Thursday, I went over to Pat’s for a long-planned table ten­nis marathon. Before we start­ed, he cooked us din­ner; rib-eye steak grilled on the bar­be­cue, a fresh veg­etable stir-fry, and bruschet­ta as an appe­tiz­er. The steak was mar­i­nat­ing all day in a gar­lic and oil sauce, and the bruschet­ta spread was made using extra vir­gin olive oil and basil that he grew him­self. It’s great to have a friend whose pas­sion is cook­ing and eat­ing.

We end­ed up play­ing for about an hour and a half, because we end­ed up speak­ing for so long and I had to work the next day. Every game was close, and every best-out-of-five match went to the fifth game, with a deuce for match point dur­ing three of the five match­es. He was lead­ing by one the entire time, but I adjust­ed my tim­ing and took less risks, and end­ed up win­ning the final match 12–10.

It was frus­trat­ing to be play­ing in his base­ment because I’m used to a much big­ger area with much bet­ter light­ing. The ball was hard to keep track of, and I did­n’t have the same floor­ing to maneu­ver on, so it felt like my legs were glued to the ground. My toes start­ed get­ting raw and painful about half way through, due to the fact that I usu­al­ly play with my weight shift­ed off the heel, but I was able to ignore it, con­cen­trate on play­ing, and fol­low through with a nar­row win. I real­ized that the dis­tance I stand away from the table is pro­por­tion­al to the dis­tance of the table to the wall. Unfortunately, this means that my tim­ing is all screwed up depend­ing on the loca­tion that I play. I need to work on being con­sis­tent in all play­ing con­di­tions.