After yesterday's difficult, pacey run I could probably have done with a day's rest. But my schedule had other ideas. A few of my friends have been playing five a side football on Wednesdays for a long time. Initially this was of limited interest to me - I didn't play football and was so unfit that the prospect of running around like a mad little lout was neither appealing nor possible.
But after a while I was feeling left out, with a gaping hole in my mid-week social life and a vastly increased lung capacity. A few weeks ago I had decided to join in. And today was the appointed day.
I was stupidly nervous and self conscious about playing. Football has never really been my thing, and I hadn't played consistently for decades. As soon as I moved to 'big' school I switched indifferently to rugby in winter, cricket in summer. Football on the field behind my primary school was left as a memory from my pre-teen life, and I never really played since. I knew the boys took the game relatively seriously, and they were decent enough players. So the potential for incompetent embarrassment was there, and I felt my usual anxious hesitancy about trying something new. Fortunately I loved it. I always do this, get worked up over something I haven't tried, and then love it when I force myself to do.
It might seem that this story is unconnected with the running-focus of this blog, but I intend to make Wednesday football an integral component of training. It is perfect anaerobic, intensive, interval based training. Five a side is hard work, and by the end of the 45 minutes even the fittest on the field were drenched in sweat. It should be a perfect way of incorporating a training style I find difficult, and makes for a new high point on the weekly schedule.
It did leave me with a pretty nasty and sizeable blister on the ball of my left foot. I need to start treating my feet in surgical spirits and toughening them up!
But after a while I was feeling left out, with a gaping hole in my mid-week social life and a vastly increased lung capacity. A few weeks ago I had decided to join in. And today was the appointed day.
I was stupidly nervous and self conscious about playing. Football has never really been my thing, and I hadn't played consistently for decades. As soon as I moved to 'big' school I switched indifferently to rugby in winter, cricket in summer. Football on the field behind my primary school was left as a memory from my pre-teen life, and I never really played since. I knew the boys took the game relatively seriously, and they were decent enough players. So the potential for incompetent embarrassment was there, and I felt my usual anxious hesitancy about trying something new. Fortunately I loved it. I always do this, get worked up over something I haven't tried, and then love it when I force myself to do.
It might seem that this story is unconnected with the running-focus of this blog, but I intend to make Wednesday football an integral component of training. It is perfect anaerobic, intensive, interval based training. Five a side is hard work, and by the end of the 45 minutes even the fittest on the field were drenched in sweat. It should be a perfect way of incorporating a training style I find difficult, and makes for a new high point on the weekly schedule.
It did leave me with a pretty nasty and sizeable blister on the ball of my left foot. I need to start treating my feet in surgical spirits and toughening them up!
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