November Madness
Mad·ness Pronunciation: \ˈmad-nəs\ Function: noun Date: 14th Century
1. Like the slogan March Madness, November’s madness is for the NCAA tournament, for soccer. And for the second year and a row, our team has succeeded in winning the Big South Conference tournament championship and received 1 of 48 bids to the division 1 national tournament. The bids were released tonight on ESPNNews at 5:30 and it was announced that we would be traveling to Duke University to play the Blue Devils at 7:30 on Thursday night. I am so pumped for the team but just wishing I could be more part of of the action as I have been out- injured once again, for the past two weeks. I received a reeaally hard knock on my calf at Liberty on Halloween, and have not been able to run since, battling swelling and aching pains for the entirety of November. However, my rest has begun to show results, and it’s a toss up if I will be healthy enough to travel with the team to Duke or not. The results of tomorrow afternoon’s rehab and practice will be the deciding factor.
2. Like the madness that comes with final exams, before actual final exams- wait did I say that right? Yes, those lovely final tests before the actual cumulative final exams in all college courses. They are just lovely to study for! It’s been a long three months in the classroom and I’m pretty ready for a break! I had my second to last physics test this morning and have a few right after Thanksgiving break, in two weeks. Then it’s final exam time.
Anyways, life has been busy, but very sweet at the same time. Because I was injured and did not travel with the team this past weekend to the conference tournament, I drove down to Athens to see Sheida for Friday and the weekend, then drove to our championship game in Boiling Springs, NC on Sunday afternoon. Sheida and I had an awesome time in the wonderful college town, and cheered on our Bulldogs to a wonderful rival victory over Auburn on Saturday night. Not in the stands, in her apartment. Sheida had a student ticket, but we didn’t go because I didn’t want to spend money scalping a ticket. Sheida didn’t go to the UGA/Auburn clash to stay and watch it with me. She’s freakin awesome. We spent the majority of the weekend studying. Me, for my physics test, and her for FOUR tests she has this week. Not fun at all. Well a little fun if you like learning, but just very stressful.
Not only have I not been able to play practice with my team for the past two weeks, but I haven’t been able to be athletically active at all. Let me tell you why this is very, very bad. I, as well as Sheida, and my parents, are registered for the Atlanta Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving morning- 13.1 miles through downtown Atlanta on the same course as the Olympians ran in 1996. Sheida and my Mom have been training almost daily for the past months to run, and have just recently ran 14 miles together two weeks ago. My Dad has also been doing some running on his own, as well as playing soccer on his team, weekly. I figured I wouldn’t have to do much “training” for the race, as I would be in pretty-darn-good division 1 athletic shape, after finishing a season of college soccer. However, I have been injured 4 times this season, been in and out of the training room, and have probably barely practiced more than I have sat on the sidelines. And for the past two weeks, my fitness has done nothing other than plummet to the bottom of the human fitness barrel, far far away from where I was expecting, or even needing to be. Hopefully my calf is finished with it’s healing and I will be ok to run, slowly, during Thanksgiving morning. We shall see! (Oh and may I point out, the day my Mom registered me for the race, was the day that the Liberty player fell on my calf during my slide tackle.. perfect timing!) I actually was doing a little training, or at least starting to, about a month ago. Sheida came to visit me at Winthrop and we woke up early and ran over 6 miles at a local part at about a 10 minute mile pace! I was stoked! Man my Mom and Sheida are never going to let it go when they beat me!
The Fall is going by pretty quickly, and I’m more than excited for Thanksgiving then Christmas break to be here. I just hope I can have good grades, be healthy, and be ready to eat a LOT over the breaks.
Talk to you soon!
