After the last melodramatic post, I am feeling more positive about things. There is still excess fluid sloshing around inside my left knee, but the range of motion is improved and I am not feeling as much soreness. I restarted my efforts in the gym, consisting mostly of body weight exercises and using an elliptical machine for cardio in hopes of minimising impact. I have researched a new weight-lifting regime that I am going to adopt after a week or so of returning to activity. I am deciding on focusing on next season instead of moping around, missing the business end of the current one. Next year I will be in better shape and much better condition to minimise my chances of injury - that is my logic anyway.
I head to the ground on Sunday morning to meet-up with the active teammates before we depart for the oppositions ground - a forty minute bomb down the motorway. There were doubts about whether we would have enough cars to carry everyone but in the end the number of cars nearly outnumbered the amount of players needing transport. I drive to the ground alone; I could have had an extra two hours in bed, or at least have watched the final moments of the cricket and witnessed the last moments of another classic England collapse. I have no GPS unit to guide me, just have some instructions that I copied down from Google Maps, they get me there though. To hell with portable technology.
The car park is full when I arrive, I circle around once and end up parking next to the pitch side railing; there appears to be a Rugby match taking place at the same time. I walk awkwardly amongst groups of players and attempt to involve myself in the conversations, I mostly fail. The head coach tells the players to get changed and they head towards the dressing room. I head inside and make my way to the physios room, it is nice to get out of the sun. I sit down on the bench running along the right-hand side of the room and declare my position at the end of the line, I let the active players get seen before me. When the various taping and massaging tasks are completed I ask the physio to look at my knee. I lie on the left-hand side bench and assume various positions as my knee is manipulated in many different ways, nothing particularly hurts until I am told to resist the physio pushing my knee towards the ceiling, I attempt to and the familiar sharp, shooting pain radiates from my knee - I inform her of the pain. She asks me to stand up and perform some walking lunges and then some squats, she observes me from the front and then from the side. I am then asked to do a one-legged squat and the physio then informs me that I have alot of movement in my knee and ankle, her prescription is to stop being a pussy and squat more - this should strengthen the joint and stop me feeling pain from impact related activities. I had been leaning towards this myself anyway, but it is nice to hear from a qualified source.
After being diagnosed, I head out to the field. A fellow cripple has been looking for me, he was worried that I had gone to McDonalds by myself and not taken him; I find him and assure him that it wasn't true, I tell him we could go now but he declines, stating that he has just had a Mars bar. Before the game starts I head over to the sheltered stand to watch the game, I get out my notebook to take down stats and I sit next to the camera guy. Some rugby fans seem to have wandered into the wrong stand and mock the players for the entire first half, I dislike them. I am unsure of what data I actually need to collect as the stats person but by the end of the first drive I have a system that I am happy with. Collecting the stats and writing them down after each play, I am not sure if I watch or follow the game as well as I have the past few weeks - it is a different experience.
Game-wise, the performance from the offence is scrappy at best. Passes are overthrown and many of the ones that are on target get dropped, the running game is not operating at its best either. This is not a terrible concern as we still eek out a twenty-three to zero game, thanks mostly to a good performance from the defense shutting out the opposition and securing good field position for the offense throughout the entire game. Next week is the final game of the regular season, facing the team we opened the season against. I am unlikely to be fit but I am now trying to focus on the long-run. Trying, at least.
