much) by my name. As I looked up confusedly, the other coach translated for me - "You are... MVP?"

Duuuuuuuuudes! Kickass.

*DoCoMo is one of the big phone companies here, like Verizon or Cingular.

**I have this tendency to try and tackle people with my arms. This works well for me for close quarters because I'm pretty mean and decently strong, but when someone's running full speed towards the try zone, my scrawy little forearm doesn't do much to stop them. I know I have to get my shoulder in there, but I'm so in the habit of tackling with my arms that that's all I do.

***What I should have done: run straight on, fixed the defender, juked her at the last minute and eaten up that huge empty space between me and the try zone. What I did: ran in a big predictable curve, allowing the defender plenty of time to fix me and meet me, and didn't even try to juke or stiff-arm her.

****Heat of the moment. Slash stupidity.

After the game, most of us went to an izakaya (food and drinks place) in a train station mall in Osaka (the mall was named "Whity's"... oh, Engrish). Having slept about an hour the night before and played an intense (if short) 30 minutes of rugby, during which of course I hit my head at least once, I was feeling really tired and headachey and like I really wanted to be in a hot shower and then bed, rather than perched on a high chair in a izakaya with entirely too many mirrors.

But I'm still really glad I was there. My teammates were awesome at ordering me food - I missed most of the ordering from being in the bathroom, but when the food started coming I found it didn't matter. There was a ton of vegetarian stuff: tomatoes and tofu, tasty egg things, fried stuff on sticks, french fries, and salad. And in the typical Japanese manner (which I love love LOVE), we kept ordering more and more - someone would ask for the menu, point something out to me and ask if I'd tried it, and then order it. The only one of these I remember was chakome (cha-something, anyways) - "tea" over rice topped with dried seaweed, with tsukimono (pickles, more or less) and big chunk of wasabi on the side. The end result was, of course, me feeling ridiculously full and happy.

During dinner, we talked about a lot of things. The ones I both understood and remember (tired! fooded! beered!) were the game we'd just played (of course), where I was traveling after school, the design and price of polos Eri had decided to make, and the details of my farewell party.

Yes, apparently I get a farewell party. Awesome! And, even more surprising than that (or at least, it surprised me that they were outright discussing it with me right there - cultural differences?) I get presents. From everyone.

Dude. I just... this team keeps getting awesomer and awesomer, y'know? I mean, it'll be cool to get a big pile of Japan souveneirs, but it's more incredible to know that a bunch of people care enough about me, having just seen me once or twice a week at rugby practice, to go pick out things for me to remember them by.

However, I also have to think of things to get for all of them. Keeping in mind that I have no idea how many people I'm getting gifts for. That a few people I want to write personal notes to (Shima, Eri, Nabe, Aki, Yuka) but others I have nothing particular to say to or don't even know their names (like... what the hell is my main coach named?!) That I will feel really awkward trying to figure out when and how it is most appropriate to give gifts to people at my own goodbye party. Not to mention, what about my teammates who don't come?

These are the problems I like to have. :D

Varsity rugby

2007-07-10T15:31:00.000-04:00

Saturday's A Rugby Day* made a post about women's rugby getting NCAA varsity status, which got me thinking about the nature of AU's team and ended up in this long comment, that I figured I might as well repost here.

American's team's been around for about 11 years, and right now we're one of the top club programs at AU. We've got great ambitions for the growth of our team - our board has been working with the club sports office for increased field access and equipment storage, and I'd like to think that the visibility and success of our program has been a factor in the university's recent decision to increase the office's total budget.

On the one hand, field access, equipment storage, and money would be easier or maybe unnecessary to fight for if we had varsity status. Not to mention that holy grail of getting access to a trainer.

But on the other hand, very few if any of us want the constraints that come with being a varsity team. As a club side, we can choose whether our focus will be on increasing our competitiveness or just having fun playing an amazing game, and individual members can join with the knowledge that rugby's a flexible commitment. Many of our best (and most dedicated) players participate in multiple activities or work jobs or just plain don't want the 24/7 commitment that comes with playing for a varsity team.

For the AUWRFC, moving to varsity status would effectively change the character of the team. Perhaps this wouldn't objectively be a bad thing, but I would personally be disappointed if the club attitude of self-determination and free-will participation were lost to that varsity designation.

The exquisiteness of a well-wheeled scrum

2007-06-29T15:28:00.000-04:00

*sniffs* This ... it's just... so beautiful! I think I might cry. Rugby tears of joy.

PS Still climbing Mt. Fuji tomorrow!!! Send lots of no altitude sickness and no cloud cover thoughts my way; I want to see the sunrise from 12,388 feet!

It's a small rugby world after all

2007-06-11T15:27:00.000-04:00

So I've been poking around the blog Saturday's a Rugby Day, which is about women's rugby... and kept running into things that reminded me that this is my world. Not just one I look into or enjoy, but a place I play in, live in.

First off was the article about Division I national championships. For the third year in a row the final match has been between Penn State and Stanford; this year, Penn State won.

Cool, right? But what's even better - Penn State is one of the three teams in PRU Division I. The other two are Navy - and American. And last time we played Penn State? We held our own. We didn't kick ass (even if it felt like it) but we did damn good for a club side team with barely a grand of financial support a year from our university.

