As the end of the first week of preseason draws near, rookie midfielder Josh Cameron checks in with his second report from the Timbers' preseason camp at PGE Park. Focusing on fitness and technical work over the course of the week, excitement is building for the team's first preseason game Saturday.
Josh's second installment of his Camp Report:
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Well, another two days in the books. On Tuesday we had a pretty tough day. The morning started off with a nice little warm up followed by some technical work. After that, we got into a game focused on possession. It was a pretty demanding exercise, and got me pretty tired I’m not going to lie. After this exercise, we were put into two teams and scrimmaged for a while. We played about fifteen minutes or so than the teams got switched a little bit, played for another fifteen minutes probably and called it quits for the morning.
Feeling a little tired and sore, I went into the locker room, stretched out for a while, ate a Powerbar and an orange and tried to relax a little. A few of us watched some Sportscenter and just hung out and talked a bit. It’s good for me anytime I can just sit down and talk with some of the guys I don’t know that well and try and get to know them better.
The second session of the day started around 12 p.m. and Gavin made sure to let us know that this session would be the toughest of the week. I sure hope he wasn’t lying. This session was devoted to fitness. We got warmed up and got into some fitness drills using some hurdles. We did a lot of vertical and horizontal movements, and then we incorporated a ball doing some passing and volleys. From there we got into some longer sprints for what seemed like quite a while … got a cool down in, stretched out and called it a day.
What a day. We definitely put some hard work in. It felt good, but I am going to be sore after a day like today. I don’t know if in all my years of playing, I have ever had an entire session devoted to fitness.
Wed., March 11, 2009
Another day down and the legs are hurting a bit. Practices have been pretty intense up to this point. Today we started the morning off with some technical drills. These got pretty confusing at times. I know I have never done anything like some of the drills our coaches have been putting us through. It’s great in the sense I’m learning and they are not only physical drills but mental as well. It might take me a little while to get the drill down, but I’ll get it eventually. As the sessions go by, I feel like I am getting more and more comfortable adjusting to the level of play.
After the technical drills we got into some small-sided games. This was fun but competitive at the same time. I might add that the coaches stepped in to play and are actually still pretty good. When our team wasn’t playing, we did some different core workouts.
During the break, we met with the doctor for physicals. He checked us out, made sure we were healthy and we were on our way. Grabbed a bite to eat and got prepared for the next session.
We started that session off with some running. We ran for a period of time around a specified area. I felt like the coaches were never going to stop us…the long distance stuff is just not my thing I guess. After that we got into some soccer tennis where I was on a team with Keith (Savage), Gavin (Wilkinson) and Amos (Magee). One could definitely say I was not the most experienced soccer tennis player. But we made it to the championship game where we eventually lost. But it was nice to have a little fun before ending the day.
That’s the last two days in a nut shell. I hope you’re enjoying reading some of these reports. Everything has been going well and everyone is getting excited to get into a game on Saturday at San Jose.
Posted by: Josh Cameron
