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Sun, sea and the dreaded bleep test in La Manga |
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
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Greetings from La Manga
 It sounds very exotic doesn’t it? It’s a lovely place with great facilities, golf, swimming pools and great restaurants but all we get to see is the hotel and training pitches. We bumped into a few men’s teams while we are here and they are off enjoying the sun and golf. Not us we have fitness tests and two or three sessions a day. I am not complaining though as we could be training in England in the pouring rain and freezing cold. Hopefully we will play some games before we return home on Sat, for our Sunday game against Liverpool. It should be a good game as Liverpool have been getting some results and of course they beat us earlier in the season in the League Cup.
Talking of fitness tests I told you last week that I was completing a few as part of my England programme. We tested our strength and power by doing squats lifting up to 100kg and various jumps. Our speed was also tested by doint 10,20 and 30 metre sprints through timing gates. Testing was completed by doing the Yo Yo test that tests our aerobic capacity and is similar to the dreaded bleep test that I think many of you will know. The general idea is you start jogging at a slow speed to a timed beep that gradually speeds up and you keep up with the beep and basically run to exhaustion. Not my idea of a good day out but it’s the only way that you can monitor and maintain your fitness as an athlete at this level. No football to report on this week our game against Arsenal was cancelled due to our home ground Tadcaster Albion being flooded as the riverbanks burst and the entire pitch was under water. I suppose we could have always played them at water polo. We were all looking forward to the game because playing against the best team in the league would have been a great test to see how far we had come. We always get our best crowd of the season too because Arsenal have been the best team for a few years now people want to see them play – the crowd supports us though! Who would ever be a football manager? I wouldn’t! I always look at our manager Rick when we’ve lost and see how much it affects him and think I’m glad I’m not his wife as he will be a bear with a sore head at home – and he doesn’t even play! Even worse is being Newcastle manager oh my word that is the last job I would take in men’s football if I were a manager. I think it has been proved over the years at many clubs that managers need to be given time – something that the Newcastle board don’t seem to want to do… I don’t think Sam Allardyce will be complaining much however and I’m sure his bank balance isn’t either. |
