Global Sport Stories

Surfing, swimming, parkrun, gym and badminton of all things. A 50 hour work week AND consistent negative temperatures, barely making it over two degrees all week. Oh yeah, this was a positive week, shattering, but positive.

To start the week, I decided change was good… and didn’t really fancy a 10k if I am totally honest. And despite being in the gym, that didn’t stop the running progress. When out on longer runs, I feel as though I have a strong level of cardiovascular fitness; it is my muscular endurance of my legs that lets me down rather. Therefore, I decided I need to do some gym work; low weight, high reps, to try and simulate some muscular fatigue. It is worth noting I am no sport scientist, it just makes sense in my head to do this, I really should research this further. The gym session was fairly enjoyable. I confess that a leg session holds a degree of novelty, as I have been known to neglect my legs in the gym. Therefore, as it was a muscle group I had not trained for the best part of six months, I quite enjoyed myself. The painful part comes in the days (potentially weeks) later. I concluded the session with a swim to activate the shoulders a little. A combination I am really growing to love – despite the pools changing rooms seemingly adopting a heavy no towel or trunks policy…

Speaking of novelty, Tuesday brought badminton. My friend Connor and I have been meaning to play throughout our whole three years of university together but had never got round to it. And despite both now working full time, the stars aligned meaning at 11am at the Northumberland Club, our score would be settled. Now you don’t need to know a lot about Connor much more than he is, what I would call, a cocky, little shit. This combined with my brutal competitiveness and refusal to accept that anyone is better than me was fuelling a sensationally strong desire to beat him. I did not. Infact, Connor fairly wiped the floor with me. Five sets to nil. Enough said.

Now I could throw in the excuse that my legs were aching from the day before, or he had played Britain’s number three badminton player during school, but I won’t. I was fairly beaten but it was a great workout of high intensity periods, something different to my usual activities nowadays. Of course a rematch is very much on the cards as well by the way.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were busy days work wise, 11 hour shifts each day. Despite that, starting at 11am does present an opportunity to fit in some exercise beforehand, but that is also easier said than done. So much so that it wasn’t done on Thursday morning. However, a quiet shift led to an early finish at 6pm, which meant one thing and one thing only… a 10k run. It was a dark and bitterly cold plod along the ever trusty Tyne path. With my legs still in pieces from earlier in the week, I had decided to take it slow and simply get the distance in my legs.

As it turns out, I believe this to be an effective training method to incorporate into your weekly routines. I won’t get into all the details but building your cardiovascular base by training at a sustained lower heart rate is said to have major benefits moving forward. To ensure this lower heart rate was achieved I used my hour or so to catch up with some friends and family on the phone. If I was too out of breath to speak to them, I was going too fast! 10.35km in 1 hour 9 minutes, about 20 minutes slower than what I would usually do. But that was the aim of the run. It was a very different experience not trying to push myself to go faster, but one that was very enjoyable. Also it seemed a great use of time to get a few phone calls in and catch up with a few people. All in all, it might be something I have to do again.

After a day of work on Friday, my legs were surprisingly fresh by Saturday, and it had been an aim of mine during the week gone by to get to Parkrun on the Saturday morning. Opening the curtains that morning however, and there he was, Bert. More specifically storm Bert. The crescendo to all the cold weather beforehand had built up to a dump of snow, bitter winds and all round brutal conditions. Upon a quick check of the Town Moor Facebook confirming the event was still going ahead, I wasn’t going to let the snow stop me, and I was joined by fellow morons who must’ve had the same thought process.

I was slightly aggrieved, as due to my slow run on Thursday I was looking to up the pace on this 5km route but the conditions simply wouldn’t allow it. The Town Moor is vast, barren expanse of land at the best of times, let alone when the grey clouds saturated with snow roll in low, ready to burst. It really was bleak, but the harshness of the conditions made it seem even more of a challenge, making it even more enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong my feet were soaked within two minutes and I could’ve filled a few pint glasses just by ringing out my fleece by the end of the race. Overall though, the beauty of Parkrun shone through in the end. Although it was horrible conditions, you were not alone in your quest to have done something productive before 10am on a Saturday morning. There was a guy lugging a push chair round the course with him for goodness sake, I had it easy. I completed the 5km route in just under 25 minutes and didn’t fall over once, so that was a win for me. Although the route was elongated a little by the run home, something I hadn’t thought about; being soaked to the bone and facing a ten minute walk home with no dry layers. Vicious.

By the time I had just about warmed up again, it was Sunday, and time to freeze myself all over again. The day had finally come, the surf rental shop was open, Surfline said the conditions were okay and I was off work. It was time to surf at Tynemouth again. A very still morning worried me that the conditions in fact may be too flat, but upon arriving at Longsands beach I was greeted by some almost near perfect waves. The temperature had risen from the arctic temperatures throughout the week, that didn’t make the North Sea any warmer however.

In terms of actual surfing and wave catching, I was pretty out of practice let’s put it that way. Multiple factors just meant I struggled, which was annoying as I would confidently say I have never seen better conditions in Tynemouth. My surf lingo probably won’t do it justice but the waves were clean, not closing out and quite a decent height. There were some guys out there having a lot of fun and making it look very easy as is always the way. Then there was me just struggling away on my hybrid board. Nonetheless it was so enjoyable to get back in the water again, albeit still freezing cold despite having a suit, hood, gloves and boots on.

A trip to Tynemouth brought a nice end to a packed week, but a thoroughly pleasing one, with a few of my aims ticked off. Hopefully a slightly warmer one next week.