A Work and Recovery Day

Thursday, January 23, 2025

After the over 20,000 steps that I marched yesterday during my trip to picturesque Villaviciosa, my body was begging me to take it easy today.

For once, I answered my own prayers.

While I spent the bulk of the day looking at more video of Saturday's opponent, the Las Rozas Black Demons (2-0), I did run a few errands in the morning.

This French bakery brightened

my morning constitutional

I had a croissant here yesterday, solid but not out of this world.

I was headed to the Biblioteca Publica

I am now fully fluent in answering that ages old Spanish 101 question, "¿Donde esta la biblioteca?"

It's official

I am now a full fledged, card carrying member of our local

library system, one that has lots of English language books on its shelves for me to peruse.

I celebrated the event by eating my

usual light breakfast in this spot

It was quite tasty I must say.

Not 100% sure why this restaurante

near our apartment is "With Peru"

but I'll support them anyway

In the evening, after lots of time analyzing the Black Demons video on HUDL against their opponent last weekend, the Zaragoza Hurricanes (0-1), I boarded the #1 line bus to head to what would become a long night of rewarding Mariners practices.

About 20 minutes later, I was at

the university ready to coach

I never tire of this view of the Laboral 

University from our practice facility

We practice on a nice artificial turf field designated by the university primarily for rugby.

Tonight, I had three practices to attend at 5:00 p.m. (Youth Flag), 6:30 p.m. (Junior Flag) and 8:00 p.m. (Senior Tackle).

I was a tad early and the Sun was still shining, so I explored a bit.

A Rugby sled

I wish that it was on our field and not sitting randomly on this remote patch of grass across the street.

The University's Softball Field . . .

. . . sits right next to its Basball Field

The Youth Flag team warming up . . .

. . . in the slightly disjointed fashion

expected of young people this age

The male and female players that you see range in maturity and are ages 13 down to eight.

With both flag practices having been good ones, it was now time for the main event, our Senior team's workout.

Strong Safety Javier was stylishly

Dressed for Success

I am happy to report that we had by far our best practice since I arrived two weeks ago.

There was high intensity, lots of passion, great competition, tons of individual improvement and even a little drama during the post-practice talk.

I left the field thinking to myself that it had been,

"A BEAUTIFUL night for American Football!"

One of the things that I love about our Thursday night practices is that I join Mariners President Kiké, former Mariners Line Coach Eduardo and some of their friends for a fun filled dinner afterwards.

Tonight we had a rousing time

at Restaurante Dipos

This sports bar is one of the Mariners sponsors and has a definite soccer feel to it, a must for any sports bar in Europe.

The wings, pizza and ribs that we all shared were quite delicious.

Good Times, INDEED!

Only two more days until we

play the Las Rozas Black Demons

We still have a one hour walk-through practice on Friday night before we take the five hour bus ride to Madrid on Saturday morning for the game.

It should be interesting.

American football in a EuroBall setting is so rewarding on nights like this one.