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.