Feeling my age

I got out to play badminton last night . . . for the first time since May of last year. I was heartened that I could still play — somewhat — but clearly I'm still not fully recovered from my shoulder injury from August.

I only played two full games, plus warm-ups, and I'm certainly feeling the results of too-long-delayed exercise this morning. My elbows and knees are creaking like haunted house door hinges, and I'm moving at about 2/3rds normal speed.

The first game went exactly as I feared it would: final score 15-1, and the "1" flattered us. I was terrible, and my partner had everything he could do to try to keep us in the game. I found, as the game went on, that I couldn't extend my left arm out quickly without pain, so I started holding it closer and closer to my body. By the time we were down 5 points, I was doing a creditable ham-actor Richard III imitation. This severely limited my ability to serve, as I couldn't put the shuttle out far enough from my body to get a clean serving swing . . . and I kept putting it directly into the net. I also had a spectacular pratfall, as I tried to regain my balance after swinging too hard at a fast return, and sprawled on the ground at mid-court.

The second game went much better, as I'd started to figure out the mechanics for serving so that at least I could put the bird into play (even if we weren't scoring points off my serves). We were down 8-3 when we started to recover — my second partner was doing an excellent job of covering the parts of the court I couldn't reach — and we got the score level, then moved ahead 9-8 before losing the serve. We swapped serves a couple of times before either team was able to score, but at the end, we'd won 15-12.

After that, of course, I was pretty much wrung out and decided that two games was more than enough to start my season off.

I'm glad I get a couple of days to recover before the next playing night. I need 'em.