Thursday, June 9, 2011

Jersey Up The Rafters

As the ball bounced towards the outside lane, I stretched and tried to reach it to keep it inbound. I failed for I was late for about a second and the ball was eventually given to the opposing team.

As I was walked/jogged back to play defense, I felt a pain on my back which could've resulted from the previous play.

Darn it.

A possible back strain which is still lingering as of this morning.

Last night was only the 3rd time I played basketball since December 2010 and by some sheer bad luck, I've come off injured by the following day. Prior to discovering my passion for running, I play regular hoops with the guys here in the office around once a week, and then there was a time that I'd even do shoot-arounds at Club650 by myself once a week during lunchtime. I was keen on getting my shooting-pulse in ship-shape and try to imitate the driving moves of my idols: Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. In spite of all those practices, I would still be often left on the bench on school-alumni leagues and office sportsfests. Yup, I love basketball but I don't seem to have the skills to make basketball love me back.

Several thoughts came up as to why these string of post-basketball injuries have become regular:

First, I think that my body has been more attuned to running in which once you get the form and pace right, you just need to do the same thing over and over as you tick off the miles. You don't need to bend, stretch, jog backwards, do lateral movements, nor jump. But in basketball, you need to do all of these. Di na ako sanay sa basketball, I guess. Probably spending more time in strength-training would do the trick.

Second, and the more obvious reason, is that my body is not as young as it used to be. I'll be 38 by the last quarter of the year and even the aches and pains that I feel during hard running workouts just goes to show that I need to be more careful of my body at this age. The banging, jumping, and different paces of basketball is something that I need to watch out for. Wag nang sumabay sa pagrebound kung malalaki ang mga katabi. I think I should just impose my age with the youngsters (mang-gulang? hehe) like my other idol: Robert "The Big J" Jaworski.

Yup, I've no plans of hanging up my basketball jersey just yet. I will just have to be more mindful of my limits.

Well I hope my bad back will heal in time for Mizuno 10k although I don't think it'll be much of a problem (crossing-fingers here) since no bending/diving for the ball is required.


1 comment:

  1. Dapat "specialist" ka na lang. Spot-up shooter, parang John Paxson or Steve Kerr... or Joey Loyzaga hahaha! Walang takbo-takbo, walang depe-depensa, walang hustle-hustle. Basta pukol lang ng pukol! GI-NE-BRA! GI-NE-BRA! lol

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