USAV Regionals

Well this past weekend was an experience. I competed in USAV regionals this past Saturday with a team that needed another player. I was recruited to play middle. Now remember the last time I played middle was my freshman year of college so that's 3 years ago! Yes, I can still hit middle hits because even as a right side and left side I would use those attacks to surprise the other team. BUT it's the blocking that went away. So at regionals I will admit I was getting faked out or caught cheating to a certain side. Teams did get a couple of one on ones thanks to me and my lack of waiting and watching. My old coach used to say "better late than fate," meaning even if you are late to the block, close as much space as you can and go up straight and who knows, maybe you'll get a good touch or a block rather than just leaving your pin blocker all by themselves.

As for the hitting, it was rusty at first, especially because I hadn't played volleyball for at least 3 weeks and I was hitting off of a new setter. Our connection was not great at first. It was fairly frustrating because I knew my capabilities and I was not hitting like I knew I could. But as the day went on the connection got better. In fact I ended up having a couple of kills that I was impressed with. By the end of the day I was having fun! You may ask why I wasn't having fun before that. Well, you see the majority of the hitters were not able to make it to the tournament. They were missing their big outside and their two middles. So they had me play middle along with their libero, and then a ds played left side. We had 6 players so we all played every point of every set of every match. Our record for the day was 1-7 (sets). We were struggling to say the least. It was very frustrating to me. I wanted to put the ball away but with our passing struggling the middle wasn't able to be run very much. Plus we just weren't able to compete very well with other teams until our last two matches. The last two matches were enjoyable. The team seemed to find a groove and soon we were able to run middles and different plays. I think we finally all relaxed and stopped playing so tense. It was during these last two matches that I hit a girl on the top of the head off of a quick and had 2 hits from the left side that just left me smiling. It felt good to hit like how I used to. And I am pretty sure it happened because I stopped focusing on the score and our record and just went out on the court to play the game that I love.

So regionals were interesting to say the least but at least I got to play. I have to admit I woke up the next morning and my upper body was so sore! My legs were fine because of all the training I have been doing but my upper body was not having it. I needed a massage for my back, my arms, my ribs, everywhere. It was that that made me feel old. I never used to feel like that after playing. Apparently I need to start playing more than once every 3 weeks. Come May 15th I'll be playing nearly everyday and then I won't have that problem! :)

This week so far I have ran and lifted. On Monday I ran around the outskirts of our campus with my roommate Lyndi. We ran 2.81 miles in about 24 minutes. It felt good to just go out and stretch out my legs on a nice run. Lyndi and I were able to chat and catch up. Then on Tuesday I worked out with Rico, my trainer, and he said my squat form is getting better and a muscle in my leg is beginning to pop more. Both these comments made me more excited and more motivated to keep working. I really can see a difference in my legs. And when I played on Sunday, I felt like I was jumping higher which is a great thing! I definitely need to get a better vertical for beach. Wednesday I ran with Lyndi again. This time we ran 2.6 miles. The time was around 28. It just wasn't a good day of running for me. I was struggling a bit. I love when I have good days of running and hate that I have bad days of running. Tomorrow (Thursday) I am going to return to my hill and my sand sprints. I think I will do 8 sprints up the hill and then work my way up to 4 suicides in a row in sand, so total it will be 16 suicides in the sand. And to run to the park it's a half mile, so I will have run a mile regular as well. I am going to be tired but feel oh so good!

The girls on the team here at Bradley, so my old team, just finished up spring season today. So now I will have some people to play beach with. A couple of them are excited to play with me and do the workouts with me as well. I can't wait to get some competitive doubles going on. It won't happen this weekend though. I am heading home for a wedding on Sunday! I am so excited. It's my best friend's sister's wedding. :)

I hope everything is going well with you all! I will update again soon! Like always, if you have a question just post it and I will answer it!

Keep On Keeping On

This week has been an exhausting one for me! Between school, workouts, and this new restrictive carb thing I'm trying I am absolutely beat. I just finished my senior project last night with my group. We had to create a 37 page plan book for an advertising campaign on State Farm. Last night we were in the library until 12:30. The night before, I was there until it closed. Guess what time our library closes... 4AM! I am still recovering.

I did my hill and sand sprints on Monday. I go every morning around 9:30 and I always see the same man walking up the hill that I run. The other day he asked me if I was training for the Olympics. I said you know it! He made my day. If that's not inspiration I don't know what is. :) I lifted on Tuesday without Rico because he has been up in Chicago for a family emergency. So he sent me my workout over email and I went into the gym and got it done by myself. Usually when I go in I am the only girl in the area with all the heavy weights. I love it. Yesterday, the day after my extremely long night, I decided to relax. I didn't want to kill myself. So today I am going to go lift and then go for a nice 2 mile run.

