Stamina Practice Sessions

In February my soccer team will start to build up their stamina by starting the daily practice sessions with a 5KM run. Yesterday was the first time to do so and to my surprise they delivered great lap times. The fastest one came in at 18.55 minutes. Numbers two, three, and four clocked in within 30 seconds of the fastest one. From the 11 members present yesterday, the slowest came in at 26.45 because he sprained his calf-muscle at 3KM and thus continued at a slower pace.

It is still around 8 degrees centigrade these days so they soon went down to the soccer pitch to start with basic warm-ups with the ball before cooling off too much. It was amusing to see them struggling to get their legs moving and deliver correct passes. After about fifteen minutes I gave them 2 minutes to relax, breathe, and stretch. Then we played a "mini-game" (which is like futsal), this is because my current team has only fourteen members and only ten were able to make it to practice yesterday. We payed 2 x 20 minutes. Just 10 minutes before finish time our first-coach came and gave a small supplementary practice which focused on aligning in the precise line between the ball and the center of the goal to prevent easy goals. See: Triangle Soccer Defending Drill

Hopefully they have recovered enough from yesterday's run to finish today's run within one minutes of yesterday's time. I'll join them today, but am not gonna try to come in at 20 minutes...