First things first...the cute French intern that sits across from me is driving me nuts today....probably because he has what looks like really soft kissable lips. Sigh...anyway....

The first real rugby practice of the season was last night and I'm paying for it this morning. Actually I paid for it last night as well but not as much as I am not.

Actually it all goes back to my lunch hour gym workouts were I felt this lovely twinge of pain around my left ankle after I got off of the treadmill. I pretty much ignored it (because that's what ruggers do with pain even if we fall on a flight of stairs on our way to the bathroom) and went on with the rest of the day and even to practice where much running was involved. What I can say though is that one guy on the team who shall remain nameless came back to practice for the fall season in far less cardio shape than before to the point where I was surprised....

One of my least favorite parts of practice is our warmup where we pretty much prance in a line doing odd things like skipping at odd angles, squats, lunges, etc. Well normally we go down the length of the cones facing forward and then we do it backwards (yes you can actually skip backwards). This time when we got to the middle cone, we had to change direction from forward to backwards and wait at the end of the line for the next exercise. I got really good about changing direction in midair when we were doing some of the skipping exercises which caused one of the new guys to ask me how I did it and was able to keep going with the drill. I responded that I had received the figure skating gene upon birth and this was probably as close as I was going to get to be Michelle Kwan.

Following the warm up, we did a series of passing drills -- first for skill and then for speed. The first was the chest high pass where...well...you pass it at chest high level. The second is the pendulum pass which resembles a bit of a golf swing. When it came time for the speed drill portion, the team that made it down and back with the ball the fastest was exempt from doing five "burpees" (at least I think that's how it's spelled). Basically, a burpee involves you dropping to the ground in sort of a squat, extending your legs back as if your doing a push up, bringing your legs back in, and standing back up. Well, as I was the person on the end, I got really good at passing the ball back to the number three guy who just shot it back down the line. What no one really realized until the very last drill, I was barely even holding on to the ball when I received it. As soon as it hit my hands, it was flying back out. We only had to do burpees twice out of about six or eight drills which I have to admit was pretty damn good of us.

Following that we had to do some tackling drills which involved locking the arms and making sure you were at the right level to prevent injury. This is pretty much where my pains from earlier in the day reared the ugly head. As we got to the part where we had to bring them the ground, I was landing on my hips and butt which were sore from running so much (those lovely hip flexor muscles ya know) and my ankle which was also sore from that day of running wasn't enjoying being wrenched around. It got to the point where I was progressively getting up from the ground slower and slower because it hurt so much. But being the stubborn Irish mick that I am, I persisted even when people wanted me to slow up or even sit out to the point where I started snapping at people that I was fine and could continue (even though I shouldn't have). Ultimately, I went to tackle someone and came up limping worse than before and finally had to go out since I couldn't continue. I did, however, lumber my way through the final sprints and I'm paying for that this morning as well.

At the end of practice, I spoke with the coach about an email I had sent him earlier in the week about possibly learning a new position outside of prop since there are so many guys on the team who play prop (some in addition to another position). I think I counted about five guys on the team who play strictly prop so I wanted to increase my chances of getting playing time by learning a new position. Coach gave me the blunt answer I have come to expect from him when he said that I first have to gain more speed before I can break out into another position. That position, he said, would be flanker, which was really no surprise to me since I'm not really tall enough to be a lock and not really powerful enough to be an eight man so flanker is, logically, the only other position I could go to at the time. And no, we're saving a special position in the backs for Crash when he gets back up to sprinter level so there's no chance of me heading back there anytime soon.

And, since I'm talking about rugby, let me also remind you that I'm still taking donations for Ruggerthon 2003 and you can just click that nice Amazon.com honor system box and make a donation. :)

So that was last night. I'm in a shitload of soreness this morning (not pain, just soreness) and I think I'm spending the weekend in bed....sleeping.

Alone.

And to the person who just looked up "Susan Sarandon's butt" -- why?

But it's all for the good since I'm a horny porn star who likes to hump dragons.