Ch....Ch....... Changes
Long post alert
I"ve always been absolutely mad on sports. As in, I"d play whatever, whenever I can. Football, cricket and rugby league were the main 3 I"ve played, however I"ve dabbled at athletics ( several events), basketball, hockey to name but a few.
Sports were what I looked forward to, daily, weekly, monthly, as a youngster and certainly into my late teens, it pretty much drove my life. I could play sports all day without getting too tired, I wasn"t the biggest fan of running but, certainly with football, I could read the game from a very early age, meaning I always seemed to be in the right position at the right time. I guess this is why, at a very early age (8ish) I was put in at centre back for my primary school as the non-marking one. Still remember lots of the results from my first 2 proper seasons of football at primary school. Even in slightly smaller nets on 80% size pitches, we destroyed pretty much every team we played. We only lost 2 games in 2 years, one a severly snow affected game and another in the QF"s of the Greater Manchester Cup, losing in a highly controversional match.
Several of the players in my team also played club football, I was invited, made the team straight away as well as being made captain. 6 of us from primary school played for the club side, again we were fairly successful, generally finishing top 3 without ever winning the league or cup ( there was one outstanding side who were basically impossible to beat). After a few seasons, getting to 13/14 some were being picked up by the local professional clubs. In one such game, I received my only outfield serious injury, fracturing my patella ( knee for those who don"t know). As there was no pain, and not much could be done to help repair it, I was playing again in 6 weeks.... SILLY eh?
I was fairly sensible, started playing in goal for my school side ( at high school we were a rugby league school) and seemed to do ok. Until I was in my late 20s, it"s where I played. I seemed to be a flair keeper, making amazing saves, making amazing cock ups.
The big point of all this is..... I"ve always had a huge metabolism, and masses of energy, so ate what I wanted when I wanted. As over the last few years, my job has become less physically demanding and I really don"t find time to do anything remotely tough in terms of a workout, I now find myself the least fit I"ve ever been and my belly is growing in size. I intend to do something about it. I"m not going to set myself lofty goals ( ie London Marathon although I"ve always wanted to do it), I"m going to start off realistic and just initially get started with exercise again. My long term goal will be to raise a sh*t load of money for the MacMillan nurses, who helped my family so much when my dad initially got cancer, and then as he deteriorated until he passed away. It was a long time ago now, but their support was exceptional ( even though I"m probably only realising this now).
Being a poker player ( recreationally) definitely doesn"t help this, but I am finding myself playing less and less apart from APAT events, and have pulled back my online play to minimum levels compared to what I have done in the past, so the balance is probably coming back in my life allowing myself more free time to do so. Doing shift work definitely doesn"t help, but I"ll just have to plan better!
