So it’s been a busy couple of weeks really.
The main thing for me over the last week or so has been the creation and renovation of what is now our club’s full-time academy/dojang. After a lot of searching, failed attempts and hurdles, In Sung Kwan now has its own place, somewhere we as students can all call home. There’s a lot of time, work and money gone into it, but it’s all been worth it.
The dojang was once an industrial unit-cum-showroom, and was very “bare bones” when we first handed over the deposit on the first day of conversion. We were left with a dusty, dirty shell of a building with no paint on the walls and some manky old carpet glued to the floor. Tearing that up was a mission in itself and ended up with most of us (those who put in some hard graft to get the place done) coughing our lungs up with the dust and dirt in the air. Work began in earnest – painting everything, getting some laminate flooring down in what is now the reception/office/waiting area, and changing the big hanging strip lights so they were less, well, hangy-downy. One swing of a weapon and it would’ve been goodnight Vienna!
Unfortunately work commitments meant I couldn’t work every evening during the week which meant I missed the laying of the mats which was the part I was looking forward to most. I had to go to a small place called Goring, which is near Worthing, for training in the database system we use at work. Cue 260 miles driving on Wednesday, two days training in the swankiest offices you’ve ever seen (a Grade II listed manor-house no less) and then 260 miles back on Friday evening. To call them long days would been the mother of all understatements, and once I got home I lost all motor skills and the ability to talk.
Back to the original story, tonight saw two firsts. The unofficial opening of our new academy and my first training session in close to five weeks… and didn’t I just know it tonight! The warmup was really tough on me, it always amazes me just how quickly you lose your fitness and edge if you have time off. I’m going to be aching in the morning, I know that much. But I came through it unscathed and with my knee intact which is the important thing, and I realised just how much I’ve missed it now that I’m back. It gave me such a buzz to be training again, and I’m looking forward to ramping up the effort over the coming weeks and getting back to running again with one eye on the half-marathon in October.
This post is pointless without pictures, so here we go.
Before:
After:
(The light on this one doesn’t really do it justice)
As you can imagine, we’re pretty pleased with it. There’s still lots to do, but it’s all purely cosmetic now. There are loads more pictures from the refit if you click on any of the photos and view the rest of the Flickr set.
More from me soon(er), promise.