Fitness training & Recovery Session

Had a bit of trouble posting this yesterday, but here's the blog I meant to put up then.

Since our game, we have been keeping busy with a variety of activities. The day after our game, we had active recovery which, as the name suggests, is recovery through a light workout. We were given the option of working out in the park or riding bikes. The people who worked out in the park had a really good time with a variety of exercises, but there was no way we were going to miss out on the chance to explore a bit of the countryside. We went for an easy hour long ride along the river and were able to see a fair bit of the surrounding area. The path was quite nice, and other than a few quick maneuvers to dodge bikers and people on rollerblades going the other way the trip was pretty uneventful. It’s really great to have an opportunity to just relax and stretch the legs gently after the pressure of the match.

Today we had another lighthearted training while a number of the referees travelled back to headquarters. We started with something that can only be called soccer ball aerobics. Led by our fitness trainer, we did all the same things you would do in a normal aerobics session, but with a soccer ball and water bottles. I think the people watching all got a good chuckle out of our lack of coordination, but we had a really good time while still getting a pretty good workout.

After the soccer aerobics, we went on an adventure walking through the woods. At the end of the path we found a playground that they call an adventure playground here in Germany. Apparently, this is what they call the type of playground with wooden play structures and ropes. We played lots of games to bring out our inner child, but which actually required a fair bit of coordination and team cooperation. In our teams, we were given a number of tasks to complete and raced to finish. Veronica and I ended up on opposing teams (they had to break us up to keep our innate talents from providing an overwhelming advantage to any one team). We ended up exactly tied in the number of games won, but our team captain from Spain is still lodging the official protest and demand for a recount in the game where we had to make our way across some ropes with one wrist tied to a partner with tennis balls.

Tomorrow we travel for our match, so the chances are low we will be able to post again until we return from our match. Hope everything is going well back home with all of you!