My next fitness adventure

It's not strictly for fitness purposes but I will undertake a new activity that could potentially require lots of running. I'm actually quite nervous about it - but not the fitness part. That will actually be the least of my worries.

I'm going to start work as a high school soccer referee.

Yeah, I don't know what I'm thinking either. I don't necessarily like abuse but that's what I'm asking for. I'm asking for people to abuse me and yell at me and call me names and question my sight and decision-making abilities. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

But I know a thing or two about soccer and have been around the game at the professional and international level for 10 years now. That doesn't necessarily translate into having skills to officiate a soccer game but I've watched World Cup games in person, have watched dozens upon dozens of professional games in person and countless many others on television over the years so I think I know the rules of the game.

It will be a change of pace, though, from sitting in a press box and watching games to being on the field and looking out for fouls. It's a big enough change of pace to make me nervous. I guess my big thing is that I don't want to blow calls. I don't want to mess up and call something that shouldn't be called or miss something blatant, like a hand ball inside the area or something. But I'm starting slowly - my first scrimmage is today and most of the games I have on my schedule thus far as junior varsity girls games, which I heard is as slow as it gets in high school soccer. So I will have time to adjust. Not a lot of time, but time nonetheless.

My in-laws have been reffing for years, and my brothers-in-law have all assured me that I know far more about soccer than any of them and they do just fine. I'll believe it when I see it I suppose.

As far as the fitness goes, it's hard to say just how much I will be running. I really want to get a pedometer to track my mileage but I don't know if I can afford that. Still, I think it could be loads of running. Professional soccer players, in my opinion, are the fittest athletes around. I mean, there is no such thing as an overweight professional soccer player, with the only possible exception being a goalkeeper. So there is a lot of running involved for soccer players, and a lot of running involved for soccer referees. I don't recall seeing any overweight soccer referees either.

Now, the pace of the game at the high school level is far less than an international game per se but that doesn't mean there won't be much running involved. It will be interesting to see how I handle the constant stop-and-go-and-stop-and-run-really-fast pace of soccer. It's just another activity I can do now that I've slimmed down and that part I'm looking forward to.

Yells of "You suck, ref!" ... not so much.