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Player blog: Benny in the USA

28 January 2016

Until this year it had been a decade since I last saw a winter.

Having spent the last 10 years going back and forth between the UK and Australia to play cricket I was worried that it would be tough to adjust.

I decided that an ingenious plan – involving plenty of overseas travel – would be in order to help me through.

First up was a belated stag do for a couple days in Barcelona.

I got married to Cinthia in the summer but we didn’t have time for a stag at the time as the season was in full swing.

The trip was mainly activity-based with only "a few" drinks involved. Highlights included bubble football and a tour of Barcelona FC’s Nou Camp stadium.

We had a blast but a longer break was required.

West Palm Beach, Florida was the next destination, where I joined Cinthia and her family.

Welcomed with sunshine, an ice cold beer and a view of one of Florida's most beautiful lakes I thought:  “Yeah I'm going to enjoy this!”

Cinthia and I decided to make the most of the break and travelled to New York, Boston, and Rhode Island. This consisted of us being the ultimate tourists with a few t-shirts to match.

We fell into a pattern of sightseeing by day and traditional American bars by night. Everywhere we went it was TV screen after TV screen mounted on the bar walls, playing whatever sport they could find – mainly baseball. We were living the American dream!

No sooner had I arrived back in Bristol than our strength and conditioning coach Bodders (Chris Bodman) had me by his special pliers, pinching the 'fatty' parts of my body. Uh oh, maybe a little work was necessary. It was time for my training head to be switched back on.

Having a season off from Australia has been a blessing in disguise as constantly pounding the body for 10 season straight takes its toll.

My goal this winter was clear – to get stronger.

This has involved me doing plenty of injury prevention exercise including weights and track running. Yoga, boxing and rigorous circuits (that felt more like beastings!) once a week were added to keep us on our toes.

On the cricket side my aims have been pretty simple; bowl faster and bat longer = more runs and ore wickets = another trophy (hopefully!).

Outside of this, walking Nala (our husky cross collie puppy) in the park and woods became my new morning and afternoon routine. It is safe to say my skin folds were improving at a brisk pace.

As Cinthia's UK visa still hadn’t arrived she was stuck in West Palm Beach over Christmas so I had no choice but to join her in the sun again -  well some things you just can't control!

This trip wasn’t the same as the vacation in October as it would have been criminal to jeopardise the hard work I'd put in.

I combined occasional gym and gyrotonic sessions with plenty of batting practice – baseball batting.

Baseball is cricket's cousin. A sport so similar but still not linked as closely as they could be. Power hitting, deceiving change ups and rocket arms are things much too valuable to ignore and I am fascinated by what I can take from one sport into the other.

My brother flew in for Christmas Eve which was a complete surprise. What didn't surprise me was that he left the very next day. It reminded me of his trip for the Lord’s final where he arrived that morning, watched the game, celebrated with us, slept a couple hours, then left the next evening - all in the same clothes he arrived in. What a beauty!

After taking a trip to the luxurious Key West and watching the Miami Dolphins take on the Patriots in the NFL it was time to return home for round two of winter training.

This time two more souls would be accompanying me. Finally Mrs Howell was approved by the immigration office and Tango her dog boxer came with her.

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