I have had a dreadful cold since Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I went on the sixth grade overnight field trip, which involves hiking five miles up and down a mountain, and Saturday was my uncle's memorial service, so I figured since I felt like rat I might as well do a tournament on top of everything else.

However, I woke up with my lungs relatively clear and the weather is nice, so I figured I would be all right.

We had 21 for the tournament, including a bunch of guys from FASJ and elsewhere. It was nice to see Adam Zakheim and Oliver Elbert (Oliver's now at Haverford College too). Tim Hampshire was there, and a number of folks I haven't fenced.

Three pools of seven. I had a young FASJ fencer, Yang, who was clean and had good moves but was a little tentative. I also had Tim Hampshire (also FASJ) and Oliver Elbert (who is originally from BCAF), and Shannon Mack, Jamie MacRae, and Michelle Rajunov from FAP. When I was refereeing Oliver I told him I would card him if he kept anticipating the "fence" command, and suggested to him that he make his initial start smaller instead of big and fast. So it occurred to me that I should do that when it was my turn to fence him, and it worked very efficiently. Tim Hampshire, when he fenced me, really cranked up the speed and at one point he flunged at me, hit me on the head, and rocked my head back on my neck, which really scared me a little. I mean, I probably outweigh him by thirty pounds but it's still quite a projectile! However, I managed not to get completely upset and pulled myself together for the rest of the bout.

I ended up seeded first, but I could feel that the lungs had stopped cooperating. I had a bye into the sixteen, and then fenced Shannon; after that I fenced a nice kid, Stephen Moch, from Manhattan Fencing Center, whose coach is Sergey Isayenko. He was clean and correct and though his distance was a little off so he was finishing too deep and pummeled my back arm pretty good, he fenced well and defeated me 15-12. He lost to Ahren 7-15 in his next bout but still earned his C'07 (he was a D'07). We didn't have quite enough people for a B2.

I refereed the bouts after mine and had to use my inhaler, but I don't feel too bad right now. Fifth place is pleasant. Ahren won, defeating Oliver Elbert, who is really coming along well.

Afterwards, Ahren was complaining about how he was fencing; I pointed out that I had finished fifth, highest for the women, but I felt wasn't fencing that well either because . . .

. . . and he agreed that though we both are crafty fencers, neither of us is in very good shape right now.

Tomorrow starts my training year.