My softball career may be shorter lived than I originally anticipated.  While I enjoy playing, my primary motivation in doing so was to incorporate a different type of workout into my schedule–to improve my fitness.  What has happened though, is that my injuries/ailments from the games are inhibiting my workouts during the rest of the week!  In our first game (technically first two games because we play double headers) two weeks ago, I caught a lot of balls with my shins, one of which was directly on the shin bone, making it painful to run.  I even had trouble doing yoga that week because I couldn’t do any positions in which the front of my calves touched the mat!

This Tuesday, during my first run around the bases (that makes it sound like I hit a home run.  I didn’t.  I got to first by accidentally hitting the ball six inches in front of me bunting, and the guy behind me had a great hit that sent us home,) I felt this awful burning in my left quadriceps.  I tried to stretch it out, massage it a bit, but by the end of the night I was limping.  (In this league, girls and guys have to alternate batting, and we had just enough girls that night;  if I had stopped playing mid-game, as I would have preferred, our team would have had a major handicap…although that might not have been the worst thing, considering we won the second game 23-0. :-D)

Walking back to the car…

Andrew:  “Do you want me to pick you up?”

Catherine: “Hah.  No.  I think I can make it.”

Andrew:  “I mean drive the car back here to get you… not carry you to the car.”

Catherine:  “Oh.  Right.”

😉

On the way home he reached over and patted my leg sympathetically, and I almost started crying.  The entire top of my left leg felt inflamed–from two inches above my knee to a few inches below my hip, six inches wide across the top/side of my thigh–it all hurt to the touch.  I iced it that night, took an Aleve (which, by the way, gave me some cah-razy dreams,) and in the morning it felt better, but not run-able.  Since then I have been limited to taking walks and lifting weights–but nothing with my legs–in terms of workouts.

My point is, the sport that I thought would be a great addition to my fitness routine is actually causing me to have fewer and less quality workouts.  I like softball, but I love running, and if the two can’t coexist for me, the former is getting cut quicker than I would if there were tryouts for this softball team.

I am going to attempt an easy run this morning;  my quad is still feeling slightly sore, but mostly healed.  Wish me luck!