I wrote a post about a week ago but I forgot to post it. You have no idea how often this happens. I write posts at work and forget to email them to myself, and by the time I remember to send them to myself they are no longer relevant and I have more stuff to write about. Anyway, the post was about weight loss, fitness goals, and healthy eating. That is to say, I’m going to be losing at least a little weight, improving my fitness levels, and start eating good food again. No more fried crap at the bar after practice.
Improving my fitness levels and losing weight is going to be a little harder than just skipping out on greasy food at the bar though. Today I officially started the Insanity Workout. Not just me, but BoneSaw is doing it too so we’ll have a lot of support and reminders and all that good stuff. The first day is just a fit test and it kicked my ass. I know for a fact that the fit test is the easiest thing in the workout, so I’m a bit worried about how bad I’m going to be hurting during the next two months. I have the (pretty crummy) results of my fit test here on my new tumblog that is all about fitness, weight loss, derby stuff, and stupid inspirational quotes.
Yesterday I got a tiny workout as well. We didn’t have practice because the rink wasn’t available, so Bone & I decided to try out the Roller Derby Workout DVD. I have to admit that I’m super disappointed with it. I think out of all of the exercises in the video there were only 2 that I had never done before. Everything else in there is typical of a regular derby practice, except we do a lot more of everything at practice. For instance, the dvd only had you do 20 bicycle crunches. At practice we do 50. If the team does Mason Twists (which I can’t do because of my tailbone injury**), I end up doing another 50 bicycles.
I was thinking this dvd was for roller derby players, but it isn’t. If you play roller derby you can already do everything in the dvd without breaking a sweat. This is for people either just getting into derby or outsiders. The thing that really bothered me was that there were no arm exercises at all. Ladies, you had weights in your hands, use them!! There should have been a whole other section just on arm exercises. If I do the dvd again I am going to add in the arm exercises we do at practice.
**Yes, my tailbone is still in pain every single day even though I injured it over 3 months ago.
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
And then she took my toe stops
Work has been super busy so I haven’t had a chance to write about Saturday’s practice, but it was interesting and scary as hell at the same time. We had Lethal Dose, a coach and player from another league, come down and lead us in some footwork drills. She was a very awesome coach to have and I’m glad we got to work with her.
We started out doing 180° turns by making your legs wide and stepping. I noticed that I could do it 100% fine when I was going right but I couldn’t turn left (I’m not an ambi-turner!). We then moved onto a back spin move where you would slide one foot from center in a semi-circle while the other foot was on the two front wheels and pivoted the turn so you were facing the other direction. I could do it just fine if I was going right, but going left was a disaster and every time LD looked at me I was messing up on my left side. She told me to try it one more time and if I didn’t get it right then she was going to take my toe stops, which I guess were messing me up. I didn’t do it and she removed my toe stops for me and said I could have them back at the end of practice.
And then I fell like 800 times.
New bruise for my troubles
Not having toe stops is bad for me. I go up on my toe stops a lot, and when that happens when you’re not wearing them you straight up bellyflop. After falling over and over again trying to do a backspin we moved on to hopping 180°. I was just fine with that, but still very bad at doing it on my left side (I eventually got it down, but it took a while).
Then came some cone work. We weaved, lateral hopped, galloped, hockey stopped, and a few other things. There were some other things worked in there, but my mind sucks because it happened several days ago. Last night before practice I put my toe stops in and it was so, so nice.
We started out doing 180° turns by making your legs wide and stepping. I noticed that I could do it 100% fine when I was going right but I couldn’t turn left (I’m not an ambi-turner!). We then moved onto a back spin move where you would slide one foot from center in a semi-circle while the other foot was on the two front wheels and pivoted the turn so you were facing the other direction. I could do it just fine if I was going right, but going left was a disaster and every time LD looked at me I was messing up on my left side. She told me to try it one more time and if I didn’t get it right then she was going to take my toe stops, which I guess were messing me up. I didn’t do it and she removed my toe stops for me and said I could have them back at the end of practice.
And then I fell like 800 times.
Not having toe stops is bad for me. I go up on my toe stops a lot, and when that happens when you’re not wearing them you straight up bellyflop. After falling over and over again trying to do a backspin we moved on to hopping 180°. I was just fine with that, but still very bad at doing it on my left side (I eventually got it down, but it took a while).
