It's the Liddle things

Chris Liddle gives us another review of what's been going on at the Port Elizabeth Academy and how the boys are getting on in preperation for the 2010 season.

Monday 18th: The morning started in unequivocal sunshine and also at a frightening hour with a concentrated interval running session upon the most beautiful beach front, which was a timely wake up call for the prepped legs having had two days recovery. We made use of the mighty sand dunes – partaking in a spot of ‘it’ - having to chase the person in front up to the peak. Tremendously tiring at 7am in the morning.

At the more sane hour of 9am, we made our way to the training ground for net practice. And like the passengers on Noah’s Ark we were split into pairs for this session and worked on batting with Grubby and had some expert bowling drills with James Kirtley. Then a full net practice with Davo, our Commander in Chief. I’m pleased with how the training session went as it was the first time that I have cantered in off my full run up to bowl and was in no discomfort – quite the relief. Kirtley has been keeping a close eye on all the bowlers and like the most skilled mechanic is fine tuning a lot of us. I think the rewards for this are showing already.

At 3pm we headed back to the college for a gym session followed by a track sprint session. The gym session was mainly made up of power lifting to help with hypertrophy in our legs, back and core - all of which are needed to increase the speed we send the ball down those 22-yards. These are exercises that I have not been able to execute over the past annum, because of the state of my ankle. I’m delighted to now be in a position to give 100% to my training. We concluded the day with sprints over 20, 40 and 60 metres. This was terrifyingly tough work, after a long day in the blistering sun, but like a phoenix that rose from the flames, we all emerged the other end, better men. We all now look forward to a dip in the pool to finish the day and our fatigued bodies off.