Wear and Tear

8:35am, and I settle into a bag of frozen peas on my left knee (meniscus sketchy at best). When I first began refereeing, I was told to do anything I could to speed recovery - massage, acupuncture, cold tank soaks, whatever. Now I understand!

For the past three years, my body has been used to pilates. I played a little bit of rugby last summer, but refereeing, even without the contact, is more physically demanding, maybe because of the huge mental component. I do sprint workouts now, and have decided that in addition to warming up at least twenty minutes before I get into the nitty-gritty, at least twenty minutes will be alotted for icing knees and feet. Ugh, I'm finally going to a podiatrist for my bunions and plantar fasciitis. I'm due for new running shoes and am done with my worn out cleats I bought for playing last summer. Another female ref up in DC (who is really into pedicures) strongly recommended turf shoes, so I'm gonna make sure the foot doctor lets me know exactly what size to get and all that. Like Lieutenant Dan said in Forrest Gump, "Take care of your feet". I'm starting to think that my bad left knee is causing my bad right hip.

All this stuff has to be addressed if I want to go as far as they say I can. God only gave me two legs to run with, two arms to signal with, an one mouth to manage and blow a whistle with, so I need to take care of them!

I'm getting older. This is another reminder. UGH! It's still pretty neat when other refs I meet at tournaments demand to see my driver's license because they don't believe I'm almost 30. I only have one hide of skin, too, and one set of eyeballs, gotta take care of those too.

As much as we all abuse our bodies for years on end, they still function. But I really want to see how well mine can perform if I treat it the best way I can. My life is ending one minute at a time, and I'm the same decaying organic matter as everything else, but I'm gonna try to maximize what I've got and leave the rest to my Maker.