The Story of Why I Struggle to Walk Right Now

Here’s a story. Hopefully there’s some sort of important lesson to be learned somewhere in here.

On Saturday, Yackie and I decided to drive down to Rendondo Beach to visit Sully and KtL. We’d hang out, eat El Burrito Jr., and watch the NFL Draft. A simple enough day. We got their around 1ish, watched a little of the draft, decided to get El BJ, brought the food back to his place, and watched more NFL Draft. As you can probably imagine, Yackie and KtL were not all that enthused about watching names flash across the screen for any extended period of time. We then went out and walked to the beach, got some frozen yogurt (I went with a Coke Float, I have no idea why), came back and, you guessed it, watched more draft coverage. With all the talk of draft picks, 40 times, verticals, lifting reps, and “thrust,” Sully, Sully’s roomate Josh, and I started talking again about how we should see how fast we could run the 40.

This is where the pain begins.

Sully lent me his Arizona basketball shorts (cursed), Josh put on some sort of über-tight nike shirt, and we all went to West Torrance High School to run the 40. Yackie and KtL both had stopwatches, we blasted Kanye, and generally got pumped for a pretty bad idea (as Yackie stated it was many times).

The school was open and we were lucky enough to have the yard markers painted on to the edge of the track, which circled the football field. I immediately took my shirt off (you’re welcome ladies of the South Bay) to cut down on any possible resistance, and began stretching and jogging around. Sully remained unsure if he would run the 40, as he anticipated injury and/or embarrassment. Josh and I were getting in our respective zones (he played HS football, I HS tennis), positioned everyone, and finally, started sprinting. My goal was to be sub-six seconds.

We ran individual, hand-timed heats on the grass, and both consistently ran in the 5.5-6.1 range, although I don’t think I got in the 6s on the grass. Despite Yackie’s complaining, it was relatively fun, and put my curiosity to sleep.

At this point, Sully decided (after numerous full laps around the track) that he wanted in, but only in a head to head fashion – on the track. He ran two heats. His first heat, he beat Josh by a length and finished around 6.06ish. Not bad, especially considering Sully was hedging his potential time by talking up his distance running and claiming to have no short burst.

In the final race of the evening, I raced Sully on the track for unspoken future bragging rights. It was counted off by Josh, timed by Yackie, and we were off. For some reason, Sully, for the first time that day, started grunting and moaning during the sprint, throwing me off a little. I don’t make excuses, Sully beat me by a length fair and square. Immediately after finishing, I felt a tightness in my hamstrings, and started walking a little more gingerly. I didn’t think much of it, and just chalked it up to soreness from not having sprinted in quite some time.

We got some more food, drove home, and lo and behold, the soreness increased. Fast forward a bit, and by the time I woke up yesterday, I could barely move. My hamstrings were the size of softballs, my hips (which don’t lie) hurt everytime I did anything more than flinch, and I became certain that I had not only just shin splints, but hip, quad, knee, shin, and foot splints.

Rad.

Today, I tried walking with Yackie at a regular pace in my neighborhood before she laughed and asked if it was ok to walk ahead at a normal speed. This isn’t good.

As I sit here now typing this, I just tried to cross my legs on the ledge underneath my desk, and it was an unnecessarily lengthy struggle.

Officially, I’m day to day, but I may be sent down for a simulated game and then a rehab assignment.

The lesson here: never fool yourself into thinking it’s a good idea to try to run the 40 yard dash, especially multiple times. I don’t get how it is I’m slower than every single offensive lineman ever, but I now accept it as fact.

Also, Yackie is almost always wrong about things, but occasionally she can be correct.

Ugh.

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