The Road to 40 Day 362/365: Training Day Wednesday

It was a pretty gloomy day with not much going on for the day, except Vino’s football training in the afternoon.

My phone usually alerts me with “memories” of previous years – photos taken, probably posts made on this day in the past. From there, I saw that Vino has been training for at least a year now with his team.

From the Under-8 team, he’s now part of the Under-9 team playing with bigger boys. I think he’s less enthusiastic now that he was when he started because right now, he feels the skill gap is even greater.

Last time, there were about three or four kids who were playing above his level, but now, it’s like a whole team of those, and even better.

However, I also remember how much he’s grown while training.

Back then, he would cry even if he lost a scrimmage with the team. Now, he remembers his brilliant saves and laughs at the mistakes he knows he could have avoided.

In his first session with the big boys, he cried because he felt he did so bad. His teammates encouraged him to not feel so bad about it because he still needs to adjust. While he still isn’t as excited as he was before, I feel like he’s gaining a bit more confidence when he’s playing. There are less tears now, and more post-game talk with his friends about what happened on the pitch.

We’re spending a significant amount of money to let him train with these guys, but personally, I’m not dreaming of Vino becoming a football star. The most important aspect for me is that he learns how to play with a team, and that he understands the values of football beyond kicking the ball.

He was drawn to the sport similar to how I was drawn to basketball – my friends played, and I wanted to play with them. The difference is that my youth was still about playing outdoors.

I feel like there aren’t a lot of his friends playing football now compared to when he first discovered it. So now, his interest is waning because it’s not where he has the most fun.

Still, regular training days like these keep him active, and the games on Sundays give him a feel of actual competition. However, when it becomes a chore for him, I think we should find a different sport that could spark his passion.

For me, I still find joy in basketball. I tried to do some shooting drills while Vino was getting goalkeeper drills.

I wanted to do simulate some in-game situations, complete with dribbling and driving, however, my knees didn’t want to. I’m maybe a five or six out of ten in terms of skills on the court, but I do enjoy playing. Even if I get five minutes of playing time in a forty-minute game, I’m fine, because I’m happy to cheer on my teammates on a good game.

It’s something that I don’t see Vino enjoying just yet. Football is such a beautiful team game, but if he can’t sit through a full game, then maybe he still doesn’t have the passion for it yet. He enjoys the goals and highlights, which is like only caring for dunks in basketball.

Let’s see if he gets there. It’s a bit expensive to figure out if he’ll get to that point, considering he’s enrolled in football training, but with kids stuck indoors nowadays, we probably won’t know if he’s not training.

No matter the outcome, though, we’ve met some good friends through these sessions.

We got home to eat dinner, which I prepared before leaving.

I got bistek for Vino and Che, while I got myself a salad. I can still eat meat, which is good. My friend, apparently, could only eat a couple of pieces of steak twice a year. So while I could theoretically still eat what I cooked, I am being very cautious about eating too much of it.

I had meat the past couple of days, so I decided not to have any more this night, just to limit my red meat intake. Again, I’m not going to be on a diet forever, but I want to make sure that I maintain a certain level of health moving forward.

Limiting my red meat intake is a small sacrifice in order to live a healthier life, so while my 30-year-old self would say “yuck” seeing my choice of food tonight, the nearly-40 me actually enjoys this thing.

There’s three more entries left for this blog, and I almost can’t believe that I’m actually about to pull this off!

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