Contact Sports

I am a sucker. A sucker for team sports for which I used to have a modicum of talent.

I am on an IM indoor soccer team. It's composed of med and grad students. I would categorize pretty much all of us as "high school soccer players". Talented (and motivated) enough to play under the bright lights, but nowhere near good enough to play at most colleges. So our opening game last night was interesting. A bunch of guys and gals, from 22 to 30, trying to recapture their youth.

I was terrible the first 10 minutes. Horrendous. Bleh. Indoor soccer is so fast-paced that I would chase down balls then not know really what to do with it. Or...I would try to defend and put pressure on people, but be afraid to touch people. I mean, really, when's the last time most of us have played a contact sport? For me, I last played soccer during my freshman year of college. So slamming into people took a good half to get used to. I also played w/o shinguards, which I don't advise. For the next game, I will definitely take Sloan up on her offer to borrow hers.

We ended up beating the undergrads, which was no minor victory for the old kids. I scored a goal, more about perserverance than beautiful shot making. But maybe that will improve over our next few games.

It's also fun to play a sport where people depend on you and you depend on others. I definitely felt like my ego was much more on the line than when I get on a track and run around in circles. In that sense, running has always been much less stressful than soccer or tennis (I played a lot of doubles). Well...that's what I've got for now.

Laters,
KT