Ed, Haley, and I quietly packed our gear into the car at 7:15 AM, doing our absolute best not to wake the whole of Marlborough as we set off for the eBatt Table Tennis Centre in North London for an intensive morning of coaching.
The drive down was smooth and straightforward right up until we crossed into New Barnet. Every single time I visit this venue, the SatNav insists on taking me a completely different route for the final mile. By this point, I am thoroughly convinced the local roads reconfigure themselves overnight just to keep me on my toes.
Although we had plenty of time in hand, I was beginning to doubt both the technology and my own internal landmark-based navigation system. Just as panic was threatening to creep in, pure instinct prompted me to take a right turn at an old monument, and the venue suddenly appeared in plain sight. Phew. I naively assumed the hardest part of my day was behind me.
“Your turn, Mark!” gasped Ed, staggering off the floor as he wrapped up his opening stint. He’d been working flat-out and looked utterly delighted to hand over the baton.
The coach proceeded to put me through my paces, pushing me harder than any session I’ve done in recent memory—particularly when it came to lower-body movement. People often assume table tennis is predominantly about upper-body technique, wrist action, and arm speed. While that’s true, the real engine room of the sport is in your legs. They are in constant, explosive lateral motion, frantically shuffling side to side just to position your torso behind the ball for a clean shot.
After forty-five gruelling minutes of non-stop footwork drills, I staggered off the court like a exhausted tag-team wrestler, passing the baton back to Ed, who had miraculously managed to rest and recover.
On the drive home, we debriefed on what had been a relentlessly tough session. I had to candidly admit that the morning had exposed a few glaring weaknesses in my baseline conditioning. I could feel a brand-new training list—and a heavily revised fitness regime—already forming in my head.
Back in Pewsey, Karen had enjoyed an equally productive morning, systematically ticking off the final remaining garden jobs. She has officially evolved into a master ‘completer-finisher’. Right on cue, just as she planted the final shrub, the sky darkened and a steady rain began to fall, watering in all her hard work.
We unanimously elected to spend a completely lazy Sunday afternoon indoors. My legs were stiffening up rapidly after the drive back from London, and Karen was more than ready to put her feet up after her morning of landscaping.
With the rain pattering against the glass and the house completely quiet, it turned out to be the perfect end to a punishing morning.
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