Looking at the map, I think my run this morning was on the order of 13–14km. It’s hard to tell with the windy roads, and the map scaling makes it hard to measure out. Luckily, wind wasn’t much of an issue and the little bit of rain could have been much worse.

Afterwards, I went down to the Kilbirnie Recreation Centre to try to get a feel for skating on an incredibly smooth surface. I felt surprisingly cramped by the size of the rink, and I now realise that I’m going to have to learn how to skate all over again if I’m going to play inline hockey. Some turns were okay, but some were awkward, and high speed turnarounds are right out. It was nice to have a hockey stick in my hand, though. Shooting on net was trickier than I remember¹. All told, it was a workout on its own. I was sweating over 45 minutes of play-testing. I had to head off to volleyball, though. I was filling in on a team and didn’t want to be late.

I walked into the gym wondering if I’d recognise anyone from the other places that I’ve played volleyball in New Zealand. It wasn’t the case this time, but it didn’t take long before I started to get to know some of the other players. The game is very social, after all, and this one more than most. Teams of 4 play on a full court, and everyone is an eligible hitter. The game is fast, and you really have to watch your corners. I’m still trying to figure out how to cover spikes effectively. The block goes up, but there’s a lot of space on either side. Good spikers have a field day. Played a first game, and then stayed around to fill in for a second, which turned out to be even faster. By the end, I was empty. I was starting to get lazy and I was dropping blocks all over the place, which doesn’t do anyone any good. It was time to go home and make up for the light lunch that I’d had.

I’m going to hurt tomorrow. That’s a promise. I can’t go from slacking off for most of the week to fully on without side effects. Of course, this just means that I’ll have to pull up on the rest of my week for that balance. It’ll be good for me. All this slack has translated into extra weight and a bit of lethargy. I’ve had enough of that.

¹ The last time I’d played hockey, I was still in high school. That’s probably about 14 years ago.

I decided to head out for a bit of a run this morning, despite the drizzly weather. I decided to head south from the house, more or less on a whim. I hadn’t gotten for than 100 metres when I heard the arhythmic footsteps of many people behind me. I was still walking at this point, allowing the muscles to warm up to the motion, and the joggers quickly caught up and overtook me. Around that time, I decided to pick up my pace to a light jog, which put me about in pace with the group. Again thinking of a decent warm-up, I kept the light pace. I noticed that most of the joggers were dressed similarly, in team colours. They were all members of the Wellington Marathon Clinic, and nearing the end of their 1h40 run. I talked with them a while and asked a few questions about upcoming events. They suggested following them to the finish and they could give me a newsletter with all the information included within.

They meet Sunday mornings, and various groups will head out, organised by pace and distance. This sounds more or less perfect, but for one thing: Sunday afternoon is a volleyball game. I’ll have to teach my legs all over again to get over any thoughts of laziness.