The Wall

Thought I had better improve on my previous tardy blog.

Rusty Rackets last night was as good as always.  Numbers were down, only six, which meant that we all got to play more tennis and practice more skills, and that meant that the Scobi, a man known for his stamina and strength*, was absolutely cream crackered by the end of the ninety minutes.  In fact, he can reveal that as he through the ball up to serve, at 5-4 in a game that ended 9-8, he genuinely "hit the wall".  A complete sense of the tank being empty, and likely the ultimate reason he lost 9-8, and then 5-2 in the following game***.

Now, I know what you are thinking, hitting the wall usually happens around the twenty mile mark in a marathon, the point at which all the carbohydrates have been burnt, which burn like a cigarette paper on a bbq, and the body is turning to the fat in the body, which burns like a damp newspaper on a matchstick.  According to Brad, who knows such things, actually with today's isotonic drinks and carb-loading**** you needn't hit the wall at all, and that may be where I have been going wrong.  Not all that clever stuff you need for a marathon, but maybe just a snack sometime after lunch and before I play.  Maybe even a banana, like Andy Murray.  Now that would be nice.

I arrived home, a spent force and a tired little bunny.  Tea was a Houmous Sandwich***** and a bit of a sit down and chat.  LO was thankfully feeling slightly better, and we went to bed early, not for the thing you normally go up for, but for sleeping, which is the other thing you normal go up for.  And sleep we did, until we woke up.


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* just in case, that is what we call in the literary game "irony"**.
** Thanks for that startling insight. Ed.
*** Okay, I think we can go with that for now. Ed.
**** I have always called it pigging out at the Italian, but apparently it is also a technique for beating "the wall".
**** A delightful meal filed under Snack/Small meal and something I first experienced in Denmark, home of the open sandwich.  It consists of half a Chiabatta bread loaf, which itself is cut in half, liberally coated with houmous, then a layer of roasted veg, followed by grated carrot and salad.  The top half is spread with pesto, green by preference, and placed on top of the "sandwich" at ninety degrees to the base slice.  Lovely.