22nd Mar

Woke up this morning feeling a bit ropey - like the beginning of a cold coming, so I want to get that sorted and out of the way by next weekend as next week marks the start of the 2 week holiday and I've got several days off in which to tighten up on my bowling further still. I'm quite happy to have come down with a cold as that part explains why I was bowling so badly yesterday (Well that's my excuse). The downside is that if I do go down with a proper cold that will mean I'll lose any of the fitness I'd have built up - not that there's a lot of fitness.

My athletes foot has all but cleared up seemingly down to the Canesten cream, as soon as I started to use that there was a marked improvement, I've just got to carry on using it now till mid April for it to work 100% it seems.

I've done some stretching of my calf muscle this morning and the left one which was the one that was injured in the last game with Grays & Chadwell still feels tight, whereas in comparison the other good leg suffers from no tightness at all. I obviously need to stretch the tight one more still. I reckon generally I'm still very unfit and not particularly agile, which feels like something I should address. Other exercise such as core strength exercises are going well with things such as the plank - I'm able to do the arms and legs off the ground at the same time with that (Diagonally) and my rotator cuff exercises seem to be okay too. But the running does concern me and the prospects of pulling the calf muscle again early in the season if I don't get that sorted. As I've said before I kind of consider the fact that I'm usually able and very willing to run with full commitment when fielding and see that as an asset when I'm playing cricket, I can't bat and if my bowling turns out to not to have improved in reality I need to be half decent at something and that's my ability to chase after balls and stop runs being made. Which then brings me on to catching which is another weak area. I dropped a catch yesterday when practicing which made me look like a right woman - in fact I didn't get my hands anywhere near it and it was embarrassing, I'm so glad there wasn't a whole team watching cos I'd have died. But in my defence the field is dead uneven and when you're running and looking up at the same time and uneven surface doesn't help as it sets you of balance. So catching high balls is something else I need to practice.


In the short term though let's get rid of this cold - Lemsips and sucking raw garlic cloves here we come.