Saturday 24th August 2013
We had an excellent training day today which saw Alex produce the highest level of hitting that I’ve seen from him ever!
We had a bit of a lie-in this morning as we met for breakfast at 8.30am and then got the tournament bus to the club at 10am. Due to the ‘Drinks Festival’ yesterday and the ‘Boat Race’ today the whole of Scarborough was packed, so it ended up taking us almost 40 minutes to do a journey that would normally take 5-10 minutes.
Alex warmed up as soon as we arrived at the club and then at 11am he went on court with Gui Gomes from America who qualified and lost in the semi-finals last week. Over the past couple of weeks Alex’s game has really started to come together and the level that he produced this morning was the highest I have seen from him. That resulted in a really good training session for just over an hour where both players were pushing each other hard in hot and very humid conditions.
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Alex and Gui during their training session this morning
After the session Alex showered and changed and then we headed to ‘Subway’ for lunch. I’m normally a fan of Subway sandwiches but as I’m training for the Great North Run and trying to lose a couple of kilos I could have really done without having a big baguette for lunch – unfortunately it was the only option though!
We were back on court at 2pm this afternoon to train with Victor Gurevich and once again Alex produced another session of high quality. The only difficulty for Alex was trying to maintain his focus when he took a big lead in the points but it was something we discussed and hopefully he can continue to work on it tomorrow. At 3pm we finished the session and we should have got the tournament bus straight back to the hotel but as it was running a bit late Alex started is power session at the club. We then finished it on the veranda at the hotel and by 4pm Alex had finished a very good training day.
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Overhead Slams – part of Alex’s power programme
Mine hadn’t quite finished though and I took to the streets for a very draining 6 mile run. The roads weren’t as hilly as in St. Vincent but the humidity at 5pm was very high and it really took it out of my legs. Like before though, the thoughts of helping very sick children kept me motivated to finish the run. I’ve now raised £195 for Make-A-Wish Foundation which is just over ¼ of the way to my target amount – if you can help me get closer please donate via my JustGiving page – www.justgiving.com/robsGNR2013.
At 6pm Alex, Stefan, Danielle and I walked into Scarborough to once again have a fantastic meal at Ciao Café – we all went for the pasta again but I think I’m going to have to have a ‘cheat day’ this week so that I can try one of their amazing looking pizzas!!!
