As I write this post today, I am in pain. If I were a baseball player, I would place myself on the disabled list and if I were a football player, I would totally be put on the injured reserve list. If the "blogosphere" had a "injured reserve", if you will, I would be on that too.
Why all of this pain, you ask? Well, because I played a pick up game of tackle football with some guys from church on Monday night. Turns out this was very foolish of me.
It was foolish because looking back on it, I learned two things. 1) I am pretty out of shape and 2) I am really freaking out of shape.
First of all, it's not like I'm not already aware of how out of shape I am. My eyes are open to this fact. It's been at least one full year since I've done anything exercise-like, outside of the 10 minutes of pickup basketball I played last December and the huge dump I took at school last night before class (trust me, it totally counted as exercise). Other than that, nothing in the exercise department on my part, for a good full calendar year.
So being a guy, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to participate in this football game. I was actually sort of excited about it.
I arrived at the field where there were about 7 guys already there. Good, not too many people. A good number of pick up football games have been ruined by way too many people, and then it just turns into a huge game of "500". Basically, the quarterback throws a hail mary-type pass every time and hopes someone on his team comes down with the ball. And that is the extent of every play. A football game like that will get old very very quickly.
So with the right number of people, I felt good about this particular night. It was cold, but not too cold. It was a crisp night, but not too crisp. It was a little bit foggy, but not too foggy. It was autumn-y smelling, but not too autumn-y smelling. It was windy, but not too windy. Actually, I'm kidding, there was no wind. Just suffice it to say, it was perfect football weather.
Being the competitive dude that I am, I start sizing up the competition on the field. I didn't have a clue who any of these guys were, by the way. Playing with strangers can be really boring, which I will explain here later. But the first thing that I noticed about pretty much all the guys out there, is that they were all bigger than me. It was gonna be a long night, I thought to myself.
Side note -- I am used to being the smallest (or one of the smallest) guys on the field or court at any given time. I've dealt with it my whole life. I've been there folks. And I've always managed. Like with football, I just have to outrun the guy and he's toast. Simple enough. Easy as that.
Something else kind of troubled me at first glance. If you've ever played pick up games of football with other dudes, you know about a certain type of guy. There is always the guy who is just a little bit too decked out for just a casual pick up game. You know the guy...he's always wearing cleats and shin guards. He's got the old worn-out jersey on. Maybe a headband or armband or two. He's even usually got a freaking mouth piece in, for cryin out loud.
This guy will usually wear everything you need to play real football minus the helmet and shoulder pads. And with the way this guy plays, you actually may need the pads more than he does.
Turns out there was one of these guys here on this night. Except this guy wasn't wearing a mouth piece and his jersey was a soccer jersey, not a football one. There is something different about soccer players who play a game of football, but that is another post for another time. Needless to say, this was the "decked out" guy of the night. I avoided this guy the entire night, as best I could.
So we choose up teams and start playing. And there are a couple of things that wore me out throughout the course of the game.
First of all, I got matched up with a dude that I was faster than. You think this would be a good thing, right? Turned out not to be good at all. He was well aware of the fact that I was faster than him. And because of this, instead of lining up to guard me in the usual spot (about 10 feet away), he lined up about 25 feet away from me.
The name of the game in these football games is this: outrun the guy who's guarding you, catch the deep pass and score. With the way this guy lined up every time opposite me, that was going to be quite difficult to accomplish. Meaning I have to run farther every down just to get past him to get open enough to get the ball thrown to me.
That was the goal right? I only accomplished that task about three different times all night.
It got OLD people. After about 17 minutes of solid football, I was done running past this guy. I would just run really fast up to where he was standing (waiting for me of course) and I would stop. Plain and simple. I wasn't gettin the ball after that. And I didn't really mind, I was so physically wrecked at that point, I don't think I could have moved after catching the ball. Not even kidding.
The other thing I want to mention is playing with strangers, and I'll be quick. If you play with dudes who don't know you, they will not throw the ball to you. I mean, if they don't know you, why would they? Or they'll throw it to you like two times and call it good. This is partially why I was done with the whole thing after about 19 1/2 minutes of playing.
But to be a little bit braggy and so you people know that I wasn't a complete waste of space, here is what I accomplished for the night: 2 TD catches, 1 perfectly-timed interception, 1 solo tackle, 3 side-aches, 4 knees to my face and about a solid hour of what is known as "catching my breath."
FYI -- The second TD catch was awesome. It bounced off a guy's head and I still caught it. And the interception was even awesome-er. I wish I would have filmed it for y'all.
Anyway, for all the glory that I achieved that night, I am certainly paying for it now. I hurt like hell, and probably will thru the rest of the week. Sorry this post is so long, but this experience has taught me a lot, and I felt the need to share.
Oh and I will never exercise again...
