Category Archives: Sport

Remembering 8 Seconds Of Titanic Proportion

Family, General, Sport

Remembering

April 25 is ANZAC Day in Australia and its a time to remember the Australian & New Zealand armed forces who fought to provide the citizens of our great counties the freedom we enjoy every day. Last week when Claire and I talked about it, we wanted to attend the dawn service at Currumbin but that didn’t pan out this year for health reasons. Even without our contribution to any of the dawn services, the Gold Coast saw record attendances right across the coast, which I personally think is excellent. Hopefully we can make it to next years dawn service at Currumbin.

8 Seconds

This weekend we ventured out to Somerset Dam, near Kilcoy for my oldest brothers’ 40th birthday bash. It was a great day and we were blessed by absolutely beautiful weather. Cameron & Phil brought their new jet ski’s with them which was a blast. The 8 seconds I’m referring to was what it felt like when I very very nearly got bucked off the back of the jet ski as it bit in hard during a fast, tight turn.

Titanic

Sunday afternoon I attended the Gold Coast Titans versus New Zealand Warrior’s NRL match at the new Skilled Stadium at Robina on the Gold Coast. I was accompanied by a couple of work colleagues, other halves & two consultants from Germany.

It was going to be a true test about the mixed reports regarding the accessibility of the stadium, as there are no facilities to park a car should you want to drive. Instead, you are encouraged to take advantage of the free public transport to and from the game.

Brendan, Lin & I left the Helensvale Train Station at about 1.30PM and were able to get a seat on no problem, arriving about 15 minutes later. It’s a short walk of about 10 minutes amongst other fans from the Robina Train Station to Skilled Stadium. Heading home took a little bit longer, as we had to wait in line for the next train but we would have only waited 10-15 minutes and we were sitting in an air conditioned train again. As far as I’m concerned, the public transport aspect of getting in and out of Skilled Stadium is fine – especially considering that if you have a game ticket you can ride for free!

More importantly though, the Titans got up over the Warriors 36-24; look out grand final – here we come!

Stepping Up

Sport

Tonight I turned up at the squash courts for the semi-finals, only to find out that because of the timing of the Easter weekend that it was not scheduled for tonight.

As soon as I arrived and didn’t see the normal swarm of people, I immediately released what had happened. I was however, pleasantly surprised to find two A and one B grade players there having a hit; of course they realised that our semi-finals weren’t on and organised a hit none the less. At the time, both of the squash courts were free so with three players there at the time, the other court was begging to be used, so I asked if they’d mind if I joined them and they were happy to accommodate me.

Across the course of the evening, I was able to play each of the players a few times and it was an excellent opportunity. This has been the first chance I’ve had to have a serious hit with a bunch of players well above my grade, so I looked upon it as a training session and it was invaluable.

I managed to take a game off Murry (A), which was a bit of a surprise but a lot of fun and he got the second one by a much closer margin. The highlight though, which you might consider a strange highlight, was having my arse completely handed to me by Phil (A); who is the top guy in our fixtures and he wasn’t even working that hard on the court. Phil takes pleasure in holding the ball for as long as possible and then firing the ball where ever on the court he chooses. Since he is holding the ball so long, I always seem to be out of position and scrambling to get the ball, which just gives him more opportunity to hold the ball, hit it late and make me run a little more; it’s a vicious cycle.

I felt I played very well tonight and had good control of the ball, most of the time. My serve was surprisingly effective, I really expected the guys to destroy it but that didn’t happen. I was taking quite a bit of pleasure in changing the serve up, high lobs, driving into the wall or straight down the T; kept them guessing just enough. One thing I did feel that was letting me down tonight and it really was letting me down was my foot work. I continue to move on the squash court like I used to move on a tennis court, which while similar in some respects isn’t right. When the ball is moving fast, my tennis style foot work just doesn’t allow me to get my feet and hips into position fast enough to keep the ball tight down the walls when under pressure; so that is going to be something I’ll make a point of focusing on at the semi-finals next week.

Improved Fitness

Life, Sport

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been going to the gym before heading off to work in an attempt to improve my fitness.

When I decided that I’d start working out in the morning, I honestly wasn’t sure how that would pan out for me. It’s fair to say that I fit squarely into the night owl category in terms of sleeping patterns and I haven’t exercised in the morning since I was in high school. After waking up bleery eyed for a few days, my body was already adjusting to the changes and within a fortnight – it was feeling normal to be up and exercising.

A month has lapsed since adjusting to the morning exercise regime and in that time, I have increased all of my cardio work significantly. As an example, when I first started using a cross trainer or elliptical runner, I was feeling the burn after only 10 minutes on level 8 with a stepping speed of about 45 per minute. This morning by contrast, I exercised for 40 minutes on level 15 with a stepping speed over 55 per minute for the entire session.