Then I read an update on the MARFU U23 team at Ruggerfest. Not only does it specifically pick out one of my teammates for comment (and why not? 'Cause Sheri seriously rocks), but I've played with at least 3 other girls on the MARFU team (PRU what!) and have met one of the other women mentioned in the article.

It doesn't hurt that today was an especially awesome rugby day here in Kyoto - our original ground was rather small and full of baseball players, so we ended up holding a rather abbreviated practice in the tryzone of a lovely turf field (with no baseballs flying through the air to endanger us). But then we just chilled and watched the men's games going on - it was a serious of short matches versus alumni sides of Hanazono High School, celebrating the school's 50th anniversary (or so I surmise). I got teased by my teammates when a touch judge missed a lineout because he was too busy hitting on me, learned one of the girls can breakdance (and boy was she was excited when I told her about AUWRFC danceoffs), and just had a generally good few hours watching some rugby.

That day back at the beginning of sophomore year when I decided maybe rugby could replace martial arts as my "get beat up for fitness" activity? I made one of the best decisions of my life.

2007-06-03T15:26:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday's rugby practice, there weren't very many people there, so instead of splitting into back/forwards we did just forward stuff. That is to say, scrumming! So not only did I get to scrum but I got to prop!!!

With five small, Japanese girls who mostly play as a back... but still.

Facts about women's rugby in Japan

2007-05-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

- In Japan, there are about 400 women who play on about 25 rugby teams.

- Only one of those teams is a school-affiliated team; the rest are independent clubs.

- The Kansai region has only four women's rugby teams: one in Hyogo (I think that's the name of the area, anyways), one in Kyoto (mine!), and two in Osaka.

- This Sunday the KWRFC will play the Hyogoken Ladies.

I gathered all this information through a conversation entirely in Japanese with my teammates. Today a number of them remarked on how much my language skills have improved. I've got to admit, I've noticed a difference myself - this was part of a conversation which also included a discussion of rice, rice balls, what granola is, and what people eat for lunch in the States. It's AWESOME.

Kyoto rugby and the return of Pink the back

2007-04-01T15:17:00.000-04:00

I have arrived in Japan! And today I was picked up from my dorm at 8:30am by two Japanese women (Shima, who drove, and Umi, who translated) to go play RUGBY.

We drove across the city (maneuvering streets that I didn't believe that cars could go down and still don't believe cars can go down, even though I was in a car at the time I was on them), ending up at what appeared to be a high school (Umi didn't know, because apparently they change fields every practice, with Shima sending out an email 2 or 3 days ahead of time with directions).

And I guess I shouldn't call it a "field" - it was a big area covered in... sand? I thought that was really, really strange, but when I pointed it out to Umi and said our fields back home were all grass, she looked impressed and explained that around here only the very good schools have grass fields.

Practice itself was a bit of an adventure. Umi and one other girl, Haruka, kind of spoke English, but no one else did, so I mostly hung back and watched to figure out what was going on. The team's ball handling is very good, and after we spent the whole first hour or so of practice doing purely ball handling drills, I figured out why.

We then did some contact drills, which were run very... interestingly. I somehow ended up in the group that didn't do more than very basic contact (just one-man rucking, no mauls, no going down, etc.), and the coaches apparently didn't care if people just stepped out of the drill to hang out for awhile. Because I was the foreigner and apparently very interesting, people kept stopping me and talking to me while I looked wistfully over their shoulders at the rucking going on the background. But it was pretty cool, and I definitely will be improving my Japanese with all that practice.

One interesting "oh hay gaijin!!!" moment was when one girl with kind of a rebel look introducing herself (forgot her name, though), declaring us friends ("Furendsu!"), and then standing up in my personal space to point out how long my legs were and how tall I was. Another was me explaining to two girls, Kira and Azu, that I had a girlfriend - no not a woman friend - no not a boyfriend - no not a girlfriend which is the same as a friend - hey what? Apparently rugby teams in Japan are NOT the same bastion of lesbianism as they are in the US.

Then we split into backs and forwards, and I was told to be a back. Furthermore, I was put into the position of fullback. For those of you following along at home, I haven't played as a back since last fall season, and even then I was primarily a wing and only occasionally subbed in as fullback. Add to that the fact that we were running multi-phase plays, when AUWRFC organizes only one-phase plays, and I was way confused. The coach kept explaining to me in Japanese, and even though the position names are the same and I understood words like "enter" and "right" and "left," it took a couple of tries and eventually the coach just running along after me and pushing me into place before I understood.

But, apparently the team has a game the last Sunday of April, and not enough of the team can make it - so I'll be playing in a game for them in just a month!!!

You know you're a rugger when...

2007-03-04T15:14:00.000-05:00

I can't remember where I took these from, but they do sound awful familiar... :P

- You have gone home on a Saturday after a game, passed out, and then woken up and kept drinking.

- You can want to fucking kill someone from the other team during a game and then get shitfaced with them afterwards.

- When people walk slowly, you have to resist the urge to tackle them from behind.

