Training 2.11

There's no escaping it, this training lark has completely taken over my life. I have had a rotten week at work travelling to the far ends of the M62 on Monday, narrowly avoided another trip to the same destination on Wednesday and then made a 14 hour round trip to the end of the A1 and beyond!

Normally I'd start the weekend with a few cans after training, in fact my wife is polishing off a nice bottle of Colombard Chardonnay with her feet up (she's had a tough week too). Tonight my first thought after training this weekend was not the usual head to the off licence to dull the niggle of such a bad week, no I was wanting to get home so I could have an amazing salad. That was after narrowly avoiding a cardiac arrest as Fat Lad put me and Paulie through our paces.

He's started attending the County FA's School of Excellence for training sessions on Thursday nights and bringing their session to us on Friday. This seems fine except this week, because he is doing his fitness test on Sunday, he just gave us instructions and stepped back to shout encouragement. Not really much comfort when my chest feels like it has a pair of rib spreaders inserted in it and I am running in deep sea divers boots.

Tonight's session consisted of starting at the goal line and running

- to the edge of the goal area and back
- to the edge of the penalty area and back
- to the half way line and back
- to the edge of the far penalty area and back
- to the opposite goal line and back

When the SoE were doing this same exercise, they did it across the field with the gaps between turns spaced proportionally, they were doing it 1m20s but we had at least another 200m we had 2m30s. We got close on most of the runs but only completed 4 before I started feeling very, very ill.

We took a 5 minute rest and then did another 4 repetitions, this time across the field. Even so at the end of the 4th I collapsed with fatigue (long time since that happened!). This was one of the toughest sessions we have ever tried and it really hurt. After the warmdown, it was time to wish the Fat Lad good luck for Sunday and head home for a well earned bath. Calories 1053, average hr 78%, max hr 98%.

Training 2.10

A pleasant surprise on stepping on the bathroom scales this morning as they told me that I've lost 3Kg (1/2st) since coming back from my holiday in Crete just 9 days ago. This might not seem remarkable as everyone puts weight on while on holiday and loses it when they come home, but I have been the same weight (or within a couple of pounds) for around 18 months. So I'm going to press on with my no beer/no bread/loads of salad diet, even thought it's becoming more difficult to ignore my rumbling stomach!

Tonight's training had a good turn out with Mr H, Chuckle Elder, recently married Ricky, Fat Lad and Paulie all turning up for a session. The first four mentioned above decided they would do a sprint session and as regular readers will know, my hamstrings are like cheesestrings so I try to avoid sprint training, especially this close to the start of the season.

I asked Chuckle to give me a stamina building session and Paulie wanted to join in. He set us a target of running 30s on/30s off for 30 repetitions. He even set the pace for us on the first run and we did our best to keep to the same pace throughout. We had a 1 minute rest after 10 and 2 minutes rest after 20 and finished almost on our knees when we did the 30th.

On the 12th run, Paulie pointed out a dog "deposit" that we needed to avoid but I managed to trample straight through it three laps later, requiring me to spend 15 minutes trying to clean it when I got home! Our session was a hard one and at the end I was absolutely exhausted. Calories burnt 1076, max hr 108% and average 80% over 1h4m.

No training on Wednesday as I have a meeting at my son's new school where he will be starting in September. I'll be back at it on Friday when it will be just 2 days to Fat Lad's test!!! The Achilles pain has flared up again but not as badly this time and there's no swelling this time, so happy days.

Oh well ...

My pre-season friendly featuring the team I have supported since I was a boy has been cancelled.

Instead I have been retained for the replacement fixture featuring a Unibond side vs the only team from the North East of England who still play in the English Premier League. I have lost the opportunity of working with Chuckle Elder as the game is on a different day, but I am now out with Mr H ... that will be a treat! So I've lost my dream team and favourite colleague but I get a higher quality team and an established FL referee - happy days!

As for the Achilles injury incurred on Friday, it seems to have been eased. It flared up again this afternoon after taking the dog, boy and Mrs on a walk for an hour around a local park. I think it's the high heel support on the brand of trainers I wear that's causing the problem. I wear the same brand of boots during the season, which would explain the lump and swelling on both Achilles!

Ouch!

With no one to blame but myself as I organised training last night, I seem to have suffered the first injury of the close season.

After sitting watching an hour or so of TV last night after training, before heading for my bath, I felt a pain in my right Achilles tendon. I had felt it earlier in the day when I got up from my desk to go for lunch but it had gone away over the course of the evening. It was just a tightening but it made me walk with a limp (steady!!!).

By the time I'd watched an atrocious film on Sky Movies about an ancient temple covered in flesh eating vines, the pain had been joined by a swelling. The worrying thing was that when I tried to compare the size and shape of the swollen and painful tendon to the other one, I found a lump about the size of a garden pea under the skin on the non-painful tendon. Meanwhile back at swelling central, there was a large hard band developing around the tendon.

I had hoped a good night's sleep would cure my ills and while the swelling had subsided by the time I reached my bath this morning, the pain was still there. I've found that moving around and doing ankle circles relieves the tightness, pain and swelling, so I'm doing that to make things better.

I can't miss training on Monday as I already have Wednesday booked out for a Meet the Parents night at my son's school where he starts in September. We're not in their usual catchment area, but his friends will all go there. As we live across the border in the next Metropolitan Council area, it was no surprise when our application for a place for him was rejected.

We saw no point in making an appeal as the class was full. When we came back from holiday an unsolicited review had been completed by the Governors and he had a place, so he'll not be separated from his nursery classmates after all!

Training 2.9

A word to the wise, never take the mickey out of a bloke's fading suntan when

a) he's still coming to terms with having to go back to work after 2 weeks on the beach
b) he's about to set that night's training session
c) you haven't trained properly for a couple of weeks

My sunburn from my two weeks in Crete has now settled down completely, the peeling has set in and the tan has started to fade. I wasn't that bothered by the banter tonight as I had already decided on the session for tonight on Thursday. It was "envelope" time and the boys were going to work - HARD!

Warm up, especially elongated and messed up just to keep the Fat Lad, Paulie and Penfold on their toes and then into the work. Starting at the bottom left corner of the field, run to the centre mark, turn right to the corner on the same goal line, do 5 press ups. Run again from that corner to the centre mark, turn right and on to the corner on the same touchline, do 5 sit ups. Run back to the centre mark, turn right and on the the corner on the same goal line, do 5 star jumps. Finish by running back to the centre mark, turn right heading back to the corner we started from and on arrival do 5 squats. Rest ... for 90 seconds and repeat ... three times.

After a 6 minute rest at the end of the 4th set, we did another 4 sets. Fat Lad, having had a hard session at the County's School of Excellence last night, was doing some sprint work. He was doing 6x30m, 8x20m, 10x10m and 12x5m. Now Fat Lad finished before us and decided to run us around the last set but not do the exercises on each corner.

Penfold didn't manage to finish all of the first set of four. Paulie did the full set of four both times and on occasion I was glad of his company as I dragged myself around. We also had a few moments of giggles at his expense during the warm down. As we were completing our stretches, he complained of something brown and smelly on his knee. He thought he'd just kneeled in some dog "deposit" and then as he brushed the recently cut grass from his knee, smeared it across his leg! Fortunately for him, it was just some churned up dead grass!

It was a hard, hard work out in the heat tonight .. calories 1213, average he 82% and max hr 100%. The week's total calories 3672!

My whole lower body aches now though ... I'm sure it will be easier next week