More than just one day, but I'm ecstatic about a successful return week. I shut my entire disc golf game down in mid-March due to a sacroiliac issue, and it escalated into some level of pull in the piriformis (which still has me dealing with some numbness in my leg due to its impact on the sciatic). I opted to not see a doctor because it felt *so similar* to an injury I had in 2017 that sat me down for six months. My personal willingness to recognize my injury early and treat it with the sort of rehabilitation I did with a physical therapist last time appears to have paid off - I'm fully back after only 3 months.
Here's the week of play...
Friday - 13 holes from the long tees at Ottawa Park. I chose to go with discs that would force me to throw hard (FD3, MD3, and Nomad, along with my putter - a Deputy), with knowledge I might have to quit after a hole or two if there was pain. But I wanted to test boundaries. No pain.
Monday - Full round from the short tees at Ottawa Park. Continued great feels. Shot well as well.
Tuesday - Monday's positivity encouraged me to play a sanctioned singles league at Vienna Park. I jumped into and won a 10 person Open Division with a 973. There was a choke job late with a missed short putt (overall 92% C1X round) and an airball from 36 feet on the last two holes. But in the playoff I canned a perfect 90+ foot safety putt with a steep slope to OB 12 ft behind the basket, faded perfectly into the chains. Resulted in the W after my opponent missed his 45 footer (we both definitely flubbed the drive, the same hole I'd closed my round out by missing a 36 footer).
Wednesday - I played 9 holes of Ottawa Park Long after work to try to figure out what was wrong with my putt late in the round the day before. It took me a few holes to realize that I had slowly shifted to settling on my front leg. I really wasn't sitting on that back foot, which is huge for generating easy power. My putt feels very uncertain when I'm not settled into my stance.
Thursday - Not disc golf, but I managed to run two stretches of almost half a mile! I hadn't tried in over a week. Prior - I hadn't run more than about 100 yards due to the pain when I extended my leg and the weakness in the muscles from the sciatica. The upside was finally getting myself moving at a good pace, the downside was that I was only able to run one of those stretches like I'd prefer - with a toe-strike stride. The second stretch was heel-toe, which I try to avoid.
Friday - Played a full league round from Ottawa Park long tees. I drew a good partner who can make some reliable putts and has enough distance for the course and we pretty much ran it. It took me about 8 holes to find my game though. I was focusing way too late into the throw on my target. I usually imagine a sequence of checkpoints, imagined kinda as "tape" as I visualize the shot (I throw through a piece of green masking tape on my net at home). I was too fixated on that too late into my throws. However at the 9th hole I finally let myself simply relax and throw through my shots and it all came together. Got hot, birdied all of the reasonable birdies the rest of the way through the course - 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19 (19 hole layout).
Still no pain right now. I am even more pain free today than I was last week when I was still experiencing some stabbing in my hamstring due to the sciatic. I'm pretty excited. Plus my boss, due to the stress we're under at work right now, is giving our team a week off after the 4th of July to unwind so I know I'm going to be heading out of town to play something big! Toboggan? Bald Mountain? I dunno! One of them!