- You frequently get the songs from the drink-ups stuck in your head

- You don't actually know the real names of your teammates, only their nicknames

- You know that Jesus can’t play rugby cause his dad would fix the game

- The number of gay people on your team outnumbers the number of straight people

- You have gotten the “what the fuck is that group of annoying girls doing” look in denny’s after a big game

- You steal beer after a drink-up so that you can keep drinking

- You learn about what happened Saturday night at brunch Sunday morning with your teammates

- You are trying to facebook people that you met after a game but can't because you can't remember if you ever actually learned their real name

- You know shooting the boot doesn’t have anything to do with a gun

- On the weekends you pee in the bushes more often than in the bathroom

- You’ve dreamt about sleeping with one your referees and commented on how good he looks in his short little rugby shorts

- Your excuse for everything is "I Play Rugby"

AU vs. VCU/Nova

2007-03-04T15:11:00.000-05:00

This Saturday's rugby schedule was an A-side vs. VCU and a B-side vs. Nova (a very good women's team... better than our A-side and definitely better than our B-side. We'd understood the B-side game would be VCU/Nova motley). We kicked ass A-side 44-5. We lost B-side, but played well. One of the best things about both of our games so far is to see which mistakes we are and aren't making - we're still a little scattered and discombobulated, but we're supporting each other so well and making our tackles (our tackle rate against the huge Nova girls women was really good) that we're playing a very good game.

Personally, I'm at about the same place. I feel really good about my 8ing, and less good about my locking (I kept going to my knees in the scrum - very not good). My tackling continues to be good in the sense that I nearly always get my woman down, but I'm improving in the ability to do that with good form so I don't hurt myself. However, during Saturday's game I brought some girl down on her shoulder and injured her... oops.

After the game, we hung out and ate pizza with Nova (VCU had gone home), then headed over to the 42nd Street house for some socialling slash pregaming the social at the men's house. The night ended up being long, ridiculous, and fun - typical rugby Satruday!

Rugger family is international

2007-01-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

Today I met up with some members of the Kyoto women's rugby team for what I thought was a morning of cherry blossom viewing, and what ended up being a whole day of chilling and awesomeness. I am very tired, have to get up in the morning to practice, and have to also shower/bath and write a nice long email to girlfriend before I sleep, so y'all get bullets:

- Eri, the girl who met me on the train (an 18-year-old who just graduated high school), is a sweetheart and I love her, but I wish she'd realize that I can do things like buy my own train ticket and put it in the machine.
- Aki is def. my favorite Kyotoruggergirl. This is largely because she's the one person who's had actual conversations with (she slogs through my terrible Japanese to discuss things like what kind of jobs she's done and how I feel about sports).
- Kumiko (34-year-old), who I just met today, is awesome, though I think she thinks of me as just another kid to take care of. Her kids (Mira [girl, 8] and Kaito [boy, 10]) are even awesomer. Mira especially spent the day trying to get me to understand her 8-year-old Japanese and taking pictures of me and marveling at my blue eyes and blond hair.
- When they say don't make eye contact with the monkeys? DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH THE MONKEYS. They will try to prove their dominance and chase you down and you will get teased about it for the rest of the day.
- Kitsune soba (fox soba, or soba with fried tofu in it) is delicious.
- It is apparently impressive that I not only know how to use chopsticks, but know to use the back end of them to pick food off of communal plates.
- Whichever Japanese soap opera was on the minivan TV while we drove all over whoknowswhere was HILARIOUS.
- Somehow I ended up in some hospital that was possibly halfway to Osaka to say hi to someone (I assume a rugger) with a leg wrapped and immobilized to the thigh. I also found out I apparently have high blood pressure, which has never been the case before.
- Fuku (pufferfish) can be poisonous if not prepared right. So if I drop dead in the next few hours, you can blame me breaking my vegetarianism to eat fuku just to have a story to tell.
- Sitting on tatami mats around low tables while Yuka's parents bring dish after dish of strange Japanese dishes and everyone is talking loudly in a language you barely understand and someone's kid is taking a million pictures of you because you look so damn funny and every so often the whole table tries to ask you a question in Japanese and draws on all their synonyms and body language and you end up with an 8 year old curled in your arms as she writes in your "memo" book while a 20-year-old sports addict corrects her kanji - somehow, it feels similar to bumming around a student rental at 6 pm on a Saturday. I guess rugger family is international, and I am +10 glad I found that out.

Plus? The beer totally tastes the same.

PRU Rugby All Stars '06

2006-11-19T15:09:00.000-05:00

Today was one of the best rugby days of my life.

It wasn't quite as good as the day I played a game and a half after sitting on the sidelines with a broken wrist for a season... but it was DAMN close.

The day started off badly, when I either set no alarm or slept through it - anyways, Keen called me and was like, "Hey, we're here to pick you up!" and I was actually still asleep. BAD.

But we got to the pitch in Baltimore more or less on time, and everyone kit up for the MARFU All-Stars tournament consolation match: PRU Red vs. PRU Blue.

I was playing on the Red team which, of course, kicked ASS. Seriously, though, as a team we basically fixed all the problems we'd had the day before, and then fixed all the mistakes we were making during the game as well. Our scrums were amazing, our backs ran some terrific loops and switches, our defense was excellent, our rucks were hard and quick - it was a great game.

