My friend invited me to be her partner in a doubles tennis tournament, which was held today.   September in Wisconsin is usually beautiful, but it can also be quite cold. Today it was 44 degrees Fahrenheit when we started playing.  Despite our numerous layers (including earmuffs), we could not feel our fingers.  As you can imagine, this is somewhat problematic.  It was bearable when the sun was shining, which was pretty infrequent during the first two matches.

A few years ago, I played too much tennis on a blisteringly-hot summer day. During the final set of my personal marathon, I jumped up to hit an overhead.  I should qualify that when I say ‘jump’, that you could have fit a newspaper between my feet and the ground–NOT the Sunday paper, but a regular weekday paper from a slow news day.   However, for ME, it was a jump of enormous proportions.  During the microsecond that I was airborne, my right calf spasmed into a horrible cramp and was hard as a rock by the time I landed on the ground, writhing in pain.   The muscle was visibly twitching and simply would not relax.   I suspect it was due to dehydration, and  it took several days for the leg to feel normal again.  Since then I have occasional muscle twinges in the calf, but can usually walk it off without getting all dramatic about it.

As a shortie, I remind my doubles partners that there is a lot of real estate over my head. There are many times I holler ‘HELP” to my partner which is shorthand for “I can’t reach it – so you have to get it- RUN NOW!.  This afternoon, I was leveraging my 1 inch vertical leap to snag a high ball, and was rewarded for my efforts with another calf cramp, that put me on the ground writhing in pain.

Here is a great tip:  If you are a short, middle-aged woman (or man for that matter) with some aches and pains and you want to play tennis;  I STRONGLY recommend that you find a tall, athletic, younger physician as a partner.  She was wonderful… her ice cold hands felt great as she calmly massaged my calf back to life. She gave me coconut milk (potassium) which she had with her, and had me do a few stretches.  Afterwards, she proceeded to cover 3/4 of the court for our remaining games, since her partner’s mobility was compromised.

OK, we didn’t win the tournament, but we won more than we lost and I am happy to report that we both regained full use of all of our fingers.

Pin It on Pinterest