I'm ill again so that must mean I have time to blog!

Yeah, this pretty much sucks.

Thursday's training, an un-named person decided he wanted to have a quick game of taps (light touches, no harm meant to come about it), of course he's one of these people who has to prove a point. "Hey look! I knocked Cralosk over in taps, how pathetic is he?". What I almost failed to mention is that he kicked me the hardest I've been kicked in the side, I wasn't expecting this at all, not prepared or anything so i didn't have a chance to block quick enough. Bastard. I sat on the side for the rest of the session clutching my side, repeatedly telling my coach I'll be fine. I went to bed early that night and woke up in incredible pain about 3am. My side was killing me! I guzzled, probably, half a pack off paracetamol and went back to bed. Philip wakes me up at 6am so we can go for a run and notices a red/purple patch stretching from the centre of my chest almost, to the middle of my back nearly, going from bottom of ribcage to 4th rib up. Erm...right. "Well, I tell you what Philip, I won't go for a run to be on the safe side" <<
School came around and I didn't really feel too great during first lesson (Sport Science). My teacher was a bit concerned and when he saw the bruise, he immediately phoned my Dad to come get me. From about 11am to 9pm, I was hospital with my Dad "getting payed for waiting in hospital - I don't want to make a habit of this" *Sudden guilt trip* Why should I be guilty?
So Dad's at home with his cold lasagne and I'm just feeling to sick to eat anything - even nice food! He took a sudden pity and felt kinda lonely and acme to take me home about 9pm. He probably realises how much I don't like hospital now since last February.

Saturday I stay in bed till 11am - all time record!
Sunday I can't really remember much of...

Today, well I wasn't well enough to go to school, nor eat anything, nor stay conscious. I have a lung full of blood. So emergency procedure to drain it out and some recovery time in a warm room all to myself. Lunch arrives which is shortly followed by it's departure.

9pm and I'm sat infront of the TV with my laptop recovering from a bit of a frightful few days.

See ya around.

Long time no blog!

Wow, erm... There's been a lot going on since Portugal! Got beaten by the German, but he really was twice my size, he just sat on me - must so more press ups with added weight, e.g my dad sat on my shoulders. same with bench presses. I can bench press Kate quite easily, shall try Philip next! :-P (He ran away after reading that)

Exams are over aswell, so I'm back into my morning runs. My Dad had made me spend that time to revise. At least he didn't say running was a waste of time, he just wants the best from me, and I fully understand. Big relief that they're over, weight off your mind and all.

Me and Kate have just realised, that after going out for nearly 2 years and 8 months, that we haven't had a valentines day together. Kinda soppy...not when it involves being in a coma last year. I determined to make it there, I don't want to let her down and make her sad again, even though she thinks 14th February is a waste of money - she still loves it when I get her something meaningful!

Peace for now.

Portugal

yep, here I am for the European champs. Can't be saying much at them moment except for sorry for not updating much in the past few weeks.



Generalisation:
School - going good, crappiest test mark so far has been 87%

Training - awesome, spesh as I got pick for euro champs.

Family - still striving and putting more cracks in the wall!

Kate - still alive!! Even after falling off a chair whilst hanging upside down under a table today...crazy girl! :-D

Mates - All giving me and Philip their support and thanks for lending us your folders when we've missed work, kinda saved my butt on Tuesday!



See you after I've won! haha!

Laters. x

Half term

Well half term has been the biggest rest for me since the summer holidays. I started out on Monday (after my 6am run) to just try and relax, watch some TV. Fat chance of that happening for me! I got bored of watching TV after 15 minutes and me and Philip went to Braim wood to do some PK training. Something we hadn't done for almost 2 months! Man, we were shite! Well to start with, we soon got back into the swing of it :D Happy days. Had to be careful though, no trying any big jumps or anything dangerous...knowing my luck I'd end up in hospital for the rest of half term. I know it sounds kinda sissy but I really can't afford to injure myself. Knackering my knee a few weeks back gave me a bit of a scare cos I had to miss out on one of my Saturday training sessions. Me and Philip then decided to set aside half terms and school holidays for PK training. Unless there are Karate competitions or whatever. They're kinda more important...
Found out later in the week Liam had been training at Braim wood. Damn, missed our chance to train with the master of Parkour Progression. You should check his progression vid:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr69yY4Bjpg

Hmm...well all I did in that week was PK training at Braim wood, Roundhay Park, Oakwood (sorry the guy who we nearly gave a heart attack to after wallflipping on the side of his car as it started to move from the traffic lights...). That's about it really...oh yeah, me and Philip came 4th in the tag team finals we did on Wednesday out of 60 teams. Not bad for first time in with the England masters! I suppose it's good training for being a master one day :D

A "normal" week for James...

This is for the people who have been asking me:
1) Why I'm so fit
2) How do I fit all of my training, school work and have a life at the same time?

