Out of Shape

So it's been a while since I've hurt myself playing a sport or doing something active. The biggest reason is because I haven't really been doing any physical activity. I've never had any major injuries in the past - maybe a few sprained ankles from volleyball or basketball. The last major injury I had was from cooking while camping. I was using the gas stoves to cook steaks and some of the oil splashed on my legs and I sustained some 2nd degree burns. I managed to avoid infection and any serious complications but I think I will be forever left with the scars.

Fig 1. 4 days after burns

Fig 2. 11 days after burns

Fig 3. 20 days after burns

Haha, no need to thank me for grossing you out with my fugly legs. As you can see about a week or two after some of the larger burn spots were looking pretty bad...there was definite loss of epidermis and you could see the underlying dermis. Unfortunately, this has been replaced by pigmented scar tissue and I'm now left with these dark patches on my legs. There goes any chance of me being a leg model...

About 3 weeks ago, my flatmate's boyfriend brought over a Canadian Football from Toronto and we played a little game of 2-hand-touch. I also threw it around a few times and a few days later I was noticing that my shoulder was really bothering me. It gave me a sharp pain everytime I tried to elevate it above my head. Long story short, I went and had an ultrasound done and it turns out that have a small tear in the tendon to my supraspinatus shoulder muscle (the most common site of rotator cuff injury). Probably serves me right for not warming my arm up at all (and not using my arm to throw anything like that in many many months) and suddenly chucking the ball around fairly hard. Actually, probably serves me right for doing pretty much 'nil physical activity for the last 6 months. The doctor said that it's not severe enough for surgery (thank God) but it may require a steroid injection to help with the inflammation (there is some bursitis that is causing the pain when I abduct my shoulder). Plus, I should probably get some physiotherapy done in order to strengthen the muscles around it and aid in recovery.

So when is the next opportunity for injury? September 7th for the Bridge to Brisbane run. A whole group of us are going to do this 10 km run and if I don't do some preparation for it, I will likely hurt myself in the process of trying to run a respectable time. Do I like running? No. In fact, I don't know if I've ever ran 10 km straight before. I can run pretty fast (at least I used to be able to) but I can't run very far; nor do I have the passion for running as some people do but this will be a good reason for me to do some physical activity in the meantime so I don't pull a hamstring on Sept 7th. The training will start as soon as my shoulder stops hurting when I move it...