Yeaaaaaah baby yea!! Soccer season is back! And it couldn't have come soon enough. I'm so bored/stressed/consumed with studying that being able to get away from the books just to run around on a turf field for an hour is like a vacation for me!
I actually had to scale back on soccer this spring (believe me I'm not happy about this), I couldn't play with my women's league because their games were scheduled during the hours I'm sitting in bio lab, so I'm only playing with my co-ed league this season.
We had our first game this past Sunday, and for some reason winter decided to pay us a visit. I know it's only early march and it should still be cold out, but it was a low of 26 that night and right now, 3 days later, it's 70 degrees out *scratches head*. We've had a really mild winter here and the weather keeps flip flopping lately. So I had all my cold weather gear on, hat, gloves, smart wool socks, running tights and a few layers of long sleeves. (I found these super awesome light Marmot shirts at REI on clearance, they're wicking and great for a base layer, so worth the $12 I paid for them :)).
We ended up tying 1-1, the other team scored a nice shot that hit the side post and bounced in in the last minute of the game. I'll give them credit where credit is due, it was a close match. We played really well I think considering it was our first game and most of us hadn't played together before. More importantly I had an awesome time, made some good passes and didn't make a fool of myself. I left the field kind of with an "I really needed that" feeling. I really missed playing. Taking all winter off was not fun.
Of course several days later I'm still feeling the effects of the game...not in a good way though lol. My hamstrings were killing me for two days after the game. I had an epsom salt soak Tuesday after bootcamp, but I think acupuncture really help clear that up. Of course now my right hip is not feeling so hot, it started bothering me during today's leg work out. I made sure to do an extra long stretch. I go through this every start of the season after taking some time off. No matter how much I condition and sprint, it's so not the same as actually being out on the field during a game!
So the moral of this post is stretch stretch stretch! Soak and rest...and also make sure you keep doing things you love as your work outs, it makes it so much more fun. :)
Ok, so theres been a lot of soccer news goin' on so here's my mini soccer news section:
The Lionel Messi Show stomped all over Bayer Leverkusen. Messi scored 5 Goals during a Champions league match, the first player to ever score that many goals in a champions league game! No one is better than him right now, no one is even close!
US Women's National team place 3rd in the Algrave Cup against Sweden. Alex Morgan scores a hat trick. This girl is on FIRE as well.
Ok, to me this is the most important news of all...
Arne Freidrich signs to Chicago Fire!!! No I'm not a Chicago Fire fan...but this latest signing is testing my allegiances. Who is Arne Freidrich you ask? If you follow the German National Team you know... if you've followed any of my past soccer posts you might know as well. He's a defender, which I dig because that's my position usually, but I've had this liiiiittle crush on him for oh... since the 2006 world cup, and he's now playing on American soil!! Guess who's going to the next DC United v. Chicago Fire match... this chick. (See MLS...take a lesson from kickette, this is how you sell tickets!)
Seriously... look at the man...
how can you not?!...just.
No words right now.
Crushes aside this is good news for MLS. The league needs more signings like this. We need to attract more talent over here to make the games more exciting. He was a big name on the German National Team (82 caps and a goal scored during the world cup--if you're thinking so what one goal? Just remember he's a defender, we defenders rarely get the opportunity to score.) he played in 2 euro cups and 2 world cups, it's an impressive international career. My only wish is that he signed with DC. I'm sad that I never hear of DC getting any big international signings. Is the club broke? Their stadium situation is a mess, there's even been rumors of moving the team (which I'm ok with because the rumor was a move up to Baltimore and that's my home town)....but what's going on DC?
And now for some funny shit... Shit Soccer Girls Say from @soccergrlprobs
Yeah, I would so be the chick crying over a broken head band I can NOT work out with out my headbands! and the "T-shirt tiiime" was definitely me too, until I decided to clean out the drawers and donate to good will, now I only have a few colors that I really like (Black x2, red, purple, white, grey, navy...oh I guess I really didn't clean them out)
