Dam… my bald head hurts!
Today my Getting Fit at 40 quest moved moved another step or two in the right direction as I headed back to the tennis courts for another knock around with my mate Mr T. It was a fairly nice morning, not much sunshine, but hell this is London and you don’t expect sunshine everyday – at least it was dry, and that is good enough for me!
The 30 minute walk to the tennis courts revived my legs which were feeling a wee bit stiff from yesterday’s park workout and the big bowl of porridge with extras I devoured for breakfast had me feeling energized and ready to run around the court like a youngster.
Once again we played for exactly 2 hours… and take it from me folks 120 minutes playing tennis is a fairly good workout. I tried my best to take heed of the advice the tennis coach god Richard Williams gave to his two legendary daughters way back when they were wee nippers, ‘run for every ball whether you think it’s going to be in or out, or whether you even think you are going to reach it in time.’
You will get as much out of tennis as you put into it! The more balls you run after, the faster you run, the more of a workout you will get. There aren’t many, if any out of shape tennis players amongst the worlds top tennis players… and there is a good reason for that… believe me!
I have been watching numerous You Tube videos of Fed and Murray in action – especially in slow motion – trying to pick up some tips so I can improve my game. I want to play beautiful tennis, as opposed to just hitting the ball back! If Richard Williams can teach his 2 daughters to become as good as they are without a tennis background, I’m sure I can improve my game, myself! I wish I could afford to pay for 10 lessons or so from a professional tennis coach, but I cant…
Sitting here writing this blog post my legs are feeling like they have hard a workout that is for sure. I made sure I cooled down afterwards and I even had a very cold shower afterwards… the cold water is meant to be good for preventing injury and aiding recovery, or maybe some crazy sadist just made it up for their own pleasure!
I should have worn my base ball cap today, the top of my head is slightly sunburnt! The sun poking through the clouds must have been more powerful than I thought. Lesson learned!