Thursday 7 August 2008

Serving Like An 8 Year Old (And Proud Of It)

Would you believe it, another early start. No wonder when asked on the Biobank survey yesterday whether she was a morning or an evening person, L went for the morning option.

She's up at 5.30 and out with the dogs. Then at 7am she's off to Cardio tennis and today she persuades me to join her. We spend an hour hitting tennis balls and trying to remain in the 'zone', as defined by the heart rate monitor we are supplied with. I drop below my zone as soon as I stop exercising, which is apparently a good sign and means I'm fit!

The session was actually very good and excellent for practising your shots, which is what I need after last weeks tennis match when I struggled to keep the ball in court.

The chap explained that there were 'no rules' to the tennis part, so you're allowed to do stuff like letting the ball bounce twice etc. None of the lads in the group believed he actually meant this and we all continued hammering the balls back across the net after one bounce and as hard as we could, as if Roger Federer was across the other side of the net.

The girl in the group, L, took him at his word and then she complains she's rubbish at tennis! I’m sure her racquet skills would rapidly improve if she concentrated as much on the tennis part of the session as she does on the cardio part.

Afterwards I'm totally knackered. I think he deliberately tried to make it hard for me and made me run more than the others. I still make work on time, because there's no traffic. When I get there, I'm absolutely starving, so it must have been a good workout.

While I'm in the pub at lunch time, refuelling with Steak and Kidney pie,
neither of us have cottage pie which I think is a first, and sipping Pooh Beer from Church End, L is back at the leisure centre doing Bodyball.

She intends to carry the session on at home, where she now has her own gym ball, if the puppy and his teeth will permit it. I can just see it now, the ball deflating, with MD still attached to it.

In the evening it's proper tennis and my practice session doesn't help one bit. This morning they gave me a decent lightweight racquet. Now I'm back using L's racquet, which is a bit like trying to hit the ball across the net with a breeze block. At 5-1 down, I'm considering jacking it all in.

Things improve though and as I get the hang of things; my opponent starts to fall apart. I record a famous 5-7 6-1 6-3 victory. Although he accused me of using underhand tactics and serving like an 8 year old. Just because my serving is a bit rusty and I've opted for accurate but gentle serves that don't carry nicely to the back of the court for him. Well he'll just have to stand closer.

That's nothing to what I had to put up with. Balls smashed in frustration in all directions, often at head height, even racquets flying over the net towards me. He's not a gallant loser.

Back home the pup is walking the lonely streets, having been banished for digging in Daughter's vegetable patch. Oh dear. He's not popular, again.

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