This weekend I am heading home to play in USAV Regionals, an indoor tournament. I was trying to play on a USAV team this year and go to Nationals but it was too expensive and my team and I were struggling to find sponsors. So we decided that this year wasn't our year and we would try again next year. It's bittersweet because now I can train for beach earlier, but now I'm not going to Phoenix with the rest of my friends that have teams. Anyway, like I said I am going home to play in Regionals with a friend's team. I get to play middle. I haven't played middle since my freshman year. Granted I still run middle attacks but the blocking is what is going to get me. Hopefully I can close to the pins. It will be an experience, a fun one I am sure. I will write a post about how that went next week.

Yesterday I got some upsetting news. Bryan McDermand informed me that the EVP we were planning on going to in Naples switched to just women. How does that effect me? Well technically it doesn't have to but Bryan and I were both going to go play. I was going to treat myself to a graduation gift and go play at this tournament. But since they don't have a men's division anymore Bryan can't go. So upsetting. I was so excited to go play an EVP in a different state, especially Florida! We do have a plan for that weekend though, the good old Blind Draw at Four Lakes. It's a 4's sand tournament where you get placed on a team with random people, hence Blind Draw. It's an all day event with food. There are always pick up matches going on so I am excited for that. It'll be my first one in 2 years. I never got to go to one last summer.

I am getting more and more excited as the days past. Summer is approaching quickly! I have one more week of normal class and then finals begin. After finals I move back home and then BEACH TRAINING BEGINS! I have a couple of different people in mind for partners (thanks to Bryan). I hope we connect. If I can find the right partner I have no doubt that I can make it far in beach, but only time will tell. :) Look for my next post on Sunday or Monday!

Where I Came From and Where I am Going

Hello everyone! My name is Amy Reichel. Nick asked me to blog about what I am doing in order to make it to the professional level in beach volleyball. I, of course, accepted. Before I catch you up on what I have been doing I'll tell you a little bit about my past.

I started playing volleyball in 7th grade. I only played for school though. In high school I made the sophomore team as a freshman and my sophomore year through my senior year I was on the varsity team. I started club my freshman year at GLC Select, a branch of Sports Performance for multi-sport athletes. I went back to GLC my sophomore year but got an invite to try out for Sport Performance's 16-1's team and play under Ping. In order to do that I had to stop playing basketball and commit 100% to volleyball. I ended up making the team. To this day I still believe that Ping is the reason I am as good as I am. He worked with me before every practice on my arm swing. Most the time I wasn't even jumping and swinging. It was strictly hand contact and trying to hit the ball in the same spot on the wall. My junior year I made the 18-3 team at Sports Performance. Then my senior year I moved to Sky High and made the 18-1's team. All through out high school I played middle and got recruited by Bradley University to play middle.

My freshman year at Bradley I played middle for the majority of the year and contributed to the team right away. Toward the end of the season I was switched to the right side because the slide was my most powerful attack. My sophomore year I played right side the entire season. I enjoyed it. I loved running slides and coming around for a quick or a 2. Then our coaches were fired and we got a new set of coaches. My junior year I was switched to left side. It was completely new for me but I enjoyed it. It took me a while to get my timing down because I was always used to the quick approach. My junior year I had a lot of kills but also a lot of errors. It was a learning year for me. My senior year I was switched between right side and left side until our big freshman left side hurt her shoulder. Than I became left side again permanently. I was a lot smarter with my shots and hits. I still had quite a few errors but I had teams that would triple block me or not even pay attention to our middles. I was Bradley's go-to hitter and other teams knew it. It was a lot of pressure. I took it as a challenge though and did the best I could. I ended my career at Bradley as number 15 on Bradley's all time career kill list, I was the Country Financial Scholar Student-Athlete of the week twice, and was a Honorable Mention Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete as well.

Now that I am done with volleyball at Bradley I am on to bigger and better things! I am currently training for the approaching beach season! I got into beach about 3 years ago. I have competed in EVP tournaments at the BB level. This year I am going to try competing in Gold, one level below Pro in the EVP. I am going to train with a new partner this summer because my previous partner and I just couldn't click on the court. When we would get into a slump we could not get out of it. Anyway, this spring I have been hitting the gym hard to work on my legs and work on some fast twitch muscle and to help my vertical. I have a trainer who has me doing squats, dead lifts, lunges, and other leg exercises. I work on legs every Tuesday and Thursday. I have already seen a difference in the power in my legs and am extremely excited to test them out once season hits. Monday, Wednesday, and then either Saturday or Sunday I do sprints in the sand and also up a hill. It's intense and hard but it's worth it. When I get tired I just think about where I want to go and what I want to accomplish. It's amazing how a dream can help give you that little bit of extra that you need at the end of a workout.

I am going to be posting blogs about what I am doing in my training. They will get more exciting once summer hits and I am back home and can train with my partner and tournaments approach. Until then I hope you can bare with me while I continue training here at Bradley. There are a lot of exciting things to come and I am very optimistic about this summer and where it will take me. I hope you join me on this journey! If you have any questions just ask! :)