I played my first soccer game in over a year yesterday and I am incredibly sore. For those unaware, I developed pretty horrible shin splints about two years ago when I got back into soccer, and was forced to again retire. I lost about 45 pounds, then slowly got back into running. Then, last week someone from my old team sent me an email asking if I could sub, so I thought I'd give it a try.
We played at Zilker park from 10-12. It was hot. I did pretty well. I played sweeper or stopper, occasionaly making a foray into the offensive side of the field. By the end of the game, I was having trouble lifting my legs, and today it is quite painful to do so. You use so many more different muscles playing soccer than you do doing anything else I've ever done. I remarked to Becky on the way home from church that the muscles that move my eyebrows were the only ones that weren't sore, so I was doing alot of eyebrow raising.
I'll probably continue to sub this summer, and start playing full time in the fall. I'm pretty excited to have played a game and not have my shin bones be killing me too much to walk.