Monday, June 18, 2012

General update


Matches

None of us have been involved in any matches this last weekend. I was twelth on this list and the rest of the team turned up so I didn't get a game, but it was miles away, so there was the up-side in that I didn't have to drive all the way to Harlow, but I was ready to go right up till 12.00, but never got the call.

Ben on the other hand had to bail out on Friday because his In-Growing toe nail has taken a turn for the worse and we had to book him into a chiropodist. They took loads of bits of nail out of his skin where it's all swollen. Apparently in the same way as you finger nails grow 'Hangnails' see below, your toenails have the same issue caused by cutting your toenails too short, but hangnails on the feet easily grow inwards rather than out as they do with finger nails.
So the ciropodist took 2 or 3 strips of hangnail out of the swollen section of his toe and now he has to take it easy for a week with 'No' sport. But he managed to do his Karate grading on Sunday and has now moved up to Blue striped belt. Hopefully he'll be okay by Thursday and or Sunday?

Fitness.

"The Joe Factor". This is where, because Joe isn't out and about playing outside because of his broken leg, I'm not outside either and no-where near as active as I would be at this time of year. Combine that with the rain and its a recipe for very low fitness levels seemingly leading to Piriformis for a start and the return of mild Plantar Fasciitis. All of which means that physically I'm a bit of a mess.

In between the rain, I've been trying to get out and have a bowl and I'm doing it in short stints where I only bowl 50 balls initially, over the weekend just gone I'm up to 75 balls in a session - twice on Sunday. In addition alongside stretches and workouts trying to resolve the Piriformis, I'm now working on core strength which is fine and upper body strength - particularly my arms and shoulders and I've got myself a terra band kit and I'm working on my press-ups again to get my shoulder strength back to where it should be and there are signs of improvement only after 4 days.

In addition a friend of ours who does all that Boot camp nonesense is claiming to have produced a plank for 6 minutes and 2 secs and has thrown down the guantlet to our social circle which includes a few 'Macho' competitive types - this woman's in her 40's and normally these days I don't bite when these things crop up, but I kind of fancy this one as it's something I already do. Word on the social networks was that the feat had been produced by another competitive mate Thomas Slater for 4 mins and 30 seconds, which was pretty incredible, but almost belieavble as he spends a lot of his time cycling, running and going to gyms. But this was de-bunked today by a Plank-Off see here. Where he was shown to be lacking in planking ability. I produced my PB today at 2 mins and 40 seconds, but have a long way to go before I reach 6 mins and 2 secs!

Bowling

My bowling is shoddy, nothing is going right, but it's probably not good to bowl just at stumps, I need to bowl at Ben or some of his mates, but Ben's not going anywhere near a scenario where he might cop a ball on the toe for the minute, so that's a no go situation. To be honest with this Piriformis syndrome I'm suffering from at the moment and how badly I'm bowling I'm a little disillusioned with bowling and I'm thinking - is this it, is this where my body is going to let me down and put paid to my Wrist Spinning? It's got so bad I've been practicing with Ben in the paddock with the bat...

Batting - Side-arm

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