Monday morning dawns and I'm up at 6am to go out for my morning run around the big lake at Roundhay park. I live about 600yrds from there so It's not too much of a task. And at 6:15ish in the morning it's not exactly a task crossing the road (it's a different story in the winter though with the ice), which has seen a fair few accidents in the past few years. Nothing to do with me though! (Phew!) I'm back from my run about 7am - give or take a few laps around the block until my song on my iPod has finished, quick shower and then it's off to school.
Nowadays I'm getting home from school about 5pm which is a bit ghey at the moment but I'm getting used to it. Love having free periods though, I do all my work in those so I have time at home to myself, which doesn't usually happen to be honest. (Yes, geek I know but you'll understand why in a minute or so).
So I'm at home and Alex (my 7 year old hyperactive brother) has already been at home for nearly 2 hours so he's getting a bit wound-up and so is my Mum. Quick hello to them and off upstairs to finish off any work to do. So far work load isn't too much so I'm usually getting it done by about 6pm, then it's tea which is usually a pile of pasta infront of the TV whilst doing some leg conditioning involving weights and squats, quite hard whilst holding a plate of pasta and trying to shoo dogs away from me. Then it's off to karate. Me and Philip usually get there for about 6:45 so we can do our warm up before the session starts at 7. 2 hours of some pretty basic stuff later (for us anyway), and then we're cooling down and back home at about 9:30pm.
Then it's finishing off any work I've forgotten or just didn't get done beforehand, shower, keep Alex amused for half an hour or so then off to bed about 10pm. 10pm is kinda early for most people, but considering I'm getting up about 6am, it's not really...

Tuesday: Same again, 6am start and off for a run, shower, off to school, back home from school and It's my day to look after Alex so whilst doing some tricky chemistry homework I'm also trying keep him amused and stop him from breaking things, mainly me, and keep him fed and watered! Karate 7 till 9pm again, back home 9:30, shower and some late night conditioning. Bed.

Wednesday: Same stuff, home at 5pm, conditioning seems I have no training tonight so I have 2 hours to spare so I might go round to see Kate for an hour or so which brightens both of our days =]. Back home for tea with my mum brandashing her electric meat cutter at us for misbehaving at the table, which is usually my Dad's fault. 2 hours of homework later and it's maybe TV time, and then bed.

Thursday: Home at about 8pm because I've had training straight after school. I'll have a shower and then fall asleep in my tea. Luckily I only have 2 out of 5 lessons in the morning on Thursdays so I do my homework in my 3 free periods. I'm then woken up about 9pm by my dad, if not Alex who's been running around the house causing a riot as usual, to go to bed, "Cos you're too big to carry up the stairs and put into bed now". Ironic how roles have reversed.Me and Philip carried my Dad to bed a few nights ago after a pretty nasty day at work. Sofa wasn't an option as Alex was asleep there and we knew if woken... everyone else in the street would wake up too.

Friday: Last day at school until the weekend, fat chance of a rest though. All homework is done by the time I have to go to karate. Only a 1 hour session tonight which is mainly coaching the younger kids. Back home and It's some good old family quality time together which consists of walking the dogs and Alex, running away from mum who's still brandashing her electric meat cutter, chatting on msn and on the phone to older brother Chris who's at Uni in America, and listening to piles of stories from Dad's day at work.

Saturday: If you read one of my earlier blogs, titled 'Saturday's training' I think, you'll see the full details of that.

Sunday: Recovery day. I do f**k all. I might go round to see Kate...but she's usually off sailing with her Dad. Kinda of a bummer really, cos she's free on Saturday and I'm training, and I'm free Sunday and she's training...

And THEN it's Monday all over again and we start again...Tiresome huh? Hope that answers some of your questions you nosey people.

Conditioning

As I had no training session on Saturday due to my knee injury, I did some conditioning to strengthen it. Which, I have to say, involved some odd exercises.

1. Strengthening under pressure:
This involved me lying on my back, with my Dad (who weighs about 16 stone) lying on my feet in the air and I had to effectively do some pretty tough leg bench presses. Made harder as he couldn't keep his balance some of the time which made my knees click every now and then. I only last for 7 of those. Too many red faces!
2. Strengthening during motion:
I often train with leg weights for when I go out running, so this time, I only put a weight on my left leg (the injured one). It's very hard to keep a constant rhythm going I must say, but there's been improvement so I won't complain too much.
3. Rest
Imbetween all those exercises I did, I rested with my leg raised for about 10 minutes, then carried on with my conditioning.

Anyway, through all the pain I've suffered this week due to my obsessive compulsive need to condition, I made it through a 2 hour karate session without and playing up from my knee. S'all good!

Oh yeah, instead of training on Saturday, I spent the best part of 9 hours with my girlfriend during the day, and I gotta say it, I hadn't been that happy for a long time. So here's a tip: Don't block yourself in a cage and train train train. Enjoy yourself once in a while, whether it be pissing about with your mates, time with your girl/guy or just doing jack shit... It can improve your training no doubt.

Injurys

Yep, 'fraid so guys!

What with all this twisting and turning and hard landings I endure every Saturday, something was bound to go wrong! And unfortunately I've damaged a muscle in my left knee... So no training for me this Saturday, which gives me chance to catch up with Kate; who also hasn't had an injury free week unsurprisingly!
Hockey match + Kate in goal = awesome saves! She's got a bruise the size of an ostrich egg on her leg just above her knee, where the goalie shin pads stop...typical. (saved the goal too, even better!) Little did she know that the ball had bust a minor minor artery and caused bleeding under her skin...nasty business. A syringe later from my mum and she was hobbling around and squabbling with my dad about how important/unimportant scrabble is... Yes the board game scrabble.

So no training Saturday, bummer.
Spending a whole day in Leeds with my girlfriend (Which I haven't done since August), Awesome stuff.