Alan’s first game

a photo of two soccer players when one player in an orange outfit kicks a burning comet across the field, right into the goalThe stress! We can feel the tention at home, the excitement. All these emotions, and the match is still a few days away. For Alan it does not matter. His spirit is up! High up, his thoughts are of victory. He is focused on only one thing. Every night we train football. Every visit to the park we need to bring a football. Every visit to a park with an area with grass we need to take Alan’s special football shoes. On wednesday is his first official match with his new team ‘Formento’ against another team!

He is sooooo excited, it look like it is a contagious feeling. We are all cheering for him of course. We all hope Alan’s team will win, but if for some weird reason this is not the case, that for sure we will be able to find some outside reason. A bad field, the ball was too soft, foul play by the other team, maybe missing a star player?

Soccer

A painting of two football players trying to both get the ball on a football field, The players are painted with clear lines, lots of color. The legs of the football players and the football itself are much larger than normal. One player has a blue soccer outfit. The other player has orange colored clothes.The soccer gene is completely lacking in my. Father Kees and mother Nel were both soccer trainers with various youth teams at VVSB (The local team from Noordwijkerhout). My brother Bert was also a player. I was sometimes forces to visit the games and watch, but I prefered to spend my time picking grass for my rabbits. The game was not interesting to me, and I still don’t care for it.

Well, the gene is back! Alan has a love for the game that amazes me. Alan is part of the Las Palmas youth team of ‘Atleti Formento‘. Now, every night we play a game of soccer in the hall (with a soft ball), every visit to the park he spends playing football with the kids there, every weekend we go to the park what Alan tries out his new soccer shoes. Once a week he goes to training.

Coach

I will become a coach. The date we have to focus on is Saturday the 19th. The event is the Kids Race 2022, in Maspalomas. Alex and Alan will have to perform then. Alan will run 300 meters, and Alex needs to cover 1000 meters. The kids have developed some nasty habits for the weekends where they quickly get bored, and often the situation deteriorates rapidly into fighting. I hope to change this behaviour by focussing on something physical in the mornings. We will do a couple of training sessions, just like the real deal.

Usually we go to these running events without any preparation. The distances are so small that the kids can easily run them, and just participating is much more important than actually winning. This time I want to try and get a good result. Finish in the top 10. We need to approach this professionally. Evaluate the distance. Find out a good speed. See how much sprinting they can do. We have two weekends to prepare and train. If we go on Saterday and Sunday we have 4 sessions available. If they both try their distance twice it should be more than enough preparation. If they train in the morning they don’t even need to change their weekend routines (hopefully with less fighting).

The plan

  • Warming up. Walk to Romano (the track), do some jumping, some stretching, maybe a few push ups.
  • Review the track. Walk the entire distance, and discuss the optimal approach to running the distance in a good/easy/fast way.
  • Alan: 300 meters. First a small candy for some extra energy. Start running normally the first 220 meters, and finish with 80 meters superfast. Drink water and relax/rest. Do this twice! I will measure the time.
  • Alex: 1000 meters. First a small candy for some extra energy. Start running normally the first 300 meters, then slow down a bit for 300 meters to regain strength, then another 300 meters normally and finish with 100 meters superfast. Drink water and relax/rest. Do this twice! I will measure the time.
  • Cooling down, a few jumps, stretch, discuss results, walk back home.
  • Objective

    The results really are not so important. If the kids have a good time that is the only important thing. The preparation is more meant to stimulate the kids and to prepare them a bit. If they reach their goal of finishing with the first 10, well, thats great! It will boost their self-esteem, which is great. If they just finish that is also great. They will have prepared for something, and gave if their best try. This is also something to feel good about.

    Sport – Body Project

    What to do when you are locked in your home for a couple of weeks. In the beginning I did very little and this was quickly noted in my weight. I have gained a couple of kilos while doing nothing at home. All the stress caused by two bored kids didn’t help at all in bringing down my weight. Luckily I found a great solution. We have been training for 20 to 40 minutes every day with YouTube and team body project.

    Simple exercises and a very motivational trainer who really gives you the idea that every movement you make it a big win. Really great and even the kids like to join in which makes it even better. After the short workout we get short time of quiet and relaxation at home while the kids recover the energy they burned.

    10K nightrun

    Once again I ran a 10K and this time with a pretty good result. I finished in just over 50 minutes. Up until two months ago I was following the perfect training schedule. I was running three times a week between 6 or 7K. A very good preparation for a 10K. Then my family came home from spending the summer at the beach, and my running activities decreased from 3 times a week to 0 times a week.

    Still my foundation must be good, because even without running for two months I still ran the 10K in a very good time, 50 minutes and 10 seconds. I ran together with the father of one of Alex’friends, so that maybe added some motivation.
    2018 - 10k nightrun!

    Taek wondo – White Yellow

    Taek Wondo - Wit Geel!Sport is not only fun, it is also very healthy. Alex goes to taek wondo twice a week, and these classes are basically running, jumping, doing obstacle courses and every now and then also kicking and hitting an imaginary enemy.

    His taek wondo teacher is a nice man who has quite a bit of authority (great for getting all the kids in the class to behave). He knows very well how make all those kids behave and we can really see the discipline in all those kids. Sometimes the teacher gives a compliment, and you can almost see the complimented kid grow a little. Bad behavior results in a punishment of a couple of pushups or sitting on the side for a while without participating in the current game. Simple and effective.

    After a little getting used to Alex is going really great. So good that after a couple of month he already had the basic 20 taek wondo moves down, and this is enough for a promotion to the white-yellow band!

    *Proud*

    Nightrun result

    I was very happy with my running result. After month without running at all I was a bit worries about running 10K, but in the end it went very well, and I finished under the hour. My time was 54 minutes and 30 seconds. Not bad at all considering that it was raining during the first part of the race.Nightrun Las Palmas 2016!