29/10/07
How much fun was my sunday? Three metric craploads of fun, THATs how much. I was, naturally, pretty tired after my night of riding trains and cycling the backroads and highways of scary Southampton. Still, I managed to drag myself out of bed at 9:58, making me the earliest riser in my whole building, I would wager.
At this point I should probably tell you at this point where I was heading: Unicycle Hockey. I am told that to the outside observer, the combination of those two sports seems incredibly ridiculous, but after reading about it on various websites for a year and a half I was all to happy to take part. I was approached by the co-organiser(I think) in Subway(where else?) on wednesday. I'd gone in with my uniciycle(it's my main mode of transport) and four of the hockeyites were also there. It was weird seeing other unicycles, freaked me out a bit.
Anyway, onto today. The session was held at a school 3.7 miles away. It was suggested that I take the bus, but I don't like 'em so I uni-ed there instead. It was a pretty rainy day, and I soaked my jeans(thought ahead, packed a spare pair).
The activity itself was AMAZING. I was almost worn out after just ten minutes of chasing the tennis ball around the sports hall. We went at it for about an hour and a half, almost always moving, bumping into people, tripping over my own stick, slipping on a tight turn... for a sport with so many ways to quite badly hurt yeself, it's strangely safe.
I'm not a sports person, so was prepared to not do swimmingly. Still, I got a couple of good tackles in, and assisted a fair few goals. I definitely know that I'm a defender, not an attacker. Which is fine - I like the satisfaction of blocking someone's shot.
It was also a great venue to work on general unicycle skills - I'm getting to grips with idling and riding backwards(both pretty useful in uni-hockey) and working on it in the sports hall rather than on a pavement late at night(doing it during the day is annoying with all the civilians around).
I can't wait to go back next week.