Afterwork Paintball

I ran through the field with my hands up, surrendered. I just made it to the sidelines before I realized I was exhausted, I couldn't see through my steamed up visor, and my ankle hurt like the dickens. I dropped my gun, and then myself, to the ground. As the adrenalin's magic wore off, I assessed the ankle with several tentative rolls of my foot. Pain. Definite pain. “Just shake it off,” I told myself. “That's what you're supposed to do. Stretch it, tape it, and be ready to get back out there for the next round.” Wait, what? I must have been thinking I was an athlete in the Olympics. But I'm just a normal person and I'm probably really injured! Oh crap.

Fortunately, when I stopped irritating my ankle by trying to stretch it out, it worked fine. I came home and iced it with my trusty Spiderman ice pack and now it's mostly better, provided I don't twist it up and in, or do any sudden pivoting. The real, lingering pain is not the ankle, or the paintball collision sites, but my quads! Holy out-of-shape-muscles, do those hurt!
 

Spidey to the rescue.

At the time, I was blissfully unaware of all the crouching and ducking I was doing, or how my actions were targeting only one sadly unprepared muscle-group. But hobbling around the office these past two days, I quickly discovered I'm not alone in grunting down the stairs or sighing loudly every time I stand up. I may not have really enjoyed the experience while I was out there, or in the middle of the night while I rehashed what I wished I could have done differently, but I have honestly enjoyed the shared experience of pain that followed. My friend asserted that the real “team building” part of the adventure did not come from merely going out after work and playing paintball together, but the experience of discussing it and trading war stories afterward. When he said it yesterday, I was too caught up in how tired and miserable I was to realize the sagacity of such a statement, but after today's continued unified commiseration, I think he's absolutely right.

Already crouching. Little did we suspect the outcome of our actions.