Not that the Blue team was doing shoddily at all - we weren't getting anywhere with our mauls, and we spent a lot of time inside their 22 with them holding us off - several times getting the ball and kicking it back across the 50 - Petrides did lots of good things on the Blue team. Also, neither team lost their mind up near the try zone, which is... well, very different from AU.

Personally, it was one of the best games I've ever played. Maybe because between waking up late and playing our own team, I wasn't thinking too much (something that always messes me up), but I was so proud of what I did in those 80 minutes. I even did okay with the captaining stuff - most of the time I looked to other people to try to figure out what to do, and Mel (the backs' coach) had to point out that I should probably stop my 8man picks near the try zone because they weren't working, but in the second half I decided to switch to Krysi throwing the lineouts instead of the hooker, and ended up doing (and calling) every offensive jump myself, and it was great to see how the choices I made change the effect of our play.

I love rugby. I love playing it, I love spending time with the girls who play it, and I don't know what I'll do with myself until next season starts.

Who's big rugger on campus?

2006-11-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

So our campus newspaper wrote up our home game... and check out the picture they used!!!!

A copy of the article and photo:

Media Credit: JACOB GOODMAN/The Eagle
The AU women's rugby team finished the season with a 3-5 record.

Women's rugby has rough-and-tumble 2006 season
Jessica Lee
Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Sports

American University's women's rugby team had a losing season (3-5), but senior captain Colleen McHugh said this year wasn't a disappointment.

"I think this was an important building season," McHugh said. "A lot of young players gained experience, we got a group of great new players and we learned what skills we need to focus on for the playoffs in the spring."

McHugh said the women have built on their previous talent.

"The improvement from last season is incredible. Every girl on the team has improved her ball handling, tackling, field awareness," she said. "I've been really impressed with how much every player has stepped up their game individually and also as a team."

This club team is more than just a team. According to McHugh, the women on the team like to say that AU women's rugby is family.

"It's great to be part of a team with teammates who support you on and off the pitch. We are a close team and know we can all count on each other for anything," she said. "The team gets along really well and that's because we all have a lot of respect and care for each other."

McHugh said a lot of strong players graduated last year, leaving a very young team behind.

"It's been a tough season with people shifting positions and learning new positions; the dynamic of the team is very changed from last year," she said. "We did a great job recruiting a huge group of rookies who look really promising and are learning the game quickly."

Senior Kellie Cavalier, the other team captain, said she agreed.

"We have a great bunch of rookies who really added to the team and we have continued developing as a team," said Cavalier.

However, despite how easily the young team clicked, there were still problems with how well the women communicated on the field at the beginning of the season.

"With so many young players the team hasn't been playing together long enough to know how to play with one another," McHugh said. "But we've sorted it out, and the team improved a lot by the end of the season."

Despite some of the re-adjusting of the team, the women played some really great games this season, but they also had some tough losses, McHugh said. One of these losses was No. 2 Penn State. Nonetheless, McHugh said the women played to their potential.

"This year we played the best I've ever seen AU play against Penn State. While we lost the game, we made Penn State work for their win," McHugh said. "I think this game showed the team what we can do when we play our best."

"The [team] has begun to realize that we are unstoppable if we play together and play hard," Cavalier said.

On Captaincy

2006-11-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

I'm filling out the medical form for PRUs, and there's a few differences from the average health form. For example, after the typical "Are you currently taking any Prescriptions or Non-Prescription Medications?" questions, there's spaces specifically for anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, and pain medicaiton.

Rugby people are SO good to their bodies....

On a somewhat related note, I'm SO excited for this weekend. Playing rugby! In Baltimore! With a whole bunch of other ruggers, most of whom I haven't met before! What could be better?

I'm probably going to be 8ing, considering that's what I did during our scrimmage practice on Sunday (our cold, wet, muddy, miserable practice, which I wore shorts and socks to, which prompted my parents - who drove me from the Bungalow to campus - to rush-order me a pair of underarmour spandex pants. Go Mom and Dad!)

Considering Gabe had me captain my team both at the practice and the last tryouts, the other thing I might be doing next weekend is act as the on-pitch captain. I don't know why he had me captain - my personal guess is that with my hair, I'm easy to recognize and remember, which is an advantage in a select side team whose players don't know each other well - but it means that people tend to look to me to figure out what's going on.

Knowing what's going on is not my forte. To put it mildly.

I'm just to the point where I can kinda sort figure out where it's strategically best to go up in a line-out, and whether it's better to pass the ball off the top of the lineout or bring it down for a maul. But I have no idea which person should be jumping when (the PRU team runs line-outs where the jumper runs to the place they'll jump from). I'm a good jumper, but I don't know whether I'm better or worse than the other two jumpers, and when one of us should jump as opposed to the other.

Similiarly, the PRU team calls plays off of scrums (8man or scrumhalf pick). Which means I - even if I'm just an 8man, and not a captain - should probably be calling stuff. At some point. When, I'm not sure.

The thing is, even when I've had to call or do these things before, I've depended largely on Krysi or Sheri or whoever to tell me what I'm supposed to call, and relied on people knowing that I don't really know what's going on. The PRU girls don't really know me, and mostly likely assume that if I'm captain I'll know what to do.

