I will be honest. My body was in horrible condition by the end of Club Nationals. After not really taking enough time to recover from surgery last winter, transitioning from college to club without breaking stride, and playing ultimate 4-5 days per week all summer, I was in need of a serious break. In fact, Dave reminded me that I had taken my first break lasting more than a week or two since the age of 15 this year. For the record, I was 15 at the time of my first knee surgery, which was the most major of the three. Even then, I only took 3 months off, and was given the go-ahead to return to basketball 3 months post-surgery, which, for those of you who don't know, is a very quick recovery time.
Even though I am far from old, my body is no longer as resilient as it once was at the age of 15. So, after much encouragement and support, I took nearly two and a half full months off from physical activity. It killed me mentally. But honestly, now that I'm getting back in the swing of things, I feel incredible.
I jokingly called Dave this week after lifting to tell him the good news: I was back in the plate club (aka I have 45 lb plates on my squat rack). That is a huge accomplishment given where I was at the beginning of November. I went from not being able to walk up a single flight of stairs or even sit at a desk for more than an hour at a time because my knees were hurting so badly, to lifting a respectable (but not impressive) amount of weight.
I will also admit: I was going through the motions last fall. Yes, I still enjoyed playing ultimate, but it started to take the back burner to my academic, professional, and personal interests. My family, my boyfriend, my budding planning career, my passion for researching hazard mitigation, all of these things are more important than ultimate. I will be the first to admit it. Honestly, it still does. And guess what? It's okay. I'm okay with that.
It took an attitude shift in order for me to find my passion. Ultimate is NOT what drives me to get out of bed in the morning. It's not the only thing I have going. I shouldn't pretend that it is. Having other passions, like flood mitigation and planning and love for people, are okay (in fact, the pursuit of other passions, is well, encouraged). I feel like I'm living a full life and can share many passions with more people.
This outlook has actually re-invigorated my ability to teach the game and write about ultimate for Skyd.
In this realization, I was reminded just how much I love lifting, how much I love training, and how much I love ultimate....along with all those other things too.
:)
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