Change of plans

“If I was coaching third I would have made you crawl to home plate.” said my friend Dan Cupersmith, as I sat in a folding camp chair with my foot up, watching my teammates continue on without me. Dan is the coach of the church league softball team I’m on, and part of me wishes he would have gotten me to crawl home; it would have been a great story. But alas, I did not crawl home because a sniper shot me in the leg as I was rounding third….I mean someone was trying to throw me out at third and hit me in the leg…I mean I tore my calf muscle and fell down. This is when Dan wanted me to crawl home; he was kidding of course…well at least I think he was. Although I wasn’t shot or hit by a ball, it did feel like that’s what happened; a shot right to my calf. I went down “limp like a bonefish”, lying on the ground ready for Shelob to eat me, hoping and praying I didn’t tear my Achilles or an ACL or MCL or BLT….mmmmm, BLT. Lucky for me the other team from my church was playing right after us and they have a doctor on their team. Dr. B. checked out my leg and it looked like everything was still there, it was just a really bad pull. Later I would come to realize that what I did was tear my calf muscle. Then I looked to the sky and proclaimed “I’M OLD.” Now, was it twisting my leg earlier mowing the lawn, or lack of hydration and stretching before the game, or was my 18 old mind telling my 38 year old body to “RUN Forest RUN”, I guess I’ll never know except that it was probably all those, so I guess we do know. I cannot expect to play sports or do activities like I could when I was younger, especially with being out of shape. I don’t want stop playing sports, games, and activities, but I need to adjust how I approach them.  I call this the Three W’s:

WATER:

I need to be drinking more water. I think that's already a part of my new rules. It’s not like I didn’t have liquid with me at the game, because I had delicious ice coffee. (I can feel your judging from the other side of your electronic device, and you aren't the only ones - My wife was judging from the moment I came out of the store with coffee instead of the water she thought I was getting.) Anyway, I found in one of my apps a place to record how much water you drink a day, and it's set for 64oz a day as a goal. I guess I’ll try that unless I hear different.

WARM UP:

I have been playing in the church softball league since I was 17 years old and I have only missed two seasons. That means I have been playing for 21 years (gee whiz, why aren’t I any better?). Sometimes before a game there would be these older guys jogging up and down the fence line, stretching out their leg muscles and laying on the ground stretching all over the place.  I would think “Ha! Look at the guy running around trying to touch his toes, what a goof!”. So that’s going to be me now.

WOAH - Settle Down Now (Settle. Da. Na.):

I need to ease into things and not hit the ground running anymore, especially now that I’m trying to rehabilitate my calf.

Have any advice for me when it comes to keeping fit or great ways for me to keep a workout routine while I’m injured? Leave a message in the comments! Also, take a guess at which of my new rules I already broken in half and I will reveal the answer in my next post.