Countdown continues 9 weeks

Friday - Woke up at 4 and despite my best efforts including listening to some guided meditation, I was not going back to sleep, so back to McDonalds it was for morning coffee! Feeling better in general though. It'll be a week tonight since we arrived here so should just about be over the jet lag by tomorrow. They do say it takes an day for every hour when travelling from west to east and I feel like I'm getting into the routine.

The sun came out in full force yesterday which always helps put things in a better light as well. The quality of training has been good so far and the Japanese players at the university are of a very good standard. They have been training for a competition this weekend. I've been making sure I do lots of recovery in between which should help ensure that the quality remains high throughout the length of the training block. I've been doing a circuit everyday so lots of cardio and speed exercises, but I'm beginning to hate tuck jumps with a passion! So I was happy yesterday when I had weights on my program instead. However, Sally soon pointed out that it was actually a weights circuit!

Sally has been getting all artistic and playing around with picture collages and I've been helping her start up her blog. iPads are definitely big kids toys! Its always useful to be able to connect to the WWW whilst travelling and training although I do make sure I disconnect regularly and give myself a break. I'm enjoying reading The Hunger Games at the moment and brought a book out with me called Mind Gym, a sports psychology book which I'm finding quite interesting. Watched another good film "The Way" (hang on, is there a theme here?!) about a father's journey along the road to Santiago in memory of his dead son. Reminded me about the Paoulo Cuello book.

Another full day of training ahead today but a quieter weekend after that. I'm looking forward to catching up on a bit of sleep and hopefully I'll get to explore Tokyo a bit, if my legs can keep carrying me upright!