WEEK 6 - DAY 5

I had an appointment to get to today, so I wasn't able to join in on the last day of Star Max training.  I planned on lifting but just as I was about to go workout, I heard the "bump of the ball. On the floor ... on the wall", had a Cornbread, Earl and Me flashback and decided that I just had to hit the court instead.  I know I took some of you waaay back with that reference but that movie is the reason I ever set foot on a basketball court and if you haven't watched it, you need to stop reading right now and go get it from somewhere.

I injured my knee playing basketball last fall, so I haven't played in a couple of months but it's been holding up pretty well in Star Max over the last couple of weeks.  I strapped up and hit the court, and everyone was looking at me like they had seen a ghost(told you, it's been awhile).  I ran about 5 or 6 games,  and my knee didn't give me any problems.  I knew I was missing out on my regular workout, so I tried to make it a point to run as hard as I could on every play.  As we played I found myself turning into the old guy on the court and yelling at the youngest guy on our team to "play smart and stop making the game so hard".  Of course he just wanted to show what he had learned on And 1 and waived me off.  I remember those days though and as I ran the court I thought that what those guys were really saying was  "Stop wasting all that extra energy on the court, be smart and let's win as many games as we can before our bodies realize what's going on and shuts this thing down.".  We lost the first game, won our next four and then on the final game I think we ran out of gas and the other team pulled off a comeback for the win.

After it was all done I felt good.  A little tired but not overly winded like I might have been a couple of weeks ago.  I reveled in the tightness in my thighs and joked around with the guys a bit before running off to my appointment that evening.....yeah, I still had it.  About an hour later the throbbing in my thighs had spread down to my ankles and by the time we were done with our appointment, i was having trouble getting in and out of the car.  No worries though.....guess I'll just have to soak when I get home.  By the time I got home, made my way back and forth, up and down the 3 flights of stairs to walk my dog, the throbbing had moved to my glutes and my lower back had started to tighten up.  I was so tired, I fell asleep talking on the phone and never even made it into the bathtub I was so looking forward to.

When I woke up in the morning everything still hurt.  It was great out there on the court posting up, setting picks, throwing my weight around and grabbing every rebound but now it was all coming back.  I was hurting in places that my workouts over the last couple of weeks just hadn't touched.  Now I know what those "old guys" on the court really meant ..... "it's gonna take me a week to recover from this, so play smart so we can win this and I can at least have some good memories to hold me over when the pain sets in.".