Locke from Lost

The article in The Age was talking about how this Wednesday was going to be one of the coldest, wettest and windiest days on record and that the SES was on standby for a flood of emergency calls. But Dave knew better, he told the team that a little water wouldn't hurt anyone and that the beach session was still going ahead.

Personally I thought it was a trust exercise, he was just testing us to see which people would make feeble excuses not to show-up, but no he was serious. And his faith was justified, despite a plethora of ponchos supplied by The Mac, the rain stopped right at 6.30 and it was a lovely night for training.

For those of you scoring at home, the number of people with feeble excuses not to show-up: 1 - Is M-League even a real thing Hullsy? Poor form.

Taking the conditions into account, tonight's session placed more emphasis on continual movement and recovery rather than the stop-start stuff we'd done previously. So we did some broad jumps with some run-throughs, some high-knee action, and some butt-flicks. A friend of mine in Canberra makes pretty good money doing butt-flicks, but I can't in good conscience give you the link to the website.

We then were told to organise ourselves from fittest to not-fittest based on our own judgement. I was too far away to see what was going on down the fit end of the line, but Ryzah, The Mac, Lemons and Mossy were up there in some order, then I had asthma-riddled Bec on my left and Tonah on my right, with Kylie one spot further down. Woohoo, not last! This must be how Steven Bradbury feels all the time. What an adrenalin rush.

We then did a circle drill, it basically entailed running clockwise for 2 and a half minutes at about 40-50% effort, and then counter-clockwise for the same time frame. Because Gen Y people have terrible attention deficit disorder, and Dave was worried about some of the team wandering off to play with seagulls (Bec!), to keep things interesting, at any time he could yell out 1 of 4 things; Sprint - 5 quick strides, max effort, Back - 5 steps backward, Burpee - 2 burpees (I hate you burpees my old nemesis) or Push-Up - 5 push-ups.

So we did that on a triangular course, it was my favourite type of triangle, isosceles. The course was made up of two volleyball posts and Leesy's umbrella, in fact Leesy's umbrella was in almost every drill. It was very cruel when Dave started calling the umbrella Esther, but maybe that was just because he missed her so much.

Did the clockwise, did the anti-clockwise, burpees got taken down from two to one with a couple of minutes to go. Push-ups were a killer though, it was an off-day as mandated by my 100 Pushups iPhone app, very cruel.

Then we split into two groups, and had a race. It was a magnificent piece of handicapping by Dave as it turned out to be a dead-heat after 4 run-throughs each. Thank goodness no-one asked for a re-match. And then it all turned racist.

Dave set-up another triangle, this one was scalene I believe, and then asked us to start running in Indian-file fashion. Well didn't this set some people off. "Do you mean Native American file or Sachin Tendulkar file?", says Ryzah. "Indian-file", says Dave. "Is maize a staple of our diet, or is it rice?", asks Kylie. "Indian-file", says Dave. "Do I worship the Great Water Buffalo or the many arms of Ganesh?", inquires Lemons. "Indian-file and now you are doing it twice", says Dave. "Shut the F up", says Tonah. And that's why he's the captain.

So it's Indian-file with a slight twist, instead of the person at the back sprinting to the front, in this format the person at the front, sprints round the course and latches onto the back of the group. "Ah, Sachin Tendulkar-file", nods Ryzah. And off we go, and it's quite an effort, the course isn't huge, but it's not teeny either. Leesy's umbrella gets knocked over a couple of times, and Dave lets everyone know that touching ze umbrella ist verboten. Schnell, SCHNELL!

We work the straight sections, use good footwork to get in and out of the corners, and finally it's over. Now I know why there are so many skinny Indians...

Now, at the last Saturday session, Dave went over to Leesy and Loz, that Bav, he says, he's like Neo from The Matrix, you tell him something and then a little while later he knows it. So he's like The Matrix if it ran on a Commodore 64 says Leesy.

Well that's very funny, but what they never mention in that movie, is that Neo has lived his whole life inside that weird fluid bubble thing, it's only natural that when they take him out of it, he may not have the flexibility of a normal person, his hamstrings might be fragile for instance. So it was terribly ironic when I went sprinting down to the first post against the evil Lemons, that the old hammy just went ping!

I was hoping for cramp, but no such luck I am afraid, it looks like a 2-3 week thing. And worst of all, Leesy went out and picked up a compression wrap to assist with the recovery process, the Neo-X.

But don't worry, I will walk again. This beach, it heals people...