2nd knee test - two weeks later
I decided to forgo the high school season again - mostly because I've looked at my schedule, and realized that I'll just be too busy to do it; most of the games are on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays - all of which I have booked well into next year. Instead I'll do some women's league games, which run on different days of the week; this has the added benefit of not being on (as) crappy fields, so I'm less likely to turn or tweak anything.It was actually something that hit me today, as I gave my knee a new test; if I hurt myself (ankle, knee, hamstring), it's usually in the fall. Usually due to the very poor grass fields used by high school teams, or the artificial turf, or running at full tilt at near freezing temperatures. Granted, fields for summer soccer aren't necessarily all that better - I can think of some places I hate to go to during the USSF season, too. There's just more of them in high school.
This was actually one of them - interesting that a game I'm using to test out my knee was at a place where I severely sprained my ankle last year. The game last year had a nasty hole completely covered in grass, so I missed it on my field walk-through; last year I ran further behind the line to miss some holes that were visible and ended up doing some intensive RICE for the next week due to the hidden hole. This year, at least at this field, I stuck to the holes I could see and was much better for it.
The knee did much better, too - I could tell it wasn't at 100% (somewhere between 90-95%), but there was no worrisome creaking or pain - and I was on the line, which tends to put more torque on it than the center. The game itself was more leisurely than the last one I had (division three versus one), but nonetheless I feel pretty good.
The real trick will be next week, however - with a line on a division two men's game.