IRONMAN Training Day 3: Basketball

Today I went to the gym to train for basketball.  They had an Easter egg hunt going on at the gym.  No one else was there so I searched around by myself until I found an egg with a coupon for a prize inside.  I brought my coupon down to the front desk and was rewarded with this sweet Intramural Golf Classic 2008 shirt.  It will now be my new workout shirt.

Basketball is traditionally one of the first two events of the IRONMAN and generally leaves the participants gasping for air by the end of it.  We play three games where the first team to 15 points (scoring by ones and twos) is the winner.  Each member of the winning team is awarded one point towards their IRONMAN point total. 

My basketball skills are somewhat limited; I have a decent outside shot that is very inconsistent and tend to get a fair amount of blocks on defense.  I struggle moving quickly with the ball, miss more lay-ups than a person with my amount of basketball experience should miss, and am almost useless using my left hand for shooting.  Thus, today I practiced dribbling, driving, and left handed lay-ups (and of course, lots of three point shooting; it's too fun not to shoot three pointers.) 

I missed more left-handed lay-ups than I took, but I still made about ten more than I've ever made in the IRONMAN.  If these trends continue, I will be locking down my favorite kind of IRONMAN three pointer this July.