First Game Back

No matter how hard you work in the off-season, the first game back to outdoor soccer hurts. I'm not sure why GPSD has a 2-3 month hiatus from July until September for soccer seasons other than some sense of gleeful cruelty. It's just enough time to get completely out of game shape but not enough time to realize it.

Kind of what it looked like

I thought that I was doing relatively well this year. I was biking every day to work and back, was playing futsal once a week, and was making practice whenever my schedule allowed. Unfortunately, on my first juke of the season where I moved past a faked out defender, the momentary rush of accomplishment  was ground into the dirt when I saw that I had about 40 more yards left to run to get to the goal.


The next day was a world of pain. I wasn't just sore. I had also been kicked and hacked by rusty, sloppy defenders so my shins and ankles were scraped and cramped as well as the fact that my feet, not used to outdoor cleats for the last few months, developed blisters. There was a point the next day when I was creaking, groaning, and staggering out of bed that I thought to myself "Oh crap. I'm going to have a screaming infant here next season who will require me to creak, stagger and groan myself out of bed to tend to her!" I'm hoping she'll be able to understand the concept of "injury time" relatively soon since I may need a minute or two added on to get there!