Amy Mandel owns Feet First athletic shoe stores in Tampa and St. Pete. She played in an indoor soccer league until two years ago when a bad hamstring injury sidelined her — for good, as it turns out.
"It really did a number on me," she says. "The biggest for me was not having that endorphin rush. Playing indoor soccer, constantly moving, getting that adrenaline going, to lose that brought on some form of depression. I miss it a lot. I miss the team stuff."
These days, Mandel plays tennis occasionally, works with a personal trainer a couple of days a week, and has started running again. She's trying to get in the groove and stay there, but she struggles with the transition from sport to mere exercise for its own sake. And sometimes she wavers. "Today, I'm on my way up the elevator in my building and I thought, "I'm going to get the key to the exercise room and hit the treadmill. My first exercise in a week. Well, I didn't want to go back down the elevator," she says with a rueful laugh. "Here I am with my paperwork."
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2004.