Our Pickleball Journey Continues
After about 7 months of playing pickleball at our local recreation centre, we started to look for more opportunities to play with other people. It also became clear that we were becoming a bit more competitive so venturing further out into the pickleball world was the next logical step.
We were fortunate to find a grassroots facility that used a local curling club in the summer months. Those first few times it was a bit of an awakening to play open rec. We realized we had a lot to learn but the great thing is we were ready to. We upgraded our paddles, which did make a difference in our play as well. The beginnings of my pickleball outfits were also developing.
From the curling club we connected with another privately run group with a great bunch of people, many of whom we had played with during the summer. This led to us playing 2 times a week there and still one time a week at the local rec centre for the next 8 months. We also added a practice area in our basement in addition to using a local tennis court to drill and play skinny singles.
An exciting part of our pickleball journey was taking a vacation to play pickleball. Our first adventure was in Florida at the Omni Amelia Island Resort. We had our first formal pickleball lessons from the pro.
All this play allowed us to develop our skills faster than we thought. It became clear that our play had outpaced our rec centre pickleball players. We had, however, become more than competitive at the summer curling club so we began playing three times a week with this group.
We did our first tournament with the summer group at the end of the summer. My husband ended up winning the day with his partner (not me). More importantly, we had such a great day with friends that we continue to play with on a regular basis.
Interesting developments occurred from playing at different facilities with different surfaces. Our bodies started to feel some stress from playing on the concrete floor at the curling club. This meant adding some restorative and preventative measures to our pickleball lifestyle. Look for a new post about restorative and injury prevention measures while playing pickleball.
In the fall of our second year playing pickleball we decided to leave the rec centre behind and just concentrate on practising and our 2 times a week group play until the new indoor facility was ready.
We took a winter vacation in Antigua, connecting with some pickleball players from the US. A new post about our Antigua will be coming soon.
To see where our journey began, why I started this blog, our journey along the way check and our life before pickleball check out these other posts.
Our Introduction into Pickleball
Two Years of Playing Pickleball – Where are we now.
Pickleboro – Peterborough has turned into Pickleball Central
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