When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

PHEW! Boy has it been a long run...literally. Now that I work about 40 hours a week, I've had to bend over backwards to find the time and strength for rugby training. It's been really hard to drag myself to the gym after working 9 hours in a row. But, there's no way that I can let up for a second. I may not be able to give my 100% best effort all the time right now, and I may not be doing as much as I possibly can to get ready for rugby, but I just need to get through this part of the season and come out of it in at least some sort of decent shape. This is by far the hardest part of the season, because sometimes my will power and my body's exhaustion want to tell me that rugby season is over and that I don't need to worry about working out as hard or as frequently. But that couldn't be any farther from the truth; if anything it's actually the complete opposite. It's most important for me to work out as much as I can right now so that I don't come back into the fall unprepared and behind. These are the overtime hours that will really put me one step ahead. Like I have always said and believed, rugby season is never over.
I'm happy that I can still maintain under an 8 minute mile though, that's still a decent speed to have under my belt. But obviously there is still immense amounts of room for improvement. I hope that I can still maintain some good endurance in running; it's been a little harder to work on endurance with my time restraints, but I have to try harder to make sure it's not completely ignored. I have also really started to utilize various exercise machines at the gym to work out every main muscle group in my body. What's funny is that not only did I used to overlook almost all of the machines, but there were different muscles that I always ignored and thought of as sort of silly to work out. For instance, I always thought it was sort of funny that people worked out their back muscles, unless they were super old and weak since that sounded like the only legitimate purpose to it. But now when I think about it, every single muscle is needed in rugby. There isn't one that you don't use! And, I think it's actually really important to work out your back for rugby, especially when you think about how many times you're hit there, you land on it, and how much you truly use it for almost everything you do. Realizing how the seemingly silly back muscle work out proved to be important for rugby, I decided to make sure that I give the same, undivided attention to every other piece of my body since they're all equally important for rugby. I can definitely notice my arms growing in size, because now instead of doing a few dumbbell work outs I have been working out my biceps, triceps, wrists (even more important now since I broke my left one, so it's weaker than usual), chest, and deltoids all separately and all getting the same amount of attention. I have even gotten into doing leg workouts outside of just running, because I'm sure that there are certain things various exercises and machines can do to strengthen my leg muscles that running can't. As much as I catch myself on a regular basis questioning my work ethic and efforts for rugby and whether or not I'm doing enough, I'm at least putting in a decent amount of thought to this and trying to get on a good regimen based around the circumstances I am given.
Also, I have come across a rugby video game! It is called Rugby 2006 from EA Sports (bahaha), and I think it's hysterical. I can't play any "real matches" yet because I'm super unfamiliar with video games and lose virtual matches against South Africa at least 70 - 0, and I can't help but get disappointed, upset, and feeling like crying since it's still my little cyber rugby team getting crushed. But I think it's so much fun and really funny to practice kicking, tackling, and the "side step, shoulder charge, and hand off (a stiff arm, haha)." I think in a way it's actually somewhat helpful to remember all these little tactics and specifics to rugby, because sometimes they can be overlooked (especially in the heat of a game moment). That's why you need to know all these little things almost like they're on the back of your palm, because they're all the little things that count and matter so much in a rugby game. And the practice drills that you play on the side to learn the controls of the game are actually drills that I think would be really cool to do in real life! There was even a practice drill for drop kicking for points, and it made me realize how much I should practice that more. I guess in general I would say any sort of exposure to rugby, whether watching it or playing it (in real life or virtually, ha ha) is extremely beneficial to someone's rugby game. I'd love to use this video game for chalk talks with the team....my real human rugby team, that is, haha.