Tonight we had our first soccer game of the spring season! Wonder Boy had practice that overlapped buy a bit, so I missed most of the first half. Wonder Dad got there on time and represented for our family until the Boy and I could join him.
I simply ADORE soccer! I didn't really play as a kid. It wasn't offered in my hometown until my senior year in high school. But Wonder Dad played as a boy and he introduced me to the beautiful game and it's been my favorite sport to play ever since. In the months leading up to Wonder Boy's birth, we found an adult league in town that was just getting started and they even had an "old folks" division. We had found our soccer home!
We play on a team of "mature" folks, many of them friends and coworkers. We bring our kids and spouses - in many cases both mom & dad play on the team, but in the case where only 1 parent plays, the rest of the family acts as cheering squad for us all. It's a wonderful atmosphere in which to play, I must say!
While I enjoyed each and every minute of tonight's game, it was C*O*L*D out there tonight! By the start of the 2nd half, my toes were completely numb. But despite the frigid temps, I stayed vertical throughout. And to put the cherry on top of a great, fun night, our team pulled out a 2-1 win! In fact, Wonder Dad scored the go-ahead goal (off of a beautiful pass/assist to boot)! So to say I "enjoyed" our game tonight seems like such an understatement.
I felt GREAT! I don't know ... it just felt so good to get back out there on the soccer pitch. Back with our friends. Back to running and playing. Just ... fun. Ya know?
Another thing about tonight is that I was able to feel some positive changes due to our workout routine. The crossfit workouts are definitely helping in my ability to recover more quickly. A couple of good sprints up and down the pitch was enough to get me asking for a substitute in seasons past. But I really felt great tonight. In fact, when I came out of the game to take my time in the cheer squad, it was because I wanted to make sure all my teammates got some playing time - not because I needed to collapse on the sideline. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up such efforts once the temperature warms up, but for now, I'm feeling good. And I'm going to soak it up!
And one final note - since this is the last day of the month, I made it a point to remember to do my plank. My shoulder is still bothering me, but it felt wrong to not at least TRY to get a plank in today. So I held my breath, counted sheep in my head, sang the words to every silly kids' song I could think of (in my head, still) and manged to hold on for a new PR of 3:30 on my plank! And then I did 100 air squats as well.
A good day. A GREAT night!
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