Diary of a Retiring Rugby Player – Surviving Pre-Season Training

I have survived the first training session!

This has been a mixed blessing. On the plus side all my joints and muscles functioned as they were supposed to. This means that I can plough ahead with the plan of having a good last season and while the end is in sight, it’s a relief to know I’m not there yet.

On the minus side it was hard.

Not hard in the sense that we were beasted up and down the field, but hard in that I was probably the least fit person there. A few years back I turned up to my first training session a week before the season started. One of the exercises was to do 4 laps of the pitch. I was really smug when I was the quickest back row player there, despite missing out on the 2 months of exercise that the others had under their belts. Tonight, was a different story. I held my own for the first lap, faded heavily in the second, ran the third like a toddler with his mums shoes on and after the hooker lapped me, I crossed the line for the end of my 3rd lap and got given a finishing time. I considered running on but thought, nah. I’ll take every advantage I can get.

In a game you have to play the ref, right?

When one of the coaches asked me for my finish time, I confessed that I didn’t place, and I could sense the disappointment wafting from him. I built on this by walking as much as I could and missing a few turns in some of the other exercises because some of the keener young whippersnappers beat me back to the start. There was also a big part of me sensing that everyone knew I’d cheated; everyone could see me walking and everyone was thinking “What the fuck is that old man doing here?” To be honest, as I trundled around the field wheezing, I wondered what the fuck I was doing here. For someone who was among the fittest and fastest to be at the other end of the spectrum is hard. I hope it’s not permanent. I can’t make Thursdays session (I’m going to see Romeo and Juliet in the theatre in the cinema with my wife. I know) but I’ll do what I can on Saturday.

Finished the session with a shake of protein, creatine, banana, apple, milk, cinnamon and peanut butter. I would take some anti-inflammatory, but I’m worried that will affect how effective the protein is. I’m also taking some ZMA before I go to sleep. That will be a long time coming as after a first workout in ages my metabolism is buzzing for the next few hours. It will be late before I finally drop off tonight…If anyone has some other tips around recovery it would be great to hear them.

Anything (preferably legal) to help me last #OneMoreSeason

by “Erik”