The Night Before

Well, it is back to Rugby training tomorrow evening, and I am looking forward to the session tomorrow night. I managed to get out for a run yesterday evenng after work, and I am nowhere near as sore as I was after my training session with the rugby team last time. I also managed to do an enormous walk on Saturday, and that helped a lot with the residual soreness from the training. The training tomorrow night will be different to running on my own, but I am picking that it will be a good session for me, and the soreness should return but be a lot less intense than it was last time.

I plan to take Friday night off from training and will be heading out after work to watch the first game of the local rugby competition on television. I'm really looking forward to the start of the rugby season, it will be a real cracker, and it is made that much more exciting by actually playing the game. This weekend I will also return to the gym and insist that time is put aside for that this weekend. This is a really important part of training as it helps with the impact training that will be part of the Rugby sessions for me in the near future. I still have no intention of doing any contact training in the meantime.

I will let you all know how it goes tomorrow night. I am sure that it will be fun, and my short term goal is to emerge from the training sessions injury free...easier said than done apparently. This time I may do some warm up on my own and make sure that I stay at my own pace. I should be able to handle it better this time, and hopefully I will be able to set the standard for training sessions to come. Good luck to you all, check back soon for more on my fight against fat.

And So It Begins

Last night was the first night of rugby training, and to be fair it was quite tough. Fortunately for me it wasn't too hot yesterday, so that made running around that much easier. However, it has been some time since I did any sprinting or the rest of the training that comes with rugby.

I was pleasantly surprised with my perforance though. I was running at the end of the pack most of the time, but apart from one running section of the training I completed it all. I was not impressed with the structure of the training. We went right into it, and there wasn't much stretching at all. Consequently, I took it a bit easy as the body simply isn't as young as it used to be...I wasn't at all surprised when three of my colleagues fell out of training with torn calves and dodgy hamstrings.

However, the worst surprise came when they bought out the tackle pads and expected us to begin carshing into each other. Now, I know this was going to happen, but not at the first training when I haven't run fulls team into another bloke for a few years. To me, that is just asking for trouble, and sure enough there were a few more injuries sustained by those who did take part. I felt that by that stage I had done enough for the first session and so I sat that part out with my mate from work. He was not inclined to tackle this early on. I mean there are still two months to go until the first pre-season game so it isn't like we haven't got time to get a bit of fitness together first.

I enjoyed having a run around and meeting some new people. I think that I will keep going for as long as I can, and one thing that struck me about the training is that having other people around does make you go harder than you do on your own. I expended quite a lot of effort in the sprints to make sure that I kept up with the others, and I reckon that I did pretty well. Bring it on, I love the training and I even managed to avoid the pub afterwards! Maybe next time!

I am sore this morning however. My legs hurt, my groin is really tight, my back hurts (thanks to a wayward pass that I had to scoop up off the ground while running at full speed - good to know that skill is still there, even if the body found it tough first time up). It feels good however, as I know this means that I put in a good effort and will be rewarded. I am going to up my running time during the week so that next time when I go back I can do even better. I'd like to get into one of the teams for the season, but wont be disappointed if I don't. I was definitely at the upper end of the age range for the training session! Check back soon for more on my training.

Decisions, Decisions

Well folks, having made the transition to Blogger Beta, although it is no longer beta, I have a few decisions to make. If I change my template and update it to the new blogger formats, I will lose all of the HTML goodies that I have added to the blog - such as my stats...

I'm not sure if it is worth doing this, and perhaps starting again from the new weight, or if I should remain with my old template and leave it just the way it is. It would be nice, I guess, to have a record of the entire journey to my new goal weight...If anyone out there has any thoughts, leave some comments on what you think I would be best to do.

Making Progress, But Still Really Busy

I have been making progress, but am finding it hard with all the work I have on to report to you all aobut it, sorry, but I will be more regular with my posting as of next week. Promise!

My rugby training starts next Thursday. I have decided to do the training and see how I pull up, I may decide not to play, I can't really afford any injuries at this stage of my life, and the older I get the more likely those injuries are to ocurr, and any injury is also likely to be more serious. Anyway, I will see what the action is after a few training sessions, once I am able to gague the level of skill that my fellow players have and if I feel up to it. A great way to meet people, and it should be fun, as well as healthy and it should also save me some money if I can use this training, and my own to keep fit and not spend money with the trainer.

Tomorrow my partner and I plan to go for a walk, but we will have to wait and see what the weather does. It is enormously hot here today, and that is not conducive to exercise at all. I'll keep you all posted on how things are going for me.

Decision Made

Hi All, it has been a busy return to work, and a busy opening to this year. I have not yet had time to contact the trainer, and I am considering not doing that for a wee while yet. The reason? I have met someone at work that plays rugby like I used to, and training for the pre-season starts soon. I would like to start saving some money, so if I cut back on a personal trainer, and have some regular training sessions with some other people to go to (now that I can run again properly) I think that this would be a great way to fill the gap.

My first training session is next Thursday and I am about to get out and start preparing for it now. There will be no contact to begin with, just running around and general fitness training once a week. I am actually looking forward to this and it should be good fun, plus a great way to meet some people. I will keep you all posted on the training when it starts, but for now I am a tad under the weather - I have a sore throat and a bit of a fever so I am taking it easy until that passes by. Look out for some more posts soon.

Back Into the Swing of It

I have had a great holiday, and I hope that you all have as well. I mean, I had a fantastic break with my parents, and caught up with a lot of old friends over the two weeks that I have had off. I made the most of my time off, and had a really well deserved break over the festive season. I have put on some weight I believe, but I am not at all worried about it. There is plenty of time to get into the fitness thing now that we are in 2007, and I am back home now and get back into my routine.

It is good being home, while I had a good holiday and really enjoyed my time away, it did feel like coming home when we returned to our little home in Sydney. It is home now, but I still have a great time when I go back to visit where I used to live. I have made a decision that I have been thinking about for some time. I have decided that it is time for me to get back to the morning workouts, and this means doing a 30/30 spolit run from home for at least 45 minutes in the morning. This will necessitate a 5:00a.m start each day, and I hope to be able to do this, initially anyway, every second day. I will progress to running every day, and possibly doing another 45 minute session in the afternoon. I will keep all of you up to speed on how I do.

I will be posting on this blog with more regularity again than I have in recent times. I hope that you all will come and post comments on the blog and help me get back into the swing of things for my next long term goal session. I want to be at my 100kg overall goal mark by June this year. 6 months and I should be able to do it as I will be about 1/2 way there I reckon. Hope to hear from you all, positive comments really help.