Pain Timeline after Badminton

I played badminton on Saturday. I haven't played badminton in approximately a year and I picked up a raquet again on Saturday to play again. I was so rusty, but that's not the point. After playing on and off badminton at Britannia's Drop-In Badminton for about 4 hours, my legs began to shake. I knew I'd be in so much pain for the next couple of days. So here's a timeline to remind myself what I would need to go through the next time I play badminton for 4 hours after not playing for a year and may it be a lesson to be learned from my pain.

Saturday: played badminton; legs began shaking while standing up (bad sign).

Sunday: cannot get out of bed; have trouble walking on flat floor and tried to refrain from going up and down the stairs; tried to stretch out muscles at night when lying on my bed but failed to do so because it was too tight and I was in too much pain.

Monday: no trouble getting out of bed; have trouble walking on flat floor and going up and down the stairs; must hold on to something otherwise knee will hurt really really badly; cannot squat; cannot stretch; felt handicapped when everyone was staring at me.

Tuesday: no more trouble walking on flat floor; have trouble going up and down the stairs so I had to hold onto rail; cannot squat; still felt handicapped.

Wednesday: still hurts a little bit when going up and down the stairs, but not as handicapped anymore.

Tomorrow: I expect myself to be completely healed by tomorrow so I can go play badminton again on Saturday!!

I now know what they mean when people say that they're "weak in the knees" . So learn from my pain, everybody. Stretch before and after you go exercising (especially when you haven't exercised for a long long time).