Wow. I really didn't realize how little wasabi I had left after playing yesterday. I could have done more throughout the ladder tournament. I neglected hydration, nutrition, and electrolyte replenishment, and that didn't help. I just didn't think about those things because it wasn't hot. I won't make that mistake again. I didn't drink enough water between matches, didn't eat enough, and should have been thinking about consuming sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and carbs and sugars. I definitely learned my lesson. Like I said, at the end of yesterday's first match with L. I was cramping up. So I brought some apple cider vinegar to drink for my next match, and took a couple of swigs at the beginning of my second match. Blecch. But it really made the cramps go away almost instantly. I am swearing by vinegar for cramps; it really seems to work! Unfortunately, it didn't do much for my other symptoms. I had brought a powder mix of salt and potassium chloride (the active ingredient in prison executions by injection) to mix into my liquids, but I never did get to that, though I really should have. I also should have taken a magnesium/calcium supplement when I went home between rounds. I was badly fatigued by the time I started the second match, and getting an ear infection. Today my ear is a little better after having put hydrogen peroxide and alcohol in it last night.
More thoughts about yesterday's first match (third match in the ladder tournament): L. was a really tough player. She was the highest-ranked person on the ladder that I have yet beaten, though I don't think I have advanced to where I should be on the ladder up to this point. I was really on top of running her shots down, and, more importantly, reading her bodily movements to tell where she was going to hit the ball. This is the best that I think I have done at "pre-anticipation." I won one set, she won one, and then, as per the tournament director's instructions, we played a tiebreak in lieu of a third set. So I can't really count it as three sets, purist that I am.
More thoughts about yesterday's second match (fourth match in the ladder tournament): I was doomed from the start. I didn't have the physical thing going due to my extreme depletion, and the mental part crumbled by the end of the first set. I started out weak but very, very relaxed. At the beginning of the match, I was just thinking that I don't care how anything comes out. Win a point, I don't care. Lose a point, I could care less. I kept this attitude up through playing the match to about 4-4. Then, suddenly, my mood swung and I started caring. Maybe this was a downfall point in the first set. I did get to 5-5, and then I couldn't do anything right in the next two games, and lost 7-5.
In the second set, I won the first two games. This was an absolute miracle, because I was physically barely able to stand. At this point, I noticed for the first time that he was a lefty. This information was only used for evil, though, as I only won one more game for the rest of this match. The bottom fell out of my game. Nothing went back right, I couldn't get to many of his shots, I was totally playing defense and hardly any offense at all, and I started getting really mad at myself. I usually am really even-tempered, but my physical depletion made me really short-tempered and I was cursing myself under my breath. At the end of the match, I had to go sit on the bench for about ten minutes before I could even get up again. I dragged myself home, ate a prodigious amount of food, and forced myself to type a few words before I took a bath. I coudn't even stay in the bath longer than about five minutes. I went to bed before nine o'clock, totally exhausted, and feeling nauseous.
This morning I felt much better, but I still can use some recovery. Luckily, I don't have a match scheduled for tonight. Maybe I'll go to the Monday group lessons at Pharr, maybe I won't. It depends on how I feel by tonight.
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