Sven's life in Oz

Last Thursday rugby training started again. I turned up at the field despite every muscle of my body pulling me in the opposite direction, and spent two hours running around in the pouring rain, throwing a ball around while a thunderstorm raged all around us. It was not the best return to training ever; Sydney’s summer has been pretty lame so far and I feel a bit cheated, frankly. Where is the sunshine? I might as well have stayed in England.

It’s quite nice to back at rugby, especially since I have been indulging on the cakes/pies/booze all over Christmas on the promise that I would return. The theory that “if you put it quickly on, it’s comes quickly off” makes up in rhetorical value what it lacks in scientific accuracy, and it has kept me going over the past few months. Now it is time to balance that equation through exercise, sadly. But it’s not all exercise and pain, of course – it was lovely to see my team mates again after a long break, even if we were all dripping wet and slipping over every ten minutes in the mud.

Not content with one training session, I decided that the rugby run on Saturday morning was also a good idea – in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose – and was on the beach at 9am to run the Bronte-Bondi return trip. This is nothing short of a miracle for three reasons:

1. It was a Saturday morning, and the night before I had drunk the lions’ share of two bottles of wine at Greg’s house. By rights, I should have slept till noon.
2. I hate running. I consider it the most tedious, least rewarding form of exercise known to man.
3. It’s exercise. Enough said.

40 minutes and 8 kilometres later I was in the sea, splashing about and swimming around in the swell. No one is at liberty to remind me I said this, but it was actually one of the most refreshing and invigorating ways to start the weekend. I went home, stretched out and felt fantastic, if a little sore. (There was also the added bonus of feeling virtuous despite eating a chocolate brownie at the MCA Cafe on my blind date. I seldom regret eating food, but it’s always good when you feel like you deserve a treat, don’t you think?)

So, my goal this year is to be thin and fabulous for my sister’s wedding in October. I figure ten months of running around a rugby pitch (including, potentially, the chance to play in the Bingham Cup in June) should do wonders for my waistline. Now all I need is some sunshine for a decent tan. Sadly, it seems that is just too much to ask.