Tennis is X-Training, honest.

After a long morning on call we took the kids to the swimming pool, for a mess about, then then an hour of tennis. The boys manage about 20 mins of flapping their arms around before getting bored, so we get about 40 mins to flap our arms around instead. I wasn’t as disastrous as I thought I might be. I should really organise a regular session with Jimmy C. I reckon it’s good cross training; I don’t think that Graeme agrees, particularly. He seems more concerned with falling over and breaking my ankle!

Later in the day I was able to go out for the scheduled run. It was meant to be an easy run, but once I got going it was nice, so I ended up doing more of a steady run. Part way through, on the way back up the Perth road from the Invercarse, there was another guy running – I thought I should catch him up, obviously. I just about made it, but had to up the tempo significantly to catch him. Not quite the easy run Graeme had in mind, I suppose. But the knees feel better, my glutes feel more sore, which must mean I’m using them, and I feel better when I’m running.

http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/125362603

Looking at next week’s training program, it looks tough. Tougher than last week. And no rest day.

Tennis With Jimmy C

An evening game of tennis with Jimmy C. He’s very good. Me, less so. But, I’m getting better. One thing about playing someone much better than me – it’s a Hell of a work-out. 75 minutes of sweaty tennis. Great.

We swam afterwards, but just mucking about. I need to get back in the pool and do some drills, really. I’ve let that slip since I started focusing on the running. I suspect it’ll be a Winter training goal.

Perhaps a cycle tomorrow, after work…

Tennis and a Swim

Another bit of tennis today. 1/2 hours lesson with Jenny Tennis, and some practice with Emma first.

More improvement – but my backhand could still do with some work!

A swim in the indoor, then outdoor pool with the kids afterwards. Not a lot of training involved, but nice to be swimming outside!

Tennis Lesson

Tennis lesson with Jenny Tennis. Not played for ages, not since the last tennis lesson, actually, so I went in expecting garbage. There was certainly some garbage. But some surprisingly good bits too. Some of it actually looked like tennis. Need to work on my backhand, mind.

Somewhere through it I managed to stub my toe in the end of my new *bright yellow* Yonex shoes, and get a small sub ungal haematoma. I went to A&E, but they weren’t very impressed with it, and declined to trephine it. Sods.

I bet it gets worse with the Duathlon tonight, which I am looking forward to!

Tennis Downs and Ups

Another tennis lesson with Jenny Tennis today. Total mixed bag. I decided to ask about grips – how to hold the racquet, not what colour the handle should be – and I had it just about completely the wrong way around. So, with that fixed, my ground strokes went completely messed up. Long, short, skied, sclaffed, the whole 9 yards. Terrible. So I shuffled the grip back around to half way back towards what I had before, and things slowly started to come back again. But it was pretty demoralising to go so many steps backwards. But; Kaisen.

So on to serving, which I have been particularly scattershot at. It went really well. I estimate 80% serves in. And I have something which might actually be a second serve. I’ve only been having lessons for 3 weeks, and before that I never really *played*, more just smacked it about a bit. So it’s been a really great steep learning curve, and I’m really enjoying it.

And it’s great fitness training, too. Coach reckons it’s a good complimentary cross training for swimming – certainly it’s similar core strength, co-ordination and shoulder strength. And it’s sweaty.

I was going to go for a swim too, but after the tennis, I was pretty tired, and fancied lunch, to be honest. I have another tennis lesson tomorrow, with the boys, so I think we’ll go for a wee swim afterwards. Outdoor pool. Obviously.

I resisted the temptation to buy the Nike+ GPS watch. The software is great, but and the watch is great, but I think I should go for the £180 cheaper option, of going out for a few runs first. And I can always borrow Emma’s Nike+ kit for her iPod Nano. In fact, I think it would work with my iPod touch…..

Birthday Tennis Lesson, and wee swim

Happy Birthday to me.

Tennis lesson with Jenny Tennis. Hard work. Steep learning curve, though. We started practicing serves. My badminton smash should keep me right, as the movements are pretty much the same thing. I have to slow everything down, of course, but I have an idea of how it’s meant to go at least. It’s very tiring, running around the tennis court. Good for general fitness.

I went for a short swim straight after. I didn’t fancy a long swim, so I just went for a 400 swim, managing to beat 6 minutes, which I was very pleased with. If I can carry on that pace, I’m managing 24 minutes for a mile. Something to aim for. Now the drills move onto intermediate, I think I’ll be back to basics, with lots of balance drills. I think that will help.

I also need to get back into the other two disciplines: cycling to work; running a bit more, that is, running at all!

Not a lot of time to do much sport for the rest of the week, talk tomorrow, Middle East meeting Thursday, then it’s the weekend. Back into training next week, I think.