Back before Christmas, during a game of
touch football, I managed to give the old hamstring a bit more of a work out
than I intended. It led to this:
I did the right thing, had lots of physio,
did my stretches, used the ice appropriately and son on.
It appeared to be going well when I made it
out for the first pre-season training for soccer. I’d been for a run with Bel’s
lacrosse crowd survived the training and was happy that I was back on track for
another year of football.
Then touch football started again for the
year. I went out and I was cautious. I didn’t want to ruin the pre-season for
soccer so when someone took off past me, I remembered how I did it … chasing
someone that was just the wrong speed. I let them go.
It was in the second half it went wrong. I
wasn’t enjoying the game that we were playing and was resenting the fact that
we didn’t seem to be subbing well. That meant too much time on the sidelines,
too much of an opportunity to cool down. I made my way back on eventually and
had the ball right near our scoring zone. I didn’t do anything silly, I simply
stepped and passed the ball. In the act of doing that, the hamstring went
twang.
I was pissed. Really really pissed. Not
only was there the pain to contend with, but I knew that I’d just thrown away
my soccer pre-season.
For the first time I started to consider
that the R word might come into play. That’s right, retirement.
I think I may have played my last ever game
of touch. For the first time last season, I really didn’t enjoy it as much as
I’d like and so to have two significant injuries as well … I have to consider
that maybe its over.
Worse, it made me wonder whether I’d even
play soccer. I started to think that If I am going to run into another
continuous run of hamstring problems that maybe it all just wouldn’t be worth
it. The only other time I’d considered giving up the game I love was the time I
was punched in the spine behind play.
I’d kind of been targeting playing long
enough to perhaps play a game with Michael at some point. Given he’s just
started playing U16s that would mean hanging on for another couple of years
though and hopefully he’s better than me by then and can play higher than I
will be.
The good news is that I cheered up. I took
things slowly, then I pushed myself. Tonight I trained and didn’t think about
the hammy much at all. On Saturday I’ll embark on another season. Fingers
crossed!
