Week 9

I guess I was on a bit of a sabbatical from refereeing because I took just over three weeks off from appointments.

I had to get my hand X-rayed from an earlier wrist injury and the weather was far from warming for the spring. 50+cm of snow to trudge through to get to the practical session.

Earlier in the week, I made a visit back to a nearby city and some familiar scenes from what was normal a year ago for me. A blast from the past.

Usual Morning Pre-Game Stop

Usual Pre-Game Double Chocolate Donut

Of course I had to re-live it by getting the donut.

Meanwhile, I decided to start blogging now and then about real world incidents and I start off with the Euro Futsal finals on the ThirdBlindMouse blog! See The Final’s Second Touch. Keep an eye out there for more info and my blog posts!

This month off has been sometime for reflection. I realise it’s an excellent idea to hang the whistle for a short time to strategise and reflect on my refereeing and observing others to figure out how I can improve my officiating when getting back. There was stuff to think about.

In other news, I got some nice stuff in the mail! Laws of the Game for the new year as well and my cheque for instructing an education session. I guess that makes me a professional instructor! 😉

My league also had its first red card so I had to deal with the disciplinarian side of it to issue suspensions for the misconduct.

Later in the week had Part 2 of the discipline hearing. Not much I can say here about that other than it not being fun.

There was some work to do late last week with the university league gamebag and replacement work including new gameballs.

The weather has become freezing cold again. In fact -30-ish and even worse in the not too distant north but hopefully spring is right around the corner. I might be “enjoying” the Dubai sun in two months’ time on the other spectrum.

More mid-week Champions League action although not as exciting as the prior week other than Klaas-Jan Huntelaar’s 90th minute goal.

I did a run at the end of the week and I have never paid as much attention as I did to my heart rate and breathing technique. It started at 150 and would go up following every run to the high 170s. My goal was to reduce it back to 150 again and it worked for the first few rounds but slowly but surely after each run it ended at 180s, 190s up until 193.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/452713799

Good run and training effect. Not sure if bringing my heart rate down is the goal of the recovery period. Need to ask someone.

My hamstrings were just slightly sore the day after so it was rest to follow. Next day was gameday though. Back out on the court!