More Curling - National Championships

You would be forgiven if you were unaware of the English National Curling Championships taking place tomorrow through sunday - in the first place they are advertised only to a small select group aka the competitors and secondly they take place just outside Glasgow so the connection to England is not obvious. That they take place in Scotland and not at the excellent curling facility in Kent is a contentious subject among the small (but I like to think elite) fraternity that is English curling and, I would imagine, baffling to anyone living in England who becomes aware of the situation. That is all a topic for another day, though - for now the English national championships occupy the foreground even if they are being held in the neighbouring country.

I see now that I left the blogging on the European Championships a little abruptly. Not deliberately so but I guess once we were out there was a feeling of it all being over and although we stayed in Aberdeen through to the finals, I was also catching up with work and family. Our nemesis the Dutch defeated the favourites the Russians (their team is on an 8 year dedicated programme leading to the Winter Olympics in 2014 in Russia) to win the B Group and gain promotion to the big boy league. They did well but we had a big feeling of "it could have been us". We beat them in the round robin and we had a strong position against them in the play off but a combination of their good play and a few loose shots from us left us missing out all together. When they received their gold medals and their national anthem we realised what we had missed doing.

We hope for another chance. And that is what this weekend offers. The winners of the National Championship represent England at the next Europeans in Champery, Switzerland. We have tasted it and we want it again but there are three strong teams arrayed against us. Each one is a worthy opponent and all would represent England well. We must play our best if we are to succeed in attaining a second attempt at the Europeans.

There has been training - and more shockingly, abstinence from alcohol. What else would you expect: we are peak condition athletes (well relatively speaking within the curling world in which we compete). And we need to be because tomorrow is a testing day. We play each of our opponents so that's three games; likely nine hours on the ice. If you have not tried curling then you probably think it is a bit like bowls but played on ice. Even if that were right you might balk at nine hours of bowls and admit that, in the unlikely event that you chose to do that, you would find yourself a bit fatigued by the time you eventually left the green. I may even have told you that it was like bowling: it makes it easier to understand. But I lied. It is considerably more athletically demanding. The power and thrust of delivering a stone is more demanding; staying upright on ice requires more muscle control than on grass or carpet and sweeping can be very physically taxing. Listen to me and stop laughing - this is the man who did under 3.5 hours for the NY Marathon in late 2008 - I know a bit about demanding physical activities. In fact I would tell you more but I am exhausted from the training today and need to catch some zzzs.

More tomorrow if I don't fall asleep at the keyboard.

Keith