Fetlock & Load

It was another coolish Wednesday night when the 2010 squad gathered down at the Kerferd Rd pier. Malone was missing while she trained with a netball team called the Healesville Sanctuary if that is a real team, their website is nothing but cuddly koalas. Other than that, it was all hands on deck.

Tragedy struck in the first five minutes of the beach session. Moss, who can always be found in cool, damp places, injured a fetlock during the warm-up run. We didn't call the vet to come down and administer some 22 caliber medicine just yet, because we've all grown rather fond of her. But I'm fairly confident that we'll see her at the Parawealth Games in Delhi this October.

Hey that reminds me, did you know that the Commonwealth Games are on at the same time as Nationals? Opening Ceremony is October 3rd, and Closing Ceremony is October 14th. This really puts a crimp in my plans to take leave from work, order the Foxtel package and spend a fortnight drinking beer and eating spicy curries while working on my Delhi-Jelly-Belly.

Speaking of delicious cheesy garlic naan bread, this last beach session really took a lot of carbs out of the old tank. The best warm-up man in the business took us through some light run-throughs and some stretches before we hit the sand, and then it's all sort of a blur.

But before we get to the parts about the running, as this was Hullsy's first session, I have to tell you, teeth, not insanely Bali-dentist super-white. I haven't got any feedback from Rysah about the boobs yet though, every time I say, "Hey Rysah, boobs?" he just says, "heh...boobs...heh heh". He's very Beavis and Butthead about the whole topic.

And then came the running. We ran in straight lines, we ran in squares, we ran in diagonals. We ran around Loz, which seems to be getting tougher every week. We did push-ups and bridges in between running in diagonals, I breathed in a lot of sand, we did footwork drills in the sand, I coughed up a lot of sand, we ran more straight lines. The whole thing was cruel, and surely it can't be a coincidence that you can't spell VADER without D, A, V, E

And then at the end, I said no to pizza, which should have been an obvious sign that I had developed an embolism in my brain. I mean who says no to pizza? Especially volcano pizza with king prawns?