V8 Supercar Test Day

Ok as promised to some of you here are some photos from my trip to Queensland Raceway yesterday for a V8 Supercar Test Day. More stories to come as it's bedtime for me very soon and I have other stuff to do.

Enjoy!

V8 Supercar Test Day 19th Feb 2007

Oh almost forgot...

.... after training on Tuesday I felt quite sore in the legs for the next couple of days, especially Thursday! So I was looking forward to a much easier training session as we'd had, what I thought, was a tough one on Tuesday.

Early on though the phrase "road run" was bantered around a bit and I groaned. After doing a number of handball and lane kicking drills we followed it up with a number of around the ground drills. Then apparently it was time for a road run... and hills :(

When we started running towards the cemetery I thought a repeat performance of the chunder near the graves was in order. But we ended up near the Green Bridge again (which is near the cemetery anyway) and did some hills on a piece of road there. Not quite as tough as last time but I was feeling almost chundery towards the end... got a bit of a taste of it a bit later too.

The run back to the club was reasonably torturous but right at the end I got a bit of a second wind... or should that be twentieth wind?... and finished quite strongly. I passed a small group of ppl at the end too, more of them fitter than me.

So lesson learnt... AFL coaches are torture experts (you would think I would have learnt that by now) and never expect an easy training session...

Lions Intraclub

Tonight we attended the Lions preseason intraclub match for the year. For the uninitiated this is basically the last chance at a preseason hit out before the NAB (preseason) competition. The Lions squad is split into two teams (maroon and gold) and they got at it. With a lot missing tonight only 30 players took part in the game but it was still an entertaining evening.

It was a relaxed atmosphere, not a huge crowd and watching a game at ground level was something a little different (our seats at the Gabba are in the top tier). You could hear the players yelling out to each other and some expletives when mistakes were made.

While the game was played hard it wasn't played to 100% hardness, no doubt due to not wanting to injure a team mate. But they were playing for selection potentially so there was a lot of effort put in. Was particularly happy with some of the younger players... The 'Berger (Matthew Leuenberger) and Matt Tyler (love his profile on lions.com.au!!), in particular, impressed me. Cameron Wood was also very good and has improved a lot in his game play.

At each interval the squads stayed on the ground and you could walk right up to the huddle and almost touch them. Was interesting to hear a bit of the banter and chat amongst the players and I was surprised at just how close you could get to them.

In the end after completely dominating the first two quarters the gold team won by a much smaller margin than we were all expecting. Not that we were particularly cheering either team on over the other.... apart from Bee who kept telling me she knew the gold team would win! :p

Anyway I had a good time without it being completely exhilirating or exciting. I've uploaded a couple of photos (no comments so sue me!) and they're here:

Lions Intraclub 2007

I'm not going to place this as the current photo gallery in the menu as there is only 7 useable photos and they're not that special anyway...

Tired? Wassat?

So this is what bone weary means? My whole body feels drained and tired. I can feel muscles sitting there complaining to me quietly and don't feel like I have much power to push off my legs. Yup training tonight was tough. I don't think I've felt this drained after training ever... except for maybe the pre pre-season evening @ South Bank. But then I was more sore than tired, right now I'm just drained. Almost completely spent... but at the same time the endorphins are working overtime as I'm feeling very good.

Before footy training I would never have thought I could run a couple of kms without stopping, now, after tonight, I can run somewhere between 5-6 kms without stopping. And then follow that up with a bunch of contest drills, strength stations and a whole bunch of kicking drills. Doesn't sound like much when I summarise it like that... the detailed explanation I gave Bee & Brett before made it sound much more taxing... and it was.

Good session though...

New Clip

And just because I thought it was about due there's a new video clip for you all to enjoy.

Hi ho

Apologies for the delays between blogging. Apart from a general lack of anything interesting to blog about I have been pretty damn tired this week and not getting much access to the computer. Right now I'm sitting here with my eyes bugging out of my head as I had an awful night's sleep last night. Had a runny nose all day yesterday and couldn't sleep properly with waking up a few times and having trouble getting back to sleep.

In positive news I have noticed some muscle definition in my quads that wasn't there before. Also my abs and the back of my shoulders have been quite sore from all the push ups we've been doing at training. While, overall, I haven't yet seen any massive changes to my physique a few people have commented on the fact I look more lean in the face. With an increase in muscle definition, hopefully helped along by Brett's weight bench, it'll be more noticeable soon.

We're off to Wet N' Wild tomorrow as part of yet another Brisbane Lions social event. 50% off entry price for Lions members was enough to sway us. And Bee had won the right to make us all go there as part of a poker tournament prize at Indy. Hopefully the weather is warm and we can somehow avoid massive amounts of sunburn! Should be a good day...

Another Tuesday, Another Training Session

Well the legs are going to be sore tomorrow I think. They feel completely drained of anything resembling power or energy right now. They are very, very tired. And the funny part? We virtually didn't do any dedicated running exercises, apart from one set of suicides at the end.

Had a cracking headache towards the end though let me tell ya and was glad when it was all over. Weird how I felt worse tonight than I have ever I think, barring the barf night, and we didn't do any form of long distance running. All those short sprints and jogs as part of the ball drills we did tonight... Mick needs sleep now... nighty, night! Sweet dreams!

Lions Race Day 2007

Well, as posted previously, Saturday saw Bee & myself plus some friends attend the Brisbane Lions Race Day @ Doomben Racecourse. It was a day of races sponsored by the Brisbane Lions with each race being named after a Lions sponsor or the Lions themself and with a reasonably big do put on for those willing to attend.