I feel kind of silly worrying about this, also. Like it's egotistical to complain about being a captain, or even to assume I will be a captain. Or like it's in bad taste to even talk about Things I Am Good At. Except - seriously, you have to believe me - I have had a rock-solid self-image of me being Bad At Sports for many years now. I am slowly chipping away at that self-image, but I'm barely to "Okay, so I guess I'm not too bad at rugby, I mean, I'll admit I'm one of the top 15 on a team of 40 or so, but I'm still a total klutz and I don't know what's going on and that amazing 8man pick on Saturday that led to Sheri scoring a try was really Sheri's doing, I mean she told me to pick and I did, it's not like I can really play that well or anything." Believing that I'm one of the top 2 out of 44 select-side ruggers? HA.

Hence my theory that Gabe picked me as captain because my hair is pink.

In which I am a turncoat wing

2006-11-12T16:52:00.000-05:00

Today was our game versus UMBC on our home field. It was good. I played 8 during our Aside and, as UMBC needed a few extra players for their Bside, I got to play WING again! Admittedly in a black jersey that clashed horribly with my navy shorts, but it was fun. Even if I do have to admit that being a forward is tons more fun.

It was a good last game - the weather was nice, fans come, and we played quite well. We won, but I don't know by how much. My parents were there, too - quite exciting! Especially since they gave me time to go to the social and nap after the game before taking me out to dinner, then went home early enough that I had time to go to Kellie's birthday party.

But Sunday is apparently a rugby day too (practice for the PRU U23s, some place in Virginia?), so I've got to get to bed. Which is boring, but a healing place.

And here comes the end...

2006-11-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Saturday!

Tomorrow is OUR HOME GAME THAT IS ACTUALLY AT HOME!!!

We're playing on the Mass Ave field (a block down from Katzen, across from the seminary) against UMBC at 11:00. Basically, if you consider yourself my friend and don't have a pretty important serious engagement... you should be there.

Also, my parents are coming. Which is cool... except it means I can't go to the social. And I have to find three restaurants for us to eat at! (One for dinner tonight, one for dinner tomorrow night, and one for breakfast on Sunday before I go to practice for the PRU U23 team).

The AUWRFC season will be over with our game tomorrow, which makes me VERY sad. However, I get to play rugby for another week (SCORE!!!) because of PRUs - practice this Sunday, and games vs. the VRU and EPRU Saturday and Sunday next weekend, up in Baltimore. HURRAH!

While it'll be nice to see what my knees look like without bruises, I will miss rugby. Also, I will miss seeing my ruggers 3, 4, 5, 6 or sometimes even 7 days a week. What do people do without rugby?!

Oh, right. The fitness game.

PRU Tryouts, Part 2

2006-10-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning at 9:30. TEN HOURS OF SLEEP (13 counting my nap) HURRAH! Then I went over to campus to meet up with Keen, Scrappy, Krysi, and Sheri to go to the PRU all-stars tryouts. There were a lot more people there than there were 2 weeks ago, so we got to do a lot more, including scrimmaging at the end. (I have been playing rugby for long enough that I forgot what "scrimmaging" meant when one of the coaches announced we would be doing it... I thought, "Don't you mean scrummaging?!")

I ended up locking during the scrimmage, a position I've played exactly once before (during one practice this week), but did okay. The big surprise was that the coach, Andy, had me act as captain for my team. And I called most of the lineouts. What is this?! Responsibility?! I don't really know what I'm doing, I just pretend!

Honestly, I am still kind of surprised that I'm good at rugby. I've done sports most of my life, and been bad at all of them - not just not good, but atrociously lousy - but there's something about rugby that just gels.

AU vs. Mary Washington

2006-10-28T23:32:00.000-04:00

Despite starting off rainy and cold (I HATE HAVING TO WALK A MILE TO GET TO CAMPUS AT UNGODLY HOURS OF THE MORNING, AND RAIN JUST MAKES IT 10x WORSE), the day ended up being PERFECT for rugby, at least down in Fredericksburg where we played. 60 degrees and sunny, and really soft ground from the obnoxious amounts of rain we'd had (and puddles!). It was a bit windy, but not too bad.

We lost our Aside, won our Bside - I think the scores were 0-3tries, and 2tries-0. It was one of those days where we started off lazy and gradually got better as the day went on. Mary Washington mauled all the goddamned day, which was tiring and involved me getting my feet stepped on a lot. We got wet and dirty. It was FUN.

I played ALL of Aside and ALL of Bside (two 40s and two running 25s = 130 minutes of rugby) at 8man, which I haven't played a whole bunch before, but which I enjoyed. Bside, Deanna had me as on-field captain and I was calling lineouts. When she told me this, I almost fell over. Me?! Doing something important?!

After the game, we went to a ridiculously nice townhouse to social. I spent the time crashed out on the nice white carpet*, deciding not to drink because of PRUs Sunday and because I was EXHAUSTED.

Getting home, I showered and took a three hour nap before putting in a brief appearance at a Halloween party, then coming back home and going back to bed.

*Correction: nice white carpet, currently with one or two not-totally-inconspicuous pink spots on it... sorry, Mary Washington!

AU vs. PSU hells yeah!

2006-10-21T20:33:00.000-04:00

So today was our Big Game against Penn State - and we rocked it. We played so. damn. well.

Now, understand that Penn State is the #2 team in the country. That previously, they've swept us away with points solidly in the triple digits.

