Mid-week Mayhem

Yesterday was a running day.  So I ran.  A lot.  At netball training.

I had intended to go running at lunchtime, but I got caught up doing something else and couldn't get out.  I thought that I would go after netball instead but a couple of things got in the way of that.  The first was that it was tipping it down with rain (not quite to the point where I was wondering whether I'd need to use my amazing swimming skills to get home, but sufficient to make me rue leaving my raincoat at home).  The second was that we played "versatility" in netball training last night.  If you know nothing about netball, this might be lost on you, but the principle is that you play whatever position you draw - the player bibs are thrown in the air and you grab one without looking and have to play the position on the bib you've grabbed.

Now, I usually play goalkeeper or goal shooter - these are positions which require little running and are all about jostling for position in a very small space.  However, I managed to get stuck at wing attack, centre and wing defence (all mid-court positions) in succession and spent a large part of the evening running from one end of the court to the other, especially as centre - I'm a slow enough runner that by the time I've reached where the ball is, it's already on its way back down the court.  I seem to recall this type of problem being what put me off playing (field) hockey altogether when I was at school.  I think I got put as centre half for several games lessons in a row and found it so frustrating that I never wanted to play ever again (and managed to get away with that other than the annual house hockey competition, where if you could move you were required to wield an offensive weapon (otherwise known as a hockey stick) for one afternoon a year).

Therefore, I did quite a lot of running - not the monotonous, boring plodding that I'm actually required to do, but enough to make me feel like going out running after my running would be overkill.  I've no idea how far I ran, but I can safely say it was a long way.

It seems I was right not to do even more running, as I woke up this morning with a twinge of my back problem from last week.  Enough to make me decide not to cycle today, but not enough to stop me from feeling guilty about not cycling today.  I will be cycling tomorrow, though, and not swimming - I'm going swimming on Saturday with James.  Although I'm still sticking to the training plan in over all spirit, it is becoming more and more difficult to do the right things on the right days.  I've decided it doesn't really matter as long I'm training the right amount and resting enough.