Beyond the court

I took a break from tennis. The last three kilometres were uphill.

Published 6 October 2026

Before tennis became my favourite way to be disappointed in my own coordination, I ran.

Running was my main recreational sport. Then tennis arrived, and suddenly exercise involved a racquet, an opponent, and considerably more opinions about what I should have done differently.

For the past couple of months, though, I went back to running. I had signed up for a 10K race in Bandung, and decided to give the preparation some attention. Between training and race day, I played just one league match.

Tennis was temporarily taking a back seat. My competitive tendencies, unfortunately, came along for the ride.

A different kind of consistency

I made myself a training plan and stuck to it: roughly three runs a week, building to about 25 kilometres a week. On my 10K training runs, I was consistently averaging around 7:40 per kilometre.

These numbers will not alarm anyone at the front of a starting grid. They did, however, require some work from me.

By then, I had become much more accustomed to the rhythm of tennis: a short burst, a sideways scramble, a rush towards the net, all while trying to arrive in some sort of position to hit the ball.

Running is a little different. Settle into a pace. Keep it going. Do it again next kilometre.

There was no short ball to chase and no volley to make things interesting. Just the ongoing administrative task of putting one foot in front of the other.

I found that surprisingly demanding. Not only physically, but because the repetition could be boring. In tennis, my struggle with consistency tends to announce itself through an unnecessary forehand error. On these runs, it was the quieter challenge of keeping the same effort going when I would quite like a change of subject.

A preparation strategy best described as personal

The night before the race, I did some “carbo-loading.”

By which I mean pizza, beer and wine.

The quotation marks are doing important work here. This is a record of my evening, not a recommended race preparation plan.

On race morning, I was already up at 4:30, full of anticipation. I had trained for this morning, and now it was here. A double espresso got my heart racing before I had even started stretching. The race would start at 5:15.

The course had a closing argument

I finished in about an hour and 16 minutes, with a recorded average pace of 7:33 per kilometre. A personal best.

It was a 10K. I had not crossed a continent. But it was a target I had trained for, and improving on my own previous efforts felt good.

The last three kilometres were uphill, which struck me as an unnecessarily strong finish from the course designers.

I would like to think I could have gone quicker without that climb. This is, of course, the sort of argument recreational athletes are very good at making after the finish line.

That final push gave me probably the biggest adrenaline rush I had felt in weeks. Different surroundings from a tennis match, but a familiar feeling: wanting to finish the job when it had stopped being comfortable.

Another medal. Different terms and conditions.

I collected my finisher medal and was very pleased to have another medal to bring home.

A finisher medal, to be clear. My previous beginner doubles title still has its own dedicated department in the bragging-rights archive.

The winner of my race category had recorded a pace close to half mine. We had technically attended the same event, although apparently with rather different schedules.

Mine was a personal best. I was happy with that.

Back to tennis, with a better question

Preparing for this race made me think more carefully about what I mean when I say I want to get fitter.

Fitter for what?

I had been spending my time playing and training for tennis. Returning to sustained running still needed a period of adjustment. Being used to one kind of effort did not make the other feel automatic.

That is a personal observation, not a scientific comparison of training methods. I also have not yet established what this running block will do for my tennis when I return.

But it has changed the question I want to ask about my preparation. Rather than simply doing more exercise, I want to understand what the exercise is preparing me to do.

For the race, that meant holding a pace and getting to the finish. Back on court, my priorities include moving into position, changing direction, stopping under control and being ready to go again on the next point.

Running is staying in my life. Tennis is getting most of my attention back. I want the running I do alongside it to have a clearer purpose within my tennis preparation, rather than assuming that a better 10K time will take care of everything.

The medal is going on display, though. I did not run uphill for three kilometres to be modest about the interior decorating.