Today? 0-64. And we started hard, finished hard, and went hard nearly the whole time inbetween. When we realized there was a problem, we fixed it. They're getting a run off the kickoff and scoring a try? Fixed. They're getting breakaways leaving the fullback alone? Well, not fixed, but it damn well got better. We played hard and we played fast and we never gave up. When we got discouraged, we brought each other back up. It took them 13 minutes to score their first try. PSU probably expected nothing out of us - and that is NOT what they got.

Before the game, Kellie and Colleen (our captains) gave us Lucky Charms (for luck) and ribbons with our names that said "15 together never loses - AUWRFC Fall 2006." It was 15 as one out there - we weren't 15 ruggers, we were a team. It was amazing.

I know for me personally it was the most I've ever put into a rugby game. I played all 80 minutes of the A-side, and I took everything I had and left it on the pitch - and then kept playing. By the end of the game, I was so worn out I was dizzy and shaking, but I was still sprinting to get to the ball and support, and I've never been prouder. It was my second game flanking, but this time I knew what I was doing. PSU's flyhalf wasn't scared enough of me by the end of the game, but I was aggressive and loud at calling the ball out. Bean and I worked up some excellent teamwork in killing whoever caught the ball off the kickoff. It wasn't the best I've ever played, but it was the hardest.

B-side was less exciting (for me, at least). I was pretty out of it between games, but I had a 20g protein bar and drank a liter of gatorade and got back in it (seriously, I was gone after that first game. I need to work on my fitness). For the second half of B-side, I went in at 8man, which was fun, but not too long into the half I tackled someone, hit my head, and spent 5 or 10 seconds figuring out which way was up again. I probably could've kept playing, but I didn't want to take any chances, so that was the end of the day for me.

Nonetheless, it's the best day of rugby I think I've ever played.

I'm a FLANKER!!!!

2006-10-08T20:15:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning, and could barely move.

That's how you know Saturday was a good day.

When I woke up Satuday, the downpour of the day before had stopped. When we were on the field warming up, however, it started to really pour. We'd jogged around the pitch, charting puddles (two or three, only one of them particularly deep), but as the rain bucketed down the pitch turned into a near-river. My hair (newly cut and enpinkified on Thursday, with a little help from Germany) bled down my face and neck and onto my jacket - the "Pink" embroidered on my jacket is now actually pink.

By the time we started playing, the rain had stopped, but the field was a swamp. We were SOAKED, and covered in mud. I'm not just talking mudstains - you could've planted a garden in my shorts. It was pretty cold and wet and miserable. It worked out, though, because you got numb and didn't feel how much you were getting knocked around.

But, moving on to the actual playing. As I alluded to in previous entries, I was playing FLANKER - a forward position, considerably different from the back positions (wing, sometimes full back) I've played before. Instead of staying out of every ruck I could, I was supposed to be in every other ruck (and was usually in more); instead of standing around in the middle of the field during scrums and lineouts, I was IN scrums and lineouts!

I wasn't sure how well I did - I played two games of the round robin, the A-side against GWU and the game against Catholic (which only had one side). I was pretty disappointed because I never got to tackle Catholic's flyhalf (my job as a flanker), but I think I was making the GWU flyhalf pretty nervous by the end of that game. And even if I was kind of confused, I had FUN. I got into so many rucks and went in support of a whole bunch of runs.

And I hear I did okay. Well enough that Deanna told me I was permanently a flanker. Which is exciting, but I will be sad if I never get to play in the back triangle again. But - FLANKING!!!!!! IS SO MUCH FUN! I get to scrum!! And get lifted in line-outs! (I didn't get to do a whole lot of that, but hopefully more once I get some practice!)

Injury report:

- Lots of cuts and bruises. Heurich field is FULL of rocks, so my knees are covered in stylized shooting star patterns in a nice blood red. However, between the cold and the mud, I didn't realize I'd broken the skin at all until I showered. (HA!)

- Lost my contact. During the first game, some girl stuck her finger in my eye. I attributed the blurry vision then to the mud that was certainly in my eye, and for the rest of the day figured my funny vision was from: mud and rain; weariness; alcohol; drunkeness and weariness. Then when I tried to take my contact out at 3am, it wasn't there. And boy, was I confused.

- Face chafing. At first I was really confused about how I got sunburnt just on the far sides of my face (forehead to cheekbone, outside of my eyes), until I remembered that in the scrum, I had those places on my face pressed up against props' shorts - shorts covered in thick, rough mud. Mmmmmm. Even have a tiny abraision under my left eye, probably from a pebble. (I mentioned it this morning at the carwash, and Krysi nodded knowingly and called it "scrumface.")

Flanker nerves

2006-10-07T20:14:00.000-04:00

I swear I've been on an adrenaline high ever since I played flanker at practice on Thursday.

I also haven't slept properly since Tuesday night.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30. I woke up half an hour before my 7:00 alarm, except "woke up" isn't really the right term because I didn't really sleep at all.

It's going to be cold and rainy today. Miserable weather for a rugby game - rain is lovely at 75 degrees, but not at 55.

I cannot wait for the games today. "Battle of the Beltway," AU vs. GWU vs. Catholic. I'm flanking at least two games.

