Painkiller aftermath

Especially a high level one, like this weekend's tournament.

I slept 10 hours last night. The first night I've sleep more than 6 hours since the night before BarCamp. I think my body needed the time to figure out exactly what the heck I just did to it, as I woke up sore.

Sore for the first time in the longest time.

The anti-inflammatories I take daily mean regular exercise won't faze my muscles at all. That muscle soreness and stiffness that sets in 1-2 days after exercising? The feeling that tells you, hell yeah, you've just done something great for your body? That feeling that I like so much, but most women think is icky?

Yeah, haven't felt that soreness since February. (Hmmm... I thought I had written about it, but I can't find it anywhere, so I must have been mistaken. So, how about now?)

I take anti-inflammatories daily. I have been since February, after a series of migraines late last year caused some subtle, but annoying, vision problems for me, and a doctor prescribed blood thinners that were causing me to bleed for hours with the smallest cut. I switched away from the blood thinners and onto the anti-inflammatories, and have been fine since.

Except I'm never sore after working out.

Which is unfortunate, because I like that feeling of soreness from a hard workout.

Taking a lot of painkillers in order to play ultimate is a double edged sword. On the one side, I'm able to play. I can run, jump, throw, pivot, fake, catch, fall, the works because I can move without pain. With enough ibuprofen, and the weakness in my left leg disappears, the pain in my hamstring lessens, and I can have fun again.

And, on the other side, I don't notice when I injure something more. I don't notice that maybe my achilles don't like this sprinting full tilt from our endzone to the opponents' endzone and back on the turn. I don't notice that, whoops, there goes that other toenail, didn't need that one either.

Though, at one point, I did realize that if I can feel where my marker's cleat stomped on my ankle when I pivoted to the forehand, and that I felt it through six Advil and half a Vicodin, that maybe, just maybe, an injury sub would be good to see just how much damage that cleat caused.

Not much yesterday, but I'm feeling it today.

That, and the delicious muscle soreness.

Finally.