Mixed Results

After good cardio sessions on Monday and Tuesday last week I ran down to the NSC on Wednesday night, to warm up for circuit training. It was a really good workout, but there were quite a few exercises involving squats and lunges and boy did my inner thighs ache for the next couple of days - obviously muscles I don't exercise enough! On Thursday Vinny, Dave W and I met up at the NSC and did a 5 mile loop, down to Douglas Prom, up Summerhill and back past the Grandstand with a good average speed of just over 6 miles an hour, but it felt comfortable.

Saturday was the usual 'long walk' with Dave M, Michael and Vinny. We decided to do about 15 miles, apart from Michael, who with an eye on the 20km race at the Manx Harriers Ascot Hotel Open Meeting on Saturday, planned to do slightly less. The walk was a fairly easy pace from the NSC, along the promenade and out past Groudle. On arriving in Laxey we turned left opposite the Queens and up Rencell Hill, which Dave claimed to have never been up before, so was a bit surprised at how long it drags on for. The 'prize' when you reach the top is the great view back over Laxey and the hills past Glen Roy in the opposite direction. It was at that point the sun came out, so it was almost perfect. We then followed the back road from Creg Ny Baa to the top of the Whitebridge (where Dave picked up an unfortunate injury, that I won't go in to) and then back into Douglas - a distance of 17 miles, so a little further than planned.

We had a new edition to the family on Saturday afternoon when Kyley's sister Steph and her husband Gareth become the proud parents of a baby girl, Daisy Elizabeth, a little sister to Ethan. Below is a picture of Daisy, who weighed 7lb and 3oz at birth and Tom (our first and best baby, as he likes to claim). Hard to believe at 6ft tall now that he was also the same weight 17 years and 6 days ago!

Today was all about the football. It started this morning at Pulrose where Tom was playing for Corinthians A against St Marys. St Marys are probably the strongest team in the league and Corinthians had quite a few players missing, so had to call up some B team players and had no subs, so they were expecting to get battered. Deservedly Corinthians took the lead after about 15 minutes, but St Marys equalised just before half time. In the second half Corinthians were under a lot of pressure and eventually they conceded a late goal with the game finishing 2-1 to St Marys, but they could be proud of the effort they put in and a great team performance. I thought Tom's day was going to go from bad to worse when his football team Arsenal went 2 nil down against Spurs, but shockingly they came back to win 5-2.

The mighty Colby Vets were also in action today against Onchan. We hadn't played a match for 4 weeks, but we were upbeat following our last performance against St Marys. Unfortunately, we had a lot of players either off the Island or injured and struggled to get 11 today. This wasn't helped when one of the team picked up a hamstring injury after about 5 minutes and we limped to a 3-0 defeat, with two of the goals self-inflicted. Credit to Onchan for the way they played, but one thing you do need in the Vets League is to have the full quota of substitutes and use them correctly. On the positive side Man U beat Norwich to keep the pressure on City and it also brought up an amazing 900 appearances from Giggs. We could do with him in our Vets team when he finally decides to call it a day in professional football!

I will probably take things fairly easy this week on the training front, as I'm going to have a go at the 20km on Saturday, with my objective to get under 1 hour and 50 minutes.