Training XVII

Monday's session left Zico with a thigh strain, Fat Lad with a hamstring strain, Titfer with Achilles tendon agony and me with a tightish left hamstring.

CE was taking it easy on Monday having successfully taken his PGMOL fitness test for National League Assistant Referees at Warwick. He was complaining about a tight hamstring in one leg but attributed it to the stresses and strains of the test. He turned out last night as referee for a FL Reserve team fixture and lasted just 9 minutes as the hamstring tightened up too much. His fitness coach feels sure it's just a reaction to the fitness test and so he trained with us tonight.

Tonight's session saw Zico nip off halfway through as she had training with her team. She managed to twist her ankle while we were undertaking our main exercise which was 1m running, 30s rest repeated 8 times with a 4 minute static rest and then repeated. I spent virtually all of the running time at 93-95% of heart rate max and by the time the recovery time had elapsed I had dropped to around 88-90% of max - a hard, hard session.

We were joined by Mr H who looked better than last time I saw him and seemed happier with his training. Fat Lad and CE both did really well. I half overheard a conversation between CE and Mr H which was about Fat Lad. It seems that Mr H has every confidence in him passing his test in 8 weeks time.

As for me I managed my fastest ever warm up lap in 3m39s. That's a full 36s faster than the warm up lap I managed two weeks ago. I've started to be able to maintain a higher level of running for a longer period and my recovery period, back to being able to talk and breath normally, is shortening. I was able to run at a reasonable pace for all of the 16 minutes of activity tonight and although I finished 450m behind CE and Mr H (around 300m behind Fat Lad), I really am beginning to feel the benefits of the weeks of training.

An added bonus from tonight is that Zico's team needs a referee for a game next Wednesday so I've offered my services. So next week looks busy with training on Monday and Friday, Assistant Referee on Tuesday and Referee on Wednesday. At the end of the week I'm going to be observing a training course for new referees. I'll be reporting back my observations and depending on other engagements, will be singing the praises of the course and the instructors (CE and C the Y will be taking part in that respect) at the first RA meeting of the new season which is due to be held in mid August ... which is only 4 weeks away !!!