Sorry Charlie

Got back to playing ball hockey tonight after a three-week lay-off over the holidays. We had nine guys show up, so one team got the extra player, meaning they had a sub. It wasn't my team unfortunately.

So it was a bit of a rough night with no rests. By the second and third game (we play until one team scores five goals), I was pretty winded at times. Makes it tough when you spend a lot of energy on scoring chances, and then have to scramble back to play defence when the play goes the other way.

Towards the end of the night, I had a break-away, managed to get a shot off before falling to the floor with an excruciating charlie horse in my right calf muscle. Ooooh, those are nasty. The whole muscle in the back of the lower leg just knots up. Nothing to do but lay there and try to stretch it out.

Got back into the game, and a few minutes later, a player on the other team had a break-away, and I scrambled back to try to catch up with the guy, stretching my stick to try to disrupt his control and hopefully poke the ball off. Wasn't working, so I made a last-ditch desperation dive. Didn't work, and he scored, while I lay sprawled on the gymnasium floor with another charlie horse, this time in my left calf muscle. Even more painful than the first one.

That was it for me. It was almost time to call it a night anyway, so I sat out the rest of the game, and then gingerly walked to the subway.

Man, first the black eye, and then two charlie horses. I thought exercising was supposed to make you healthy! I stretched beforehand like I always do, and drank Gatorade on breaks, but I guess the three-week lay-off plus a bit of overexertion/dehydration left me susceptible to Mr. C. Horse. Oh well, I should be okay tomorrow.

Why are they called charlie horses anyway?