It has been a long time since I have had really sore muscles.

I think I'm in pretty good shape. In fact, I think I'm in above average shape for a woman my age. After spending the first 23 years of my life sitting on sofas reading books, I discovered that I liked to run and swim. When I found the Blood Type Diet in 2003 and read that Type Os need "intense physical exercise" I could identify.

I exercise between 45 minutes and an hour 5-6 days a week. I let my body rest one day a week. For me it is a good Biblical principal, but I find it interesting that every physical trainers agree. Women my age are prone to lose muscle mass and replace it with fat. I fight that tendency continuously.

For all of these reasons, it has been a long time since I have had really sore muscles.

Saturday I photographed 17 basketball teams. I had been hired by a children's basketball league. The players were aged 5-12. I shot pictures from 7:30 in the morning until 4:30 that afternoon.

If you want good pictures, you do not stand when you photograph children. You get down on their level. So I was up and down; up and down; up and down all day long. While I was working, I felt great. But, oh my! Sunday morning when I got out of bed, my quads were screaming. I hobbled into the bathroom. I had trouble getting dressed. I walked around all day like an old lady.

Monday was a little better. If I had been sitting for a while - at the computer or in a meeting - when I first stood up my quads were stiff and painful. However, once I started moving around, they loosened up. Today is a little better, but still noticeably painful.

I'm disappointed and dismayed. How could someone who exercises as much as I do have muscles this sore? I know the answer, while I exercise up to an hour a day, I don't work my leg muscles all day the way I did on Saturday.

What I have learned from this experience is that the exercise I'm doing is not pushing my muscles anywhere close to their limits. I may be in better shape than most women my age, but there is a lot of room for improvement.