Spent the weekend in ABQ participating in the 2007 Dog Bowl tournament. I entered C singles and doubles, though I didn't have a doubles partner (Dick broke his hand during practice a couple months ago) so they set me up with some random guy.

In doubles, we won our first match in two games against a pair of UNM students. The second game we lost to a teacher-student pair from a college in Santa Fe. They were better than we were and we lost in two games, though the games were close and it was a good challenge.

In singles, I was seeded #1 so I got a bye on the first round. My second round game was at 8 in the morning, and I made the mistake of assuming they'd have food there. They generally have bagels to eat, but for some reason they were late arriving this time. I had brought a snickers bar with me and ate that, and felt OK going into the first game. I went up 12-0 on the guy (a 70-year old dentist from ABQ called Dr. Bob), and eventually won 21-14. However, at the end of the first game, I was really feeling hungry, was out of candy, and the bagels still hadn't arrived. It was amazing how it affected my performance. I couldn't move or react as fast as I'm accustomed to and I ended up losing the second game 16-21. By the end of it, I was really hurting for food and there were still no bagels. I lost the tie-breaker 1-11.

I was pretty annoyed with my performance and the assumption I had made about there being food. As I stewed over that, I ate some of the bagels that predictably showed up just after my match. Having eaten those, I played a consolation match (best of three games to 15) against a guy from Flagstaff. I won 15-0, 15-4. Amazing what a little food will do... Next time, I'm bringing some emergency rations.