Then came some cone work. We weaved, lateral hopped, galloped, hockey stopped, and a few other things. There were some other things worked in there, but my mind sucks because it happened several days ago. Last night before practice I put my toe stops in and it was so, so nice.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
The bruises have faded, but the pain remains
Three weeks ago today I had a couple of crummy falls at practice. The first time I fell I landed really hard on my skate (or the other girl’s skate, I’m not really sure) and I ended up with extreme tailbone pain. At first it was just pain on the impact, pain that my skate had tried to go up my bum. I tried to skate it off a little and then I took a short break where I just stretched and didn’t sit down because the pain sucked. The rest of practice was pretty craptastic because I was distracted and scared by the other fall. That distraction caused me to fall super hard on my side resulting in the beauty that was Claudia
Well, Claudia has faded completely now, but my tailbone is still giving me problems. The first day after the fall I could barely move or get out of bed and sitting was an absolute nightmare. That weekend I still went to practice and the Rock vs Rap scrimmage (even though several people told me I should probably not skate in it) and I continued to go to practice and our home bout the next weekend and all that good stuff. But yet, the pain remains. Any time I sit down or get up I’m in pain (although it’s considerably lessened since it happened). I told myself that I would go to the doctor if it was still horrible after a week, but it has gotten a lot better than it was before. I also looked into tailbone injuries and saw that the only thing a doctor can actually do is take an x-ray to confirm it is broken and then write a prescription for pain pills and stool softeners (which is very understandable because for the first 5 days it hurt to even fart!). I’m 99% sure mine is just bruised, so I should not be complaining.
But yeah, three weeks ago I landed on a skate and my butt still hurts. I’m not saying derby injuries are all that glamorous, but I know for a fact that I have one of the least glamorous injuries ever.
Well, Claudia has faded completely now, but my tailbone is still giving me problems. The first day after the fall I could barely move or get out of bed and sitting was an absolute nightmare. That weekend I still went to practice and the Rock vs Rap scrimmage (even though several people told me I should probably not skate in it) and I continued to go to practice and our home bout the next weekend and all that good stuff. But yet, the pain remains. Any time I sit down or get up I’m in pain (although it’s considerably lessened since it happened). I told myself that I would go to the doctor if it was still horrible after a week, but it has gotten a lot better than it was before. I also looked into tailbone injuries and saw that the only thing a doctor can actually do is take an x-ray to confirm it is broken and then write a prescription for pain pills and stool softeners (which is very understandable because for the first 5 days it hurt to even fart!). I’m 99% sure mine is just bruised, so I should not be complaining.
But yeah, three weeks ago I landed on a skate and my butt still hurts. I’m not saying derby injuries are all that glamorous, but I know for a fact that I have one of the least glamorous injuries ever.
Friday, January 13, 2012
How to be an unhealthy and look like an idiot at practice
So my sister was visiting last week and while she was here (and during the holidays) I wasn't even paying attention to calories or what kind of food I was eating. I really should have been. I realized this after practice last night, where I made a fool of myself during the last 10 minutes.
We were skating in a packing holding off a jammer when all of a sudden both of my legs completely cramped up. From my calves to my toes, I was frozen. I was thinking I would just skate it off, but I literally could not stand. Rather than just skating off the track for a second I just slowly fell over because I had no control of the bottom of my legs.
The pain was intense, too. I've had the occasional leg cramp in the middle of the night (hasn't happened in a while though, maybe 4 or so months ago) but nothing like this. I was literally useless for the entire length of the jam and I felt like an idiot. I massaged my calves until they weren't completely locked up and skated in the final jam of practice (yes, we were literally done with practice at that point).
I don't eat many foods. Seriously. I'm a very picky eater and eating healthy is a major challenge. I'm also still sorta doing a low-fat diet, so I'm missing out on all of the nuts I should be eating (hahahahahahahahaha, I am 12). So yes, I need to eat more potassium. I realized that last night, but I think I also got a major wake-up call today when I saw my arm.
As soon as I noticed the weird bruising (like I'd had a horrible time having my blood drawn) and the red dots I became concerned. A normal person's mind might immediately go to "Oh no! Health issue!" but I swear the first thing I thought was, "Oh god! It's the Zombie Apocalypse and I'm infected! But I had a plan!!!!" Obviously, I ran to the internet to see what was up (after consulting with my mother, who said I should go to the doctor immediately), and found out that being low on certain vitamins and nutrients including potassium can cause it. I'm hoping that's all it is, but if it gets worse or I start to feel worse, I will go to the doctor. And if it's still there on Friday, I do have a doctor's appointment anyway and I can just ask her then.
