Recaping my Saturday

Yesterday was a very long day, but a very good one. As I posted yesterday, I was running a Bible quizzing tournament, which I've done now for the last 8 years. The day involves getting up at 6, getting ready and heading over to the church by 7 to finish final setup, and then wait for teams and officials to begin arriving around 7:30. The opening meeting of the tournament is scheduled for 8 am, and probably more years than not, I'm having to start that meeting with at least a team or two and possibily an official or two having not arrived. They always show up during the meeting, except for that one fateful year when an e-mail got lost in cyberspace and I was waiting for a team that wasn't coming. This year matched the norm, and we had 2 teams and 2 officials roll in after I'd started the meeting 10 minutes late. I schedule 30 minutes for a 20 minute meeting for just this sort of occasion.

Anyhow, after that all got settled, we sent the teams off to start what was a very successful day. Some of the highlights included: The morning running so smoothly that I was able to post a blog entry, read a chapter in Chris Coste's book, read a few articles in my Sports Illustrated, and slip in to watch several quizzes; using the early portion of my lunch break to break a 5 way tie in which all 5 teams were 2-2 against each other. If you want to know how that's done, don't ask me, because I'm still not sure how it happened; Doing a number of running laps around the church trying (successfully, I might add) to get everyone organized to start up after lunch 15 minutes earlier than originally scheduled; both divisions of quizzing having the finals of the double elimination playoffs going the extra quiz (with the varsity having both quizzes go into overtime; me announcing a boy named Alex as Alexa during the award ceremony. There was an Alexa on his team who also won an award, which is what I'm blaming my typo on.

When the first quiz of the varsity finals went into overtime, it killed a dream of mine. Had the team that was undefeated going into the finals won that quiz in regulation, the varsity final would have ended before it was scheduled to start. What can I say? Tournament directors have weird dreams. We always run on-time/early at my tournament, and this would have taken that to a new level.

Anyhow, after teardown/cleanup, I headed back to spend a little more time with my folks, and then drove back to the West Shore. After spending some time with Chaser and getting my laundry done, I crashed into bed at about 9:45 pm. I was just exhausted. This always happens after the tournament no matter how well it goes. The only thing that's impacted by how well the tournament ran is whether that exhaustion is primarily physical (I have to be up/down/around all day even when things are going smoothly), or whether there's some serious mental exhaustion brought on by dealing with all the problems. This year, it was virtually all physical. And I've got to say, there are few feelings that are much better than climbing into bed at the end of the day when you're as wiped out as I was, and can couple that with a profound satisfaction and sense of accomplishment regarding the reasons for your fatigue.

Yesterday was a VERY good day.