Tis the End

And so the season comes to an end. Even though I wasn’t able to play many games I still had an absolute ball this year.

It was the first year playing in a new team, with my sister, and it was such an amazing experience. In previous teams I felt very unwelcome when I got injured, as though I was letting everyone down for being hurt, but that was not the case with this team. Every week I would want to come down to the match on the weekend, and I was included in every post-game drinks and every carb-load training sessions (where training was cut in half and we had dinner together in the club room). On the very first training session, during pre-season, I knew. I knew this was going to be my team. The fact that they supported me through this awful year of injury (of not knowing and worrying) means the world to me.

What I miss most about soccer, aside from playing, is getting those beautiful hexagonal bruises on my leg from the impact of the soccer ball. Ah good times. I can not wait until next year!

Soccer is a Winter Sport

Today it got to a max of 37 degrees… This is a winter sport damn it Australia!

I hate when the weather starts getting really hot even though it isn’t summer yet. Playing sport on a day like today is absolutely awful! I had to be lines-person because we had no actual spectators, except us injured players and I wasn’t going to let my friend on crutches do the lines.

We ended up drawing 2-2 which was a bit of a bummer, but we were all just sooo happy to retreat into the club room to cool down. Air conditioning is the greatest invention ever invented. I am still slightly delirious because of the heat, the sunburn and the dehydration. And I was doing lines!? My sister couldn’t drive all the way home because she was so exhausted, so she relaxed at my place for a couple hours before going home.

I’m so glad it is the last game of the season! It is just getting too hot to play in this damn weather.

Anyway, I’m going to have a nap now.

Enjoy the rest of your day, readers. And keep indoors!

Some Call It Swimming

Some call it swimming, however yesterday I called it drowning.

My physiotherapist suggested that I should try swimming as a way to increase my fitness. Like all the exercises he gives me, he told me to stop when it starts to hurt and to limit my kicking and use a peanut (I will get to what the hell a peanut is in a moment). So like a good injured person, I went down to the local swimming pool and hopped right on in. I live in Australia so I am a rather good swimmer.

However everything changed when I tried to use the PEANUT!

The Bane of My Existence

A peanut is used to stop you from using your legs to kick while swimming. It is placed between the lower legs, and in order to keep it in place you must press your legs together.

My problem is the fact that I don’t have very much upper body strength. So being forced not to kick, and only using my arms to keep myself above water, is very difficult. It ended up being far more painful to use the peanut, because my arms started hurting.

It only lasted about 15 minutes. I didn’t want to look like an idiot, so I decided to stay in the pool and swim normally for another 45 minutes.

Big mistake.

Have I told you yet that I’m not someone who does things halfheartedly? ‘Go big or go home’ is the way I live my life. That’s actually how I got shin splints in the first place, fun fact.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the hour swimming and felt really good afterwards.

But today I woke up and everything hurts! Not in a fun – “I did good for me exercise” – but more like – “I directly disobeyed what my physio said to do, and now I hurt” kind of way.

Life Lessons: listen to my physio, and build up to 45 minute of swimming more slowly. Also, peanuts are stupid.

Soccer Carnival

Today I went to a soccer carnival with my team. We played three games. By ‘we’ I do mean ‘they’, but damn it soccer is a team sport and it takes a village to win a match. And we won all three games!

First game we won 3-1 and my sister scored the second goal, and I actually saw it happen! There is a long and steady tradition in my family of accidentally looking away when someone scores a goal, so my sister was very surprised when I saw it. I was also told off by one of my teammates’ daughters for yelling too loudly when we scored. Sorry, I’ll cheer more quietly next time… (no I won’t I’m a big ball of competitive energy that can’t contain happiness in the face of goal scoring).

Second game was a bit closer at 4-3. I hate close games because I get far too stressed out on the sidelines. I may be sitting in my incredibly comfortable foldout chair, but inside I am a massive ball of nerves that is slowly unraveling into a pile of anxious string.

Third and final game was great! We won 3-0 and only three of the opposition players abused the referee. Apparently the very obvious offside just was not offside, and gosh, how stupid must everyone else on the pitch feel for getting it so wrong? I mean seriously, the girl was about 5 meters in front of our last defender! Then when she was called offside by the lines-person she started having a go at the referee and the lines-person and everyone under the sun. I’m aggressive in a competitive fun way, whereas some people are aggressive in an aggressive way, and that is just not on.

Overall it was such an amazing day that nothing could ruin it. My sister scored a goal, I broke a generation-long curse on my family, we won all three games, and I did not get sun-burnt!

Happy Soccer Sunday everyone!

My First Physio Massage

I’d just like to point out one thing before I begin – I do not have a low pain tolerance. I have played soccer for many years, and I have had my fair share of hard tackles (one time a girl ripped a hole in my sock in a tackle), I have received hexagonal bruises all over my legs, and I have headed a ball kicked by the opposition goalie and ended up in hospital because I hurt my neck. Not once did I cry. I am one tough cookie.

But today… my physio made me cry!

He was massaging my shins and calves on both my legs, and I swear he must have hurt his shoulder from the pressure he was using. It was painful. But I knew that it would help my legs, so I pushed through the pain…. and only sobbed occasionally.

On a side note my legs are feeling really good at the moment – can’t for the life of me think why.