One of the really nice side effects about improving my general fitness, is that it knocks on into other facets of my life. I’ve noticed after playing a couple of the top squash players in my grade, that I often feel aerobically exhausted and my legs are often quite tired as well. After losing a few kilograms and with the drastically improved fitness, I’m able to really take it up to the top guys in my grade; in fact three weeks ago one of them rolled me in a match and this Tuesday it was a roll reversal!

Next up I’m going to start blending more jogging into my morning exercise routine, in a hope of being in a reasonable state to complete the 10Km run in this years Gold Coast Marathon.

Straying The Path Of Righteousness

General, Life, Sport

It has finally happened, I didn’t think it would – I have been faithful for such a long time but it felt so right.

A week or two ago while at the gym, I was reminded ever so gently that my shoes needed replacing again. I’ve been using Asics sport shoes for a very long time, if I were to take a guess I would say since about 1995. During that time, I’ve been through a pair about once per year or just over. In most cases, the reason for upgrading was that the fabric in the heal of the shoes was wearing through, which is to be expected with a lot of use. I don’t recall ever wearing a sole out or having a blow out, even though the lateral movement from tennis isn’t what an average running shoe is designed to cater for. Despite literally daily use and a solid serving of abuse, they kept on keeping on.

I ventured into an Athletes Foot and stood in my socks on the pressure device and was quite shocked to see that I have even distribution of weight down both legs; apparently not normal at all. My arch is pretty standard, not too low and not super high which gives me a good selection of shoes to choose from. The bloke brought out a pair of Asics, New Balance and Brooks.

I tried them all on, the Asics were very familiar of course and felt really good. The New Balance were a little too narrow and I seemed to get quite a lot of roll in when I stepped, not enough support in the right spot for my size/weight I suppose. At this point, the Asics felt soo much better than the New Balance that I figured I’d end up with yet another pair of Asics; that was completely shot down after stepping into the latest release Brooks running shoe. To my complete surprise, the Brooks shoe was more comfortable in the sole and the width and length of the shoe was even better than the Asics but the clincher for me was the stability it provided when I walked in them – they virtually removed any roll in which I have (not a lot) but that small improvement makes my foot feel so much more stable in the shoe.

In the last two or three weeks since having the new Brooks running shoes, I’ve been giving them a bit of a workout at the gym. I can now quite comfortably jog for 20 minutes without feeling any soreness in my shins and I’m increasing that each week. I would love to keep the jogging up at the gym over the next couple of months and compete (read:finish without being near death) the 10km run for the Gold Coast Marathon in July this year.

In the meantime though, I’m enjoying straying the path of righteousness!

Squash Strategies

Sport

After playing some great squash last Tuesday, last night I hoped that I could continue the form from last week.

Not thinking about it, I had expected that I would probably be playing one of the older guys in the Robina Squash Club. As a by product of the teams being re-balanced again for this season, I was happily surprised to find I was playing a new guy! One of the single best things about playing fixtures is that you get to play a lot of different people, who typically have different hitting styles and on court tactics.

My opponent tonight was a young Scottish doctor, who looks as though he is in excellent health and fitness. With that in mind, I set out to make sure he was moving a lot on the court to try and take a little of the energy out of his legs; nothing worst than a squash opponent who has superb court coverage and excellent stamina!

We had a great battle over the four games, trading serves early on the the first game and later running each other ragged on the court. After the four games were done, we were two a piece on the games but I came out ahead on points. Now that I’ve played our young Scottish friend once, I’m really looking forward to clashing with him next time – I intend to go in with a different strategy.

A couple quick observations about my game last night:

  • My opponent was able to play a pretty solid drop shot off my serve when it didn’t force him right into the back corner. Next time I encounter him, I’ll be making a point of keeping the ball very deep on the serve; not necessarily hard – just deep.
  • We were running around so much on the court, I could feel myself tiring by the end of the second game, which soon translated into looser shots being played. Next time, I’ll be making a conscious effort to take the time with the ball, even when tired to try and keep it tighter against the wall.
  • While I ended up winning on points last night, I don’t think I varied my shot enough – which is largely due the the previous point I made. Keeping your hitting style fluid on the court really gives you an advantage, as your opponent has less opportunity to predict or preemptively move for the ball.
  • Last night I was hitting the ball too early, not to the point where I was mishitting the ball but that it wasn’t giving me an opportunity to hold the ball. The symptom of hitting the ball early or on time is that unless your opponent attempts to predict your shot, you remove the ability to hit the ball where your opponent isn’t, simply because they haven’t been forced to move for the ball yet.

In any case, it was a great hit last night and I really enjoyed playing someone with a different hitting style on the court. Looking through the teams for this season, I believe I have at least one other new player to come up against yet – it’s going to be fun!

If you’d like to join the club and enjoy a regular weeknight hit, get in contact:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229