You put in all of this time training, both at practice and outside of practice. You drive/fly with your teammates all weekend to play a teams in Boston, DC, Philly, NY to bond with them, to play with them and to win or lose with them. Its something real, that even though we're not paid, or we're not on TV, or we're women, or Joe Shmoe at the office has no idea what 'rugby' is (there are no sticks), its a sport, one that people train hard for, sacrifice for... and love!
When I come into work limping, with a bruise, and stories of how we played in the downpour, my coworkers say to me shamelessly 'when are you going to realize that you're too old for this?' At the age of 27, I'm hardly one of the oldest females on the team, and I have a good few years left in me. They have their hobbies of cars, or kites, or..... god only knows what else. Its the same, except mine involves physical activity.
I sprained my MCL at the alumni match for Drexel, pretty much not doing anything productive. It was such a stupid injury, which I had to RICE... I got so extremely frustrated. Not only because it set my training back for the pre-season, but I had just signed up to attend a Crossfit Football certification that I knew was going to kick my @$$ if I was unfit for. I didn't stop working out, just adjusted workouts to allow me to work on the ROM and strength with the help of Ryan (head trainer at CF BWI). I credit him with helping me get my knee back to 100% by 5 weeks, I played 7's at 6 weeks and just completed the CF Football cert at 7 weeks - not dying, and actually not feeling anything weak in my knee at all. (Will have a later post on the football cert and what I did feel form it)
Leave it to say, pointless 'fun' matches may be out of my future for a while... as much fun as it is, its not worth it to go into a match like that, knowing I'm not going to give it 100% and get hurt for that reason. I'm also beyond thankful that it was not worse... (knock on wood) and am doing some things to strengthen it to make sure it doesn't happen again.
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