Sunburnt and Sleepdeprived

And a little depressed. More than anything else, I attribute it to sleep deprivation.

I was on the beach, playing in an Ultimate Frisbee* tournament this weekend. I played a lot on Saturday and we won all three of our games. (Please note that there is no actual correlation between these two facts.) Today I played only a couple of points per game, and we won one and lost two. The first game we lost, we were overwhelmingly outclassed. The second game, we definitely could have won for third place. Instead, we took fourth.

Fourth place of twenty-four teams is pretty darned respectable. In fact, I think it's the best placing I've ever reached that I substantially participated in. And the weather was great today, so great that I went for a dip in the ocean. Chilly at first, but totally swimmable. If I think about it objectively, it's fantastic, and I should be celebrating.

Beach pickup in FL in February. I'm in a long sleeved white top and shades.

Would I have been in a better mood if we had gotten third place? Maybe. It certainly feels better to end with a win than a loss, even if it's a win that puts you in 15th instead of 16th place. But I still probably wouldn't be in a celebratory mood.

The fundamental problem, I think, was this: I had to wake up at 5:30 for two days in a row. I go to sleep around midnight and usually wake up between 7 and 7:30.

Saturday was fine, but today I...

• Played less but got tired more quickly. Less stamina.
• Didn't have enough time to recover from the previous day, so muscles were tense and sore.
• Made poor decisions on the field.
• Was too lazy to properly apply suntan lotion to legs and re-apply it on face and arms. Thus, sunburn.
• Also too lazy to take advantage of some of the fun side events. (At least I went swimming. There were fish! About three or four of them, a foot long, in water 3-4 feet deep.)
• Was taciturn, felt irritable.
• Too tired to actually do anything, but not sleepy.
• Just generally felt like crap!

Actually, most of these things were true Saturday too, but they were even more pronounced today.

Next time, 

I need to think a bit more proactively about finding a place to stay near the tournament rather than taking the train two hours each way. I have a friend who lives nearby the beach who I probably could have crashed with. And I should keep couchsurfing in mind as well.

Otherwise I'm just wasting a good time.

The name of the team involves a pun
which I really don't feel like explaining here.

*Have I mentioned that "frisbee" being trademarked annoys the hell out of me? Other sports based on the names of their equipment (pretty much anything ending in 'ball') don't have this problem.