Football

Well, I'm still an idiot. I went out yesterday (a 60 degree day in January!) and played a couple of hours of football with the boy and some dads and their sons. Let's review, shall we? I haven't played a pick-up game of football since I've lived in KC, and that's been over eight years. And I don't recall the last time I did so before moving. Conservatively I'd say it's been over ten years since I played in a game.

It was fun. I realized my knees aren't 100% so I took it pretty easy. I play to win, which we didn't, but I still play pretty hard. I made a few good plays, if I do say so myself, as well as the catch of the day on a long pass that I somehow snagged. Wish I had the instant replay of that. My big worry was that I wouldn't have the timing to throw a pass to a running target, but it was amazing how quickly the old instincts come back. I'm not the greatest player, by any means, but I spent a lot of time on playground football through junior high. That continued with lots of youth group Sunday afternoon games through high school and into intramural games in college, where I was our wing's quarterback. So I'm pretty decent still, especially for an older guy. I never played organized ball in school because I was just too darn small and didn't want to get grounded into the field to become a grass stain on some linebacker's white pants.

The upshot of all this is that running around, cutting back and forth across the field, and generally doing a lot of movements my body is not used to actually affected me more than I thought it would. Being fit with running doesn't necessarily mean you're fit for other sports. It helps, and I've heard other people talk about the differences, but let me say....ouch. I am so sore today that I just wanted to curl into a ball and sleep away the day. But I didn't. After all, I have to work.

By the time I arrived home I realized I needed some stretching and working out to keep the muscles limber. It was cold and breezy out, although not too bad, but I determined the treadmill would be easier on my aching body. I got everything ready, walked five minutes at a slower setting, and then cranked it up for about an hour of running.

I made it two minutes.

The Knee, which as I reported previously had been feeling better, did not feel better. It wasn't a sharp, stinging pain or anything like that. It was more a feeling of something swollen. Every step was painful. I thought about continuing to see if it would work itself out, but two minutes was all I could take. I cut my losses this time.

It's still not horribly bad. I went ahead and walked through an episode of NewsRadio and called it quits. Hopefully a couple of days off will repair the stress I put it under when playing football. I guess at this point I'll have to decide if I want to (figuratively) hang up the cleats the next time we're invited to play or not. Getting old stinks. As I posted elsewhere, it's good that I had fun and played well enough to where I feel like I still have it. The problem is that "it" is more achy and painful afterward and takes longer to recover from than it used to.