Every single of those 165 "long" recovery days was a challenge for the 27-year-old from Faridkot, Punjab.
"165 long days..."
That was Rupinder Pal Singh's tweet hours after making a comeback into the Indian team for the Hockey World League Final in India starting from December 1.
The senior dragflicker remembers the exact number of days for which he had to be sidelined from the team, a hamstring injury in his right leg before the Hockey World League Semifinal in June this year being the culprit.
Every single of those 165 "long" recovery days was a challenge for the 27-year-old from Faridkot, Punjab.
"When you are used to playing continuously, when you enjoy it, and then when you miss out for a prolonged period due to injury, it is frustrating," Singh told DNA from Bengaluru on Friday.
"You're out of the team, you're injured, and you're not able to do the one thing you love: play hockey. I enjoy playing the sport, and I never get tired of it no matter how much I play. So yes, the phase was really challenging," he added.
For a man who prides himself on his fitness as much as skills, the injury came as a setback, for it made the lanky defender miss a few crucial tournaments along with goalkeeper PR Sreejesh.
And by his own admission, there were days when he felt the pain would get the better of his grit in his comeback quest.
"Honestly, you feel demotivated sometimes. It happened to me during my initial days of the injury. When I was in the rehab camp during my early days of recovery, for the first three days, I felt the improvement. But on the fourth day, I felt the pain again.
"That day when I again started experiencing pain, I didn't know what the future would hold for me. That was the most testing day for me in my recovering. That day, I was getting all kinds of thoughts in my mind: when will I be fine, whether I will be completely fine at all, whether I will be able to play hockey again.
"But I kept myself busy. Whenever I started getting self-doubts, I just tried to neglect them. I would spend time with my friends and do stuff outside hockey that would help me get rid of those negative thoughts. That's the time you need to stay positive, and ensure that you do not take a step back," he added.
He didn't, and here he is back in the mix, pressing the reset button.
"This is a refresh button for me. Moreover, this will be my first tournament under the new coach (Sjoerd Marijne). So, this is a fresh start for me," he said.
Singh is now the most senior dragflicker in the team leading a pack of five, and will have to carry the burden of converting penalty corners, an area the team has been struggling in recent times.
"We now have five dragflickers in the team. So, it's a good help for me. If we want to improve our penalty corner conversion, everybody should take responsibility and not just the dragflicker. From the person who delivers the ball to the one who stops to the ones who do the variation. Everybody needs to put their 100 per cent in the penalty corner area," he said.
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 "RUPINDER_PAL_SINGH")
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