Today saw team Admissions’ first bash on the badminton courts. We had all been looking forward to this one from the beginning of the challenge. Janet even postponed a trip to Belfast for the pleasure; seven of the team got involved in total and I have to say, it was one of the most fun activities we have done all month!

Surprisingly, badminton is the fastest racquet sport in the world, with the fastest recorded shuttle-cock recorded at 262mph! However, judging from some of the teams efforts today, that record has been well and truly smashed!!!

Most of us had not played for years and it was Rosemary’s first time, but you genuinely couldn’t tell. In fact, we all knew we were in for a game when we saw Rosemary fly through the air like a Michael Jordan/Flying-Squirrel hybrid, determined to reach the shuttle-cock! The landing was slightly less graceful and it might have been a little inappropriate for us to have administered the wet sponge to the injured area. However, she was straight back up again and probably gave the best serve out of all of us.

It was yet another activity that virtually all of us are keen to play again, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and had quite a giggle too :)

… Sometimes coming back into the office a little juicy around the armpits after the activities can feel a bit uncomfortable. However, a few of the team have mentioned today that once the heart rate has returned to normal and the body settles down, they have felt an increase in energy in the afternoons and also felt a positive effect on their moods – which is brilliant!

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to get some tips from Mark Beresford (the Health and Fitness instructor at Sussexsport) because I am training for a 100km walk in July along the South Downs way. I did it two years ago and we were the last team to cross the finish line (out of 500), taking us 36 hours in one go! One of our team started hallucinating and most of his feet turned to blisters. It was probably the most extreme physical and mental challenge I have done in my life.. just typing this makes a droplet of wee trickle down my leg at the prospect of doing it again!

With little time to train left, Mark’s advice was invaluable yesterday! He gave me a programme specifically for the walk, from the warm-ups, strength conditioning, mobility stretching, all the way through to nutrition tips prior to and during the walk. So hopefully the event won’t be so traumatic this time…