The Sophomore Slump ... or No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I curled Thursday ... if you use the term loosely. It's very hard to curl when the back of your thigh is throbbing with pain.

I did really well ... for one end. After that, I don't think I got a single stone over the hog line (meaning it's still in play). I am holding out hope that it was merely the sore leg, and not a sign that my one night of not being obnoxiously horrible was a complete and utter fluke.

That would be really bad since I paid my membership fee for the first half of the season on Thursday.

So how did my leg get so sore? Why the title of this post?

Wednesday night, as I pulled out of the Boston Market drive thru and as I was about to merge into the heavy traffic on the road, I saw a woman dashing around the parking lot.

And then I saw the black dog that kept coming perilously close to dashing out into the aforementioned heavy traffic.

My heart went into my throat. I did not want to see the doggie get mushed. There was no one behind me, so I set my flashers and grabbed my newly purchased chicken dinner. I dashed to that section of the parking lot and put down the dinner. The dog headed for it, and I prepared to pounce.

The dog got closer, and I lunged ... but the peat moss under me gave way, meaning that my left leg gave way and the muscle at the back of my thigh pulled.

Of course, I missed the dog, but at least she was now moving farther away from the traffic. The woman's daughter pulled a car up, opened the door, and the doggie dashed around a bit more, then leaped into the car -- safe and sound. Heck, my dinner even survived the excitement (well, the cornbread made the ultimate sacrifice, but I'm not a huge cornbread person anyway).

I limped home, stretched, and went into my curling lunge. Nope. No problem at all. The muscle I tore didn't seem to affect my curling. Yay!

Well, not so yay.

I was fine the first end, but during the second end, I bent down to move a recalcitrant stone into delivery position. Bad move. Really bad move. I could feel that pulled muscle become something much, much worse. And from that point forward, I could get no strength pushing off from the hack.

End of the night -- or at least it should I have been. I stupidly kept playing.

I had fun, though. My team lost (again), but it was closer (9-4, I think, and we went all eight ends).

I'm taking it easy this weekend, and not doing a lot of exercising this week. That's something else I did too much of, I suspect -- stretching and exercising. My old body just can't take it. I'm going to stretch a bit, but probably won't get to do much else. So maybe, by Thursday, I'll be in better shape to curl.

Now, if I can just avoid dogs with death wishes, I'll be in great shape.