The day started with the seemingly obligatory transport mess up. Brad had a brainwave of catching the train from Coorparoo Railway Station so we didn't have to change trains in the city. While the thought was good the implementation was bad... it seemed Queensland Rail were performing track work on that line and we ended up having to bus it over to Dutton Park Railway Station (yes just down the road from my house! grr!) and then change in the city anyway. Here's a shot of us waiting for the bus...



Included in our ticket price was entry to the racecourse, buffet lunch and some drinks. We had our own fenced off area on the Lawn with a band, lots of under cover tables and our own tote to be on! It did look pretty nicely laid out...



Even though the drink cards only gave you 4 beers and a soft drink (or 2 beers, 2 wines and a soft drink) we all managed to not buy a drink all day which was good. All the ladies (shown below), despite complaining about the bitterness of the free wine, all were experiencing alcohol related silliness at some point during the day.



They also managed to bet on horses that actually came somewhere unlike Brad and myself who, despite careful application of thoughts and ideas, ended up negative for the day. Part of the fun was recording everyone's bets on each race and jotting down their profit (or deficit!) at the end of each race. Overall for the day I came last in the profit stakes with $-38 or so and Brad was 2nd last with $-30 or so. Lore, Bee & Ben all managed a positive return although Bee's was only $0.60 and Lore, who won overall, was only about $4. $2 place bets on horses is against the spirit of gambling in my opinion... but it managed to work! Grr!

Despite the initial excitement about player involvement it was obvious early this wasn't to be as high as we were all expecting. A fair few of the less senior players to be fair hung around our fenced off area for a long time and seemed to be having a good time...



... but the senior players were basically a no show. I think we saw Nigel Lappin, Simon Black & Jamie Charman in our area for about 30 seconds in total before they headed straight back out again. Brownie and Chris Johnson were only seen when we were leaving. There was a bigger $$$ Lions section somewhere else during the day and we're all assuming the senior players were there to keep the rich cats happy... which was disappointing really.

All in all though it was a top day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Getting dressed up and doing something new was a lot of fun and I think everyone in the group had a good time. Looking forward to the chance to do it all again next year now!

The rest of the photos can be found by clicking here or by clicking on the Photo Album Image in the sidebar on the right...

Catch up

Well after a couple of weeks of my blog being a bit lean on the new, fresh content I set out this week to rectify the situation. It started well with a few days in a row but then went downhill as real life took over and prevented me from getting much of a chance. So let me dig into the last few days and see what's been happening in Mick's World...

After my amusing mix up with my run on Monday afternoon I rocked up to training on Tuesday afternoon thinking "I probably shouldn't have run that much the day before training"... how right was that thinking to turn out to be!! After initial warm up runs, stride throughs and some basic ball work (while the softies who missed training on Thursday due to rain were punished) we headed off for our first road run. The pace was a bit fast for my liking but I tried to keep up as much as I could. After a fair distance of running, I don't know the exact distance involved but it would have easily been a couple of kms I reckon, we ended up in the Dutton Park Cemetery... at the base of a very steep, and daunting in length, hill. Turns out it was not only my first road run with the team but my first hill climbs as well.

Needless to say after the run on Monday, the warm up drills and the run to the Cemetery I was already getting well to the point of needing a break. But that wasn't to be and we were straight into hill runs, being encouraged to pump our arms and lift our knees high as we sprinted up this hill and jogged back down. After one run up I knew I was in trouble... there was to be five in total! The slow jog down was our only allowed recovery time before sprinting up again. After a few I was feeling decidedly dodgy and the slow recovery jog down was me trying to hold what I'd eaten for lunch in my stomach.

By this time it was over and we got a break.... which consisted of push ups on the rocky asphalt footpath we were on. Then... more hill climbs. I did one more and up came my last lunch. I felt bad for vomiting near people's graves but I just couldn't hold it in anymore. So my first hill climbs became my first training vomit. On the plus side 8 ppl in total apparently barfed, including Duncan, so I didn't feel so alone there. My barf was quickly followed by sit ups, squats and ridges all on the asphalt and all making me want to die... followed by a run back to the club... a very tough night of training indeed.

Wednesday night saw me at Mum and Dad's and the discovery (for me and Bee anyway, others already knew) that Charlie can now crawl. He was crawling around and was, as usual, completely and utterly adorable. Apparently his crawling adventures have already been getting him into some mischief but unlike Kate & Steve I just found the stories of his adventures terribly funny! Won't be long before he walks I don't think as he has been pulling himself up for a while and has some impressive leg strength for someone so young.

Last night's training wasn't anywhere near as tough as Tuesdays but overall it was still pretty tough. Lots of running around and "keep off" drills with varying levels of opponents on each team. I even had to run around for a while shirtless as part of being on the "skins" team which is something I almost wanted to apologise to everyone for! :p

Ok I'm getting bored with posting and this post is becoming very large in charge so I'll quickly spill the news I've been holding off until the end. Bee & I have a new housemate. For those of you who know Brett then good, for those who don't I'm sure his exploits will become a regular feature of this blog as part of his new co-starring role in my life. Welcome to the house Brett! :)

That'll do you all for now... I'm off to the Lions Race Day tomorrow so I'll post stories and pics sometime after then! Have a great weekend everybody... and Scotty have a safe trip home mate...