Charleroi - Tournoi de Seneffe

I'm back to work after a pretty good weekend of polo. I was in Charleroi playing with Kamikaze in Division 2 and we came seventh in the division. A little disappointing seeing as we only lost one of your five matches and drew with the team that came second in a golden goal final.

We had a very good win on the way, 12-0 against Strasbourg B. That was the biggest Kamikaze victory ever, I believe!

Deventer beat Odysseus A in the final of division one by a golden goal after the game finished 6-6 in normal time. It was a fantastic game with Odysseus coming back from 6-4 down to draw level near the end.

Unfortunately after the final, I started to get quite sick and spent the next 24 hours alternating between standing over a sink getting sick and lying down trying not to get sick. Along with a plane journey in the middle of it all. That means that today is a bit of a write off, no energy and I need to drink and eat lots to replenish myself.

Gah, I don't like being sick

I've had a cold since last Wednesday or so and I am finally shaking off the last of it, or coughing it up and spitting it out at least. I decided to run in to work this morning because I left my bike over at Louise's house and I need to pick it up later. I felt slow and tired through the whole run but still managed to make it in in 50 minutes.

I am on day 27 of the burpee challenge now, I forgot about them yesterday and because of that I did yesterday's this morning before I left on the run. I'll do the others later on when I get home.

I played a match on Saturday afternoon against Killygarry. I was playing at corner back again, the third time I've played there in a row. I think that's the longest run I have had in one position for about 2 years. We won in the end but made harder work of it than we should have. We played against a gale force wind in the first half and were up at half time. Then in the second half we just didn't build as much as we should have.

We have now played 7 matches in the league and won 4 of them. It's going pretty well and we have a weekend off next week. Because of this I'm heding to Charleroi to watch Louise play and to play division 2 with Kamikaze. It should be a good weekend, I hope the weather is as good as it has been the last few times I was there.

Munster League

Last weekend was the end of the Munster League and we were in there right to the end. We finished in second place to Swink. We were put down into second place because we were beaten by Bad Company in one of the first nights when a whole gang of us went off to Revolutions in Manchester.

We had some good games on Saturday night, we drew against Swink and Kamikaze and beat Bad Company. It was also the night of the Ireland Scotland rugby match. I only got to see the end of the first half because we had to help put up the goals. Apparantly it wasn't a good match, but Ireland came out on top to keep the dream of the Grand Slam alive.

A win

We beat Templeport at the weekend, though we let it get a little close after letting in a goal in the last couple of minutes again. We won the match by 1 point, 2-8 to 1-10.

Now we have a couple of weeks off from matches, I'm going to be using the time to play in the Munster League next Saturday and to do the Connemarathon on the 22nd.

Bad weather

Our first challenge match of the year had to be cancelled on Sunday. There was a large snowfall on Sunday morning and I got a few phonecalls telling me not to drive from Dublin.
The night before I was down in Limerick playing in the Munster League. We had three matches, we drew the first one against Kamikaze and beat Glaway and Bad Company. Ireland were playing France in the 6 Nations but I only got to see about 15 minutes before I had to go with the rest of the Muppets to set up the pitches.

I went for a run on Monday evening after work to loosen out and it was lovely, cold and dry. I went for a loop through the Park of about 8.5km. Then afterwards I met a gang in town and went to the Bodies exhibition. Then dinner and off to the cinema to see Valkyrie. A good evening all round.

Hard football training and a cycle

Football training is in full swing now, we had two more sessions over the weekend. I'm using these as interval and speed sessions as we are doing lots of running to get everyone fitter. We spent 20 minutes running in circles on Friday night on the track around the pitch. I really enjoyed it, but I don't think that was the general concensus from everyone :)

On Saturday I went for a cycle into Enniskillen to see the new boat quay place that is being built by the Round O. It looks like it's the perfect size to fit in polo pitches and with walkways on both sides to let the referee walk along. Now all we need to do is to get the Fermanagh District Council and Waterways Ireland to let us use it for a competition. There is loads of parking, and even a coffee shop as well. Perfect.

The cycle took me around an hour and a half for 46km in nice cold and dry conditions, not much wind to speak of either.

Later on that evening, I had the second training session, this time in Loughan House. Yes, the prison! Training on the astroturf pitch is different to grass and it tends to burn more if you try to slide on it! More running after some short passing games and it was all over. Everyone was glad to get out of the heavy rain and the cold.

I took yesterday off as a rest day and today I plan to get back into the pool for a session.

First day in Rapperswil

We travelled to Switzerland today. Left from Dublin airport at 11:30ish and made it here around 4. It was quite nice out so we went for a wander and got some food. Then a walk over to the start area and transition areas. Saw a few people going out for a canoe polo training session, but we didn't stay to watch them.

Came back towards the hotel and got some ice cream before deciding it was time to put the bikes together. After that it was time to test them out. So out on the road (remembering to stay on the right hand side) I had some small problems with gears skipping but sorta got them fixed. We got a little bit lost and then a lightning storm started! So we quickly found the right road and stormed back to the hotel just in time. Time now to relax and have a quiet beer.