Vikings Training

It was back into inline hockey at Gawler with an hour's training after work this evening.

It's a pretty large logistic effort to get there, but always worth it when I do.  One thing I have built into the routine is to call into Poetic Justice for a coffee about 45 minutes before training, have a chat to the proprietors of this little gem of a cafe/coffee shop on the Adelaide Road just before you get into central Gawler.  He plays Rugby Union in an open Division in his early forties so we get to swap tales of our sporting prowess as we watch the traffic crawl by before I head off.  I know coffee is not the best idea before a game, but I enjoy the company and it gets me in the mood.

I wore my 'new' Adrenaline top this evening for its first adventure.  Nice top, deals easily with going over the elbow pads.  Well ventilated.  Nice score.

The session started with 'suicide' sprints up the ice, and then repeated this with backwards skating.  Then some medium range passing between pairs, then trailing skater passing.  We then split into two groups of about equal size.  I joined the 'beginner' group.  I was probably at the upper end of it, but not so much so that I was of another class.  We were all C Graders and numbered eight.  The other group were from the two higher divisions and about the same size.

We did some pylon slaloms, then cross cutting slaloms (ie keep your head up so you don't collide).  Then 2 on 2 battles (where I often teamed up with Jana which was fun).  Then, shooting from just in front of the goal line on the wing (both sides of goal), wristers from the point and backhands from close in.  Ended with stickhandling figure eights and end to end skating.  Was nice to be able to give a couple pointers to some of my colleagues re their skating.

Physically, I dealt with the session probably better than I would have a month ago, having more energy and power left in my body at the end than I would have expected.  My aerobic recovery rate still needs work on it.

A good anaerobic workout, basically, and I think I'll leave it there for training today.

Great fun.   Really looking forward to the game on Saturday against the Bumpers.

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