Other cool things happened during practice, but I will get to them in another post.
We were skating in a packing holding off a jammer when all of a sudden both of my legs completely cramped up. From my calves to my toes, I was frozen. I was thinking I would just skate it off, but I literally could not stand. Rather than just skating off the track for a second I just slowly fell over because I had no control of the bottom of my legs.
The pain was intense, too. I've had the occasional leg cramp in the middle of the night (hasn't happened in a while though, maybe 4 or so months ago) but nothing like this. I was literally useless for the entire length of the jam and I felt like an idiot. I massaged my calves until they weren't completely locked up and skated in the final jam of practice (yes, we were literally done with practice at that point).
I don't eat many foods. Seriously. I'm a very picky eater and eating healthy is a major challenge. I'm also still sorta doing a low-fat diet, so I'm missing out on all of the nuts I should be eating (hahahahahahahahaha, I am 12). So yes, I need to eat more potassium. I realized that last night, but I think I also got a major wake-up call today when I saw my arm.
As soon as I noticed the weird bruising (like I'd had a horrible time having my blood drawn) and the red dots I became concerned. A normal person's mind might immediately go to "Oh no! Health issue!" but I swear the first thing I thought was, "Oh god! It's the Zombie Apocalypse and I'm infected! But I had a plan!!!!" Obviously, I ran to the internet to see what was up (after consulting with my mother, who said I should go to the doctor immediately), and found out that being low on certain vitamins and nutrients including potassium can cause it. I'm hoping that's all it is, but if it gets worse or I start to feel worse, I will go to the doctor. And if it's still there on Friday, I do have a doctor's appointment anyway and I can just ask her then.
Other cool things happened during practice, but I will get to them in another post.
Monday, December 12, 2011
My First Scrimmage!
It was awesome, but before I start with that, I want to talk about the preparation. I got to the rink around 4:45 and we were just starting to set up. We were told to grab our knee pads, so I got mine and helped as the head ref did the chalk outline. I’d never seen them do the outline, so it was really cool. He had a long chain that had different rings and labels that told you which lines went where. Once the chalk outlines were done, we started laying out the rope and taping it down. It took us quite a while and then one of the refs came over and helped do the rest of the track in 3 seconds flat. He said he got really fast at it because the rink he used to be at wouldn’t let them set up until very late.
At that time I had to gear up and I started feeling very nervous. For the first 30 minutes I was on skates I couldn’t remember how to stop (it was more about the rope lines and being scared of tripping over them). Because so many people signed up for the scrimmage we were going to have three 30-minute periods (we ended up having two 30-minute periods and one 15-minute period, but that whole thing comes later), and I was put as B2 in the 1st and 7th lines and then as Pivot in the 3rd line during the 3rd period.
Because I was in the first line I got to do the example jam at the beginning. I always thought it was some kind of planned thing, but apparently not. After the demo we lined back up for real and the whistle blew to start the first jam. And I literally do not remember what happened after that. The jammer probably passed right by me and I may have hit one person, but I have no clue. Before I knew it the whistle was blown four times by all the refs and the jam was over as quickly as it had begun.
A few highlights from my times on the track, since I can’t really recall enough to fully talk about one:
- One girl fell right in front of me and I tripped over her and fell spectacularly, but I got right back up.
- There was a bit of a pile up around turn three and I ran over someone’s fingers. It was like driving on a bumpy road.
- I accidentally hit the jammer with my elbow (though she didn’t fall or anything) and luckily I didn’t get a minor (actually, I didn’t any minors or majors, but then again I didn’t play a whole bunch).
- I hit the jammer with my elbow at turn two, but at turn 4 I hit her out of bounds!
- I was really good about looking behind me and I think I spent more time looking behind than looking forward
We did have a few problems though. One woman fell (not during a jam) and snapped her ankle in two places. They called the ambulance and had to reset her ankle last night. That happened with about 3 minutes left at the end of the 2nd period and they were going to call the bout. They decided to go ahead and finish out the period and follow it up with a 15 minute period rather than a 30 minute period like they planned.
The 3rd period was going to be more evenly matched players against each other. Basically it’d be a line of all beginners, and then a line of intermediates, and then a line of advanced. I was the pivot in the beginners group.
With about 5 minutes left on the clock our jammer got hit and broke her clavicle. We all thought she had just hit her bad shoulder again, but at the after party we found out what happened. She was able to get up on her own steam and walk off the track and be driven to the hospital. So yeah, two very bad injuries in one scrimmage, both of them from my team. I am just so bummed and feel horrible for the ladies who were hurt, both of them love derby and it's going to kill them not to be able to play for however long they're out of commission. :(
The final jam was pretty intense. It started out as a power jam for the Santas and after about 2 or 3 grand slams our jammer was released from the box and was able to get some points before the jam was called off. It took several seconds to update the scoreboard and when we saw that it was 190-188, we all flipped! My first scrimmage and I was on the winning team!
At the end of the night I had smudges from other people’s numbers on my arms (and it was awesome). I had to resist the temptation to just leave my numbers on my shoulders because I’m sure my co-workers would not want to see it. Now we're on a break until January 3rd and our first bout of the 2012 season is February 12th. So yes, two more months and I have some goals/ideas for how I want to improve and I'll talk about those in another post.
And here's some pictures, all lumped at the bottom because I'm too lazy to sprinkle them through the whole post like a good blogger.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Night of Encouragement
Practice last night was awesome (technically today is Thursday, but I started writing this Wednesday morning, so let’s go with that). I was really expecting it to be super cruddy because I just started my period, but after 5 minutes on skates I completely forgot about it. Because we’re in the off season most practices only end up having handful of girls show up to them, so last night we had 8. We started out by splitting off in to two groups of 4, with a drill of doing 5 sets of 5 timed laps. First we would do our laps and then the other group would do theirs. After the first set of five, I was surprisingly winded and felt like an idiot. The other girls were too, but they had legitimate excuses (one had just come from a workout and another was just getting over laryngitis. We did three, took a water break, did our fourth, and then did one set skating the opposite direction. My times were 54, 52, 50, 54, and 60.
After that we skated 5 laps backwards (some of the girls did 10 laps because many of them are awesome at skating backwards, so they did 10 in the time it took me to do 5, lol), and followed it up by skating forward a bit and then just turning around go backwards and turning around again (to get us comfortable with turning around, I think). Then I got to do something I’d never done before: toe stop runs!
In the drill we would skate backwards for a bit and when our coach blew the whistle we would go onto our toe stops and try to walk six steps (it would progress into running, but for the first few times it was just walking on toe stops). The first time I had no idea what I was doing and I fell, so one of the girls said to pretend like I was walking on high heels. I got it pretty well, I think. I definitely want practice it more because it feels weird and unsteady, but it’s doable.
The next drill we did was going out of bounds and trying to re-enter play quickly. When our coach blew the whistle we had to skate out of bounds, tomahawk stop, and quickly get back in. In the next one we would go out of bounds on a knee and then get back up and in bounds. The last one was tiring, but fun. When the coach blew the whistle we went down on our belly outside of the track and had to get up quickly. I’m still not as speedy as I want to be, but it’s a ton less flailing than it used to be and only one time it took me 3 seconds to get up (it was the last time).
Finally we did some scrimmage practice. We did some 4 on 4 (not enough people to have jammers) practicing different blocking strategies. Then we did some 3 on 3 with 2 jammers. I gave a few good hits and a TON of encouragement, tips, and compliments. Even when it was my turn to wear the jammer panty I was complimented (I didn’t do well, but the fact that I just kept going and going without giving up was good). Sometimes when I do well at jamming, I think that I might be a jammer in a real bout some day. If I work on my speed and endurance a lot, it might just happen (although I should learn to block first, lol). Also, I got a weird new injury: rink rash of the nipple! I was hit when I was jamming (she was out of play and ended up in the penalty box, so yay) and when I fell I slid on the floor and I swear my nipple hurt so damn bad. Apparently it happens to everyone, so I guess I’m proud to be part of the club?
I’m excited for Thursday practice (the last before the scrimmage!!) and I hope I keep improving. :D
After that we skated 5 laps backwards (some of the girls did 10 laps because many of them are awesome at skating backwards, so they did 10 in the time it took me to do 5, lol), and followed it up by skating forward a bit and then just turning around go backwards and turning around again (to get us comfortable with turning around, I think). Then I