Last night, Thursday, I played my first competitive volleyball game in more than 3 years. Back in August 2005 an ankle injury forced me to stop playing for VK Barnet volleyball club. The VK stands for Volleyball Klub, can you believe? Somebody thinks that’s cool!
Barnet was a good 10 mile cycle, perhaps a total of 25 miles round-trip, so it was a great excuse to add a bit of mileage to my weekly routine. I did a similar round trip for football training on a Tuesday night at the Westway near Ladbroke Grove. So an ankle injury indirectly led to a dramatic fall-off in the amount of exercise, and specifically cycling, that I was doing.
I’ve never really got back on that horse. My ankle is better – not perfect, but better, but a knee injury sustained in August 2008 put paid to my most recent attempt to regain fitness. My knee definitely isn’t better, but I’m not a patient man at the best of times, so I’ve taken up volleyball again, and last night was my first match for the Torexe Condors.
We played a team from Exeter University. I think it was their worst team of several, but they were still good enough to dish out a 5-0 hammering to the mighty Condors.
I can’t hardly walk this morning, but I’ll do my best to attend training tonight, then onwards and upwards with the Condors. Unfortunately this enforced idleness has had a disastrous effect on how much of me there is, so as soon as our snow has melted I’ll be back on my bike to try and shed a few pounds. That might mean I have to clean my bikes too – one more good reason not to go cycling.
I need some motivating, and maybe getting hammered at volleyball will provide it.