Dear body, just keep the adrenaline up for one more day - it should be no problem. I'll keep you as warm as I can.

I AM SO EXCITED. OMG.

Obligatory weekend rugby roundup

2006-10-01T22:08:00.000-04:00

This Saturday was very similar to last Saturday: we drove two hours away to play a team that beat us pretty soundly. Except this weekend it was University of Delaware, and though we didn't even score a try in the Bside game, we kept them to much fewer tries and generally did much better - more coming up hard, keeping a defensive line instead of getting sucked in, everyone tackled, etc. I played all 80 minutes of the A-side game at wing, and after the games, I got a chocolate bar for being the best returner back of the day!!!!

After the games, we split up - half the team went back to campus, but the rest of us stayed to watch a little bit of the boy's game and then go social.

Then today (because I'm masochistic, apparently) I got up and went to the four hour long PRU development camp. There weren't as many people there as I'd expected - any female rugby player under 23 in the DC metro area was eligible to attend, but there were only 16 girls there, 9 of them from AU. It wasn't as exciting as I expected - the majority of things we went over was basic stuff that we do in practice anyways. However, it was good to get more practice (even on the basics), and some of the drills we did were new and interesting.

But now, I'm super tired. And sore (but no injuries besides bruises). And want to go to bed right now, except I realize I'd probably wake up at like 2am and my sleep schedule would be messed up. Sigh.

Touch ruggin'

2006-09-26T20:11:00.000-04:00

Today Nips sent out an email inviting all of us to play touch rugby on the quad at 2:30. So what if I had 57 pages to read, bullet point, and write a 2-3 page essay on before class tomorrow? Touch rugby on a beautiful day is a beautiful thing.

Touch rugby on the quad is an excellent excellence not quite like anything else. It's an opportunity to just fuck around, playing the game we all love but without the stress or the trying particularly hard. Plus, it was gorgeous - around seventy degrees, sunny, blue skies, the works.

RUGBY SEASON IS BEGUN!!

2006-09-24T20:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was our first rugby game of the season, HURRAH!

We played JMU (James Madison), which was 2 hours way out in Virginia. They're a pretty good team, plus we got to use a relatively nice field (there were bleachers! And the main building was unlocked so we got to use actual bathrooms!)

It was SO AMAZINGLY GOOD to play again. We've done a few ruck-and-runs at practice, but no REAL rugby. I played the first half of the A-side game at wing, and the first half of the B-side game at fullback, and had SUCH a good time! I did pretty well too - got some lovely tackles in at wing (and made them, too - I don't know if I missed a tackle! Okay, maybe one or two) and had a handful of runs at fullback when JMU kicked the ball.

The whole team didn't do extraordinarily well, but considering that JMU's pretty good and we were fielding a lot of rookies, it was a good game. The mistakes we made were predictable for rookies, and will be fixed with just a little experience. We lost pretty badly (only got one try - Nips put one in B-side), but we had FUN!

Injury report: I banged my head pretty badly at least twice when I was in at A-side (once when rolling over some girl I tackled, once when I was too preoccupied with passing the ball out of a tackle to pay attention to how I was landing), but nothing happened besides a bitty headache that went away with a few cups of beer at the social afterwards. I did, however, in the first few minutes of the A-side game, get a really nasty bruise just above my left knee. It was like someone had cut a tennis ball in half and stuck it to my leg, and it hurt like a bitch to run on it. But I wasn't going to let a bruise stop me from playing! I've been icing it since the games were over, though, and even though it was still pretty swollen last night it's pretty much back to normal now. Still hurts, though, and I decided not to go to campus for the sci fi movie tonight because I didn't want to walk that far on it.

I can't WAIT for next weekend!

First rugby practice!

2006-08-29T20:07:00.000-04:00

First rugby practice today!!!!! It was SO GOOD!!!

Okay, not the part where we did conditioning and I was all "NOT WORKING OUT IN SPAIN BECAUSE IT WAS TOO HOT WAS A DUMB EXCUSE BECAUSE THEN AT LEAST I WOULD'VE BEEN PREPARED FOR THIS WEATHER!!!" It was hot and I was out of shape. I was also kind of dehydrated, so I was inhaling water... which, of course, sat there like a helpful sea urchin in my stomach.

I must have looked a little like I was feeling, because Deanna pointed out the nearest trash can in case I needed to hurl.

Luckily, I'd already noticed it - also the nearest bush, in case the trash can was too far.

Luckily also, I'm a huge drama queen, and was fine (if a bit lazy with some of the running). The water finally went useful places, my face stopped tingling, and then we did contact! WHEEEEEEEE!!

I ended up taking out my industrial. It went back in after being out maybe an hour, hour and a half. It hurt, though - for at least a few months I'm going to just tape it instead of taking it out.

But yeah! Contact*! At which I didn't totally suck! And at the beginning of practice, we did lines**! At which I didn't totally suck, either!

Oh, oh, and then we played touch***!!! Which was SO MUCH FUN!!!! At which I also didn't totally suck!!!!

So, okay, nothing particularly exciting happened. Just rugby in general. The team is looking fabulous - we all knew what was going on and weren't disastrously out of shape and while we weren't at all perfect, the mistakes we made were not first practice since April mistakes.

YAY SUPER YAY!!!!!!!

*This is the non-rugger term guide: contact = running into people with your shoulders. Also, holding pads so people can run into you with their shoulders. AWESOME FUN!!

**Lines = running off and throwing the ball to each other. In lines. Kinda.

***Touch = rugby where we touch each other! ...Instead of tackling, you fools!

2006-08-28T20:06:00.000-04:00

Rugby starts tomorrow!!!

It's a mad mad mad rugby world

2006-08-23T20:03:00.000-04:00

The rugby madness, it is starting again!

I just spent about 20 minutes using a calendar template on my mom's computer to make myself a rugby calendar - one for JUST rugby events. And between games, e-board meetings, and fundraisers, that calendar is pretty damn full. Even without practices written in!

Earlier today, I finally finished slogging through the Treasurer's Bible (the binder for my position). Man oh man, Mama Jess was NOT kidding when she said it was a mess! Basically it's stacks of money-related forms (filled-out and blank) from up to three or four seasons ago, two copies of the Club Sports rules, and two letters from previous treasurers. I made the mistake of reading the two years old one first, but the one for me from Mama Jess was pretty helpful.

Anyways, after an hour or two of flipping through forms, reading and rereading Jess' letter, and checking out the PRU website, I've at least figured out that we're not going to show up to a game and be referee-less because I didn't pay someone. I've still got to figure out exactly what magic spells Jess put on the Excel spreadsheets I've got, get an updated version of our budget that includes reimbursements made over the summer, and figure out what the hell is going on with UVA drivers' reimbursements (and if I have to do anything about it - see, Krysi, I'm trying!)

Once I get those things figured out, and go to a Club Sports meeting Sunday night, I'll be totally on top of things.

That is, for the official budget.

Then, there's the social budget, which technically is not a rugby budget but just some money collectively owned by some girls that just happen to be on the rugby team that goes towards alcohol for parties that are not rugby parties but just happen to be attended by the rugby team. Which I just happen to be in charge of. This, I know little to nothing about - except that technically, it doesn't exist.

Then, of course, I have to keep all this information safe in a head which will be battered by rucking pads and angry ruggers.

...

Rugby, my abusive lover, I've missed you so!!!

Fitness yay!

2006-08-10T20:02:00.000-04:00

So I finally got up off my ass and got back to playing the fitness game for rugby. Considering I only did about two and a half weeks in the two months I was in Madrid* I was worried that I'd be a little slow or a little weak.

I went running in our neighborhood, a route I did before I went to Spain that takes me less than 20 minutes and that is somewhere between 1 and 3 miles. It's got a lot of hills. When I did it before I went to Spain, I didn't make it the whole way - I stopped and walked a LOT on the way back. But when I did it today, I ran the WHOLE WAY! (Okay, I lie, I took like a 20 second break to scratch my legs at the halfway point but THAT DOESN'T COUNT!) So apparently, walking at least a mile a day and walking up and down five flights of stairs everytime I had to go to my apartment kept me sort of in shape!

I could possibly also attribute my not stopping to the fact that I got a book on CD and uploaded it to my iPod and was thus distracted from internal whining about muscles hurting and my stomach churning etc etc, but I'm going to not do that.

On a sort of related note, does anyone know of any websites or books that deal with nutritional health for a jock vegetarian who wants to eat healthily but cheaply while keeping up her energy and maybe gaining a little muscle weight? Please?

*Which I consider TOTALLY acceptable, btw, because being a little slower or weaker in rugby this season is worth having gone to the parks in Madrid instead of running.

I am a huge rugby geek

2006-06-16T19:59:00.000-04:00

So in all my research for my internship for Instituto de Empresa, I've been checking out the websites for the top MBA programs' rugby teams.

Stanford? Has had a rugby team for thirty years.

In that first season? Sally Ride, first woman astronaut, played.

This year and last they defeated Penn State to become national champions. Penn State. AU's rivals, of the sort where they're better than us but we're convinced if we keep trying we can beat them.

One of their girls was the only member of a club sport photographed for Sports Illustrated's "List of Collegiate Athletes to Watch." She's also been on the cover of Rugby Magazine twice.

This is what my dreams are made of.

2006-06-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

I.

Heart.

Rugby.

An announcement

2006-05-23T19:57:00.000-04:00

So during the Alumni Game (April 22) I got a big gash on my knee. I tried to get all the dirt of of the cut... but it was very deep, and once it started healing it was obvious there were still some bits of field in it.

But today, May 23, a full month later, I finally got the last chunk of dirt out. So long, little piece of rugby field!

I'm in charge of money... be scared!

2006-05-02T19:56:00.000-04:00

So rugby elections were tonight, and I am the treasurer.

I wasn't planning on running for treasurer... but I was approached by a number of people who felt I was the best for the position. And we all know how addicted to this team I am, and how I want to do whatever's best for this creepy rugger family; so I accepted my nomination and am now treasurer.

It's not really a fun job... but it is one that needs to be done, and one I know I can handle. The time commitment isn't too much; and what it really needs is an organized person who's willing to do froms and nitpicky things, etc. Which I can do. And I will be glad to do, really.

Plus, I get to be on the eboard and make decisions.

Plus, I get to play with moneeeeeeeeeeeey.

Mwahahahaha!