Possible first match on Sunday. Preparations Afoot.

There's a fifty/fifty shot of a match down in Tokyo, this Sunday.  I've been hitting the gym hard in preparation, and I've been doing ridiculous amounts of running.  Mainly sprints one day, full on ball-to-the-wind running the next.  I had a rest day on Wednesday, and today ran up to the gym.  It's a 40 minute run, so it simulates a half quite nicely.  It also simulates the final moments of a match, because the last five minutes is up a beastly incline.  It's probably one hundred metres vertical, if not more, with a road that takes an agonising amount of time to navigate.

I rolled into the gym at around 8.45, drenched in sweat.  When I was in uni I used to workout with a guy that used to say, 'if everyone is looking at you, you're doing something right.'  I can't tell whether they were mortified or horrified at the big ugly foreigner messing up their sterile, exercise-free gym; but I was stared at for sure.

Tomorrow will be a rest and travel day, assuming I play.  If I don't then I'll watch all the rugby, then hit the gym.  Sunday will be a run, a run to the gym, or a sprints session.  It depends on how my legs are feeling.  Then Monday will be a rest, and possibly Tuesday, then back to the grind Wednesday at the latest.

If I help train the kids at the local secondary, Tuesday will be a grindstone day.  If not, a rest day.

I'm desperate to play, but the more I want to play, the more things transpire against me.  Fingers crossed for a repeat 4 try performance and man of the match award.  Two of those in Japan, and I think everyone will be confident in saying Japan really is a minnow rugby nation.

So my best friend in Japan is okay, and so is his wife.  They're pretty ill by all accounts, and they're on awesome sounding steroids.  He can't go to work, or play rugby.

I sent him this picture:

 and told him to make use of the steroids.  He replied with this:

A bit of work to go, but with a few weeks of steroids, he can do it!

I expect him to be fighting fit in no time!



Oh, and Sonny Bill Williams is the most overrated player since Gavin Henson.  He will not play a full eighty minutes against any of the big teams.