Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@ActiveWomenAust) will know that my planned activity for this week was thwarted when I missed the starting time due to work. So I had to come up with something else. Fiance suggested just going for a run and writing about it, but I thought this was a) totally boring and b) not in the spirit of the 52 Week Challenge. I want to try 52 things that are a bit different.

I thought about things that I could do close to home and on the cheap. James and I bought a basketball a couple of months ago with grand plans to shoot hoops together at the local half court. We did this once. I realised that I've never played one-on-none so this could be my challenge!

Wanting a little bit of structure to my hoop sesh, I worked the google-iser to find a couple of drills I could do on my own. I've never played basketball other than in highschool phys ed. Being solo, I would be limited to practising different ways to dribble and different ways to approach the hoop and shoot. My defensive game was going to have to wait.

So off I trotted to the park with my basketball, tunes and drink bottle. I must say, I felt a little bit awkward. It is one thing for a baggy-short, underwear-revealing youth to hang out on their own and shoot hoops, but I felt quite self conscious. Fortunately the court was empty.

I spent the next 40 minutes working my cross-over dribble, lay ups and free shots. Watch out Lauren Jackson!

Overall it was pretty fun. Once I got over being self conscious, I felt like a kid again and really got into it. Having an overactive imagination helped a bit too - imagining myself up against Shaq at the NBA grand finals, that sort of thing.

I didn't think it was a great cardio work out - it was a bit hard to get my heart rate up when there was no-one to play against. But my arms knew that they had done something different.

The big bonuses are that it was free (apart from the initial outlay for the basketball), it doesn't really require any skill to play one-on-none basketball and it isn't time sensitive (except that the court isn't lit).

I wonder how many 30+ women will be rushing to the courts this weekend?!

Check out all of the challenges!