Category: sport

I miss my car park

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This one. This one.

BUT NOT FOR LONG!

A last minute announcement of a last minute training session this evening, and so I get to go out to my car park one last time and enjoy two hours of low flying aircraft, a view (and smell) of the local oil refinery, and possibly a little doze in the car. And then back to loadshedding at home, our sixth cut in two days.
And we’ll get another three tomorrow. It’s very wearing.

The cold and wet weekend was full of beer, pizza and comfort food, and so I threw myself back into the gym this afternoon for an hour or so to try and make some small dent in the calorie count. I’m not sure that it’s done much good physically, but I feel a lot less guilty about those n beers on Saturday evening.

(Worryingly, n=8 in this particular instance. 4 whole litres of lagery goodness. Naughty naughty.)

It’s also been a productive day with a lot of jobs ticked off my to do list. Plenty more to get into tomorrow, but as I’ve mentioned, I might just chill out in my car park this evening.

EDIT: And I did.

Deadline

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I am SOOOOO ready to get back to playing football again. Tuesday nights are a bit of a nightmare Chez 6000, so while I’m not playing, I’m doing my level best to help out with taking kids to various places. That way, when I can play once again, and I can’t take kids to places, we can at least look back over the year and note that I did take some of the kids to some places at least some of the time.

The only thing holding me back now is this bloody calf, which sadly, I do need to chat to a Physio about. Medical expenses can like to be absolutely ridiculous this year. Not quite one hour at the cardiologist cost over R4000, but as was pointed out, that’s a tiny fraction of what an actual cardio incident might cost, and that’s a reassuring way to look at it.

The calf is a weird one. I can do everything except run. I can walk up huge hills at 6kph. I can walk for 10km around the neighbourhood. I can use a stepping machine. I can do a cardio session. No issue.
But 20 seconds into a gentle jog (ok, it was a bit longer here, but…) and we’re back to square one. And downhills are worse than uphills, which makes me wonder if the calf actually knows what it’s doing.

I read this article which told me I was getting old, but did have an interesting link to L5/S1 lower back trouble (which I’ve had since I was 16) in elite athletes (which I’ve been all my life). Just weird that it’s never manifested itself in my calf until now, but I guess that’s where the age bit comes in. If “the science” is to be believed, that is. [rolleyes emoji]

But it needs to get sorted and it needs to get sorted before 19th July, which is the last Tuesday before the anniversary of my Covid infection. And I am determined not to let this keep me out for over a year. Whatever it takes to be on that pitch, I will be there.

Because like I say, everything else is ready to go: I haven’t been this fit since… well… just before I got Covid. Whether I can ever get back to that level, I don’t know, but there’s no harm in trying and hoping.

So I’m very ready to get this one little thing mended now and get going again.

Left it too late

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I wanted to watch the football this evening.

We got back from the shops early enough, but then I accidentally clicked through onto the Epsom Derby while scrolling through the sport channels. I chose to take a couple of cues from the Irish punters who were in the local feed, and lobbed a quick bet or two on the race.

Long story short, I got two of the top three, including the winner on an each way bet, and so now I’m several (or more) Rands better off as I settle down to the first half from Budapest.

Sadly, it’s left very little time for blogging.

So: more tomorrow.

The Last Day

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Yesterday’s climax to several of Europe’s top football leagues was every bit as exciting as any neutral could ever have hoped for. Of course, no-one is completely neutral in these matters: I can’t recall any game where I actually didn’t care at all about who was going to win. After all, we all have our little foibles and favourites and many reasons whey we hate the dirty, scab bastards from Nottingham.

And you can spin it any way you want, but Bill Shankly was right: winning is everything. And thus I know readers who will be happy and readers who won’t be happy this morning.

For me, looking across England, Spain and Italy last night (the leagues I watch) and the bits that I was mildly invested in, I got two out of three at the top (one having been decided long ago), and one of out three at the bottom (from yesterday).
Not great, but still better than the one that I was really invested in, which didn’t happen at all.

So now we are about to enter a period of quiet evenings in front of the family instead of the football. Of having to learn and talk about cricket (wut?!?) to distract ourselves, or face up to the crushing reality of South Africa’s economic predicament (I’ll take the cricket, please). Of betting on the likes of FCs Honka and Petrzalka, instead of the Blades and Real Madrid. Of blissfully early nights and lower stress levels.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself. Bring on the 30th July.