3 weeks later: Recap

I am gonna try to recap my last three weeks quickly and I promise to get back into the blog as I gear up for the series.

My ankle started hurting at practice August 9th, but I didn't worry to much and chalked it up to the grind of the last six months or so. Sunday practice rolled around and it hurt much worse than before. I taped it and got out there and after hobbling through some drills the pain started to leave and I was able to play through it. It looks like I was able to get in the gym on Monday as well, but I know I skipped the track workout that week. I was hoping I would be ok for Chesapeake after taking the week off.

Saturday morning and I am taped up and ready to go. My ankle felt like it did on Sunday the weekend before. It wasn't serious pain, it was more of a strength thing. I couldn't push off my toes when I needed to sprint. I tried to keep it to myself and just play through. I played a very blah day and was very frustrated as I saw all my work between Boston Invite and Chesapeake starting to unwind due to whatever injury this was. Sunday was the same and although my ankle was a little better in the semi's and finals, I didn't play that well. I felt like I lost a great opportunity to step up and play my best.

On Sunday night I flew from DCA to Chicago where I had a conference for work. My ankle had me hobbling at this point. No swelling, just weak and painful. I assumed it was a stress fracture or something long term that wasn't going to get worse, I just needed to rest it. I was in Chicago proper for the first time and all I wanted to do was walk around, but I could merely stagger around painfully. Sunday night I ended up walking about 2 miles as I was sent on a bit of a wild goose chase trying to get from the E stop to my hotel with all my shit on my back and a busted ankle. That adventure was followed the next day by a lot more walking as I tried to make my way to a Sport's Authority that didn't exist. Of course the E breaks down for like 20 minutes as I try to make it back to midway on Wednesday night and I have to hobble/jog/run to try and catch my plane, which I miss. It wasn't until I got back on Thursday morning that I could really rest it.

I attended, but didn't participate in practice that weekend, the 23rd and 24th, but did go to the gym that Saturday. I went to the Dr's and they diagnosed it as tendinitis, gave me some Naproxen, and told me to stay off it and schedule an appointment with ortho, which is on September 10th.

I stayed off it all week leading up to Santa Cruz, but developed this itchy pain on the top of my bad foot. Friday morning when I woke up it was angry and red and lumpy. Sweet. I went to the Chelsea MGH, or Crazytown, USA, and waited for 2 hours for the attending to tell me it was infected and I should take some stuff and put warm towels on it. Zoom to Burger King for 3 whopper juniors, zoom home to say bye to Alexis who is leaving for NJ for the weekend, zoom to Walgreens for the drugs and whatever they have for food for the weekend, zoom back home to get my stuff, grab a cab and zoom to the airport only to be confronted by a long snaking jet blue line due to their computer systems being down. Seeing that my flight was in 30 minutes they whisk me to the front, where they are writing out tickets long hand. Zoomed through security and had enough time to call my mom and give out some brownies, left over from our mural inauguration the night before, to the 30 other Boston ultimate players on the plane. 6 hours later we were in Santa Cruz.

Most of us woke up around 6 am on Saturday, buoyed by the time difference. Continental breakfast didn't start till 6:45 unfortunately. We made it to the fields in plenty of time, but the trainer hadn't shown up yet. I waited while the team started warmups. When she came she sterilized my infection which had come to a small head. I popped it like a small zit and then she cleaned it and put a band aid on it before wrapping my arthritic ankle. The infection area felt numb and tingly, which is still does, and weird with the tape pulling on it, but I was good to go. My ankle felt fine during warmups, worse by about the third game, but it bottomed out there and bottom wasn't as bad as the previous weeks.

We did allright. The loss to Pony makes regionals all that more interesting. Maybe it will light that fire that we were void of against them till it was way to late. We beat Sockeye last year around this time. We also lost to Bravo on double game last year in August. Regardless of the results those teams are a step above us. We need to be taking steps two at a time if we want to catch em while not forgetting about the other teams that are stride for stride with us right now.

We got back at 5:30 am on Monday morning. I walked from the Chelsea shuttle to my apartment (1.25 miles) had a bowl of cereal and then a bowl of soup (earliest in the morning Ive ever eaten soup?) and went to bed for a couple hours. I went to the gym that day which I am proud of. I'll write that workout later. No track this week, but no practice this weekend, so I will probably get out on the track this weekend or at least out to the chelsea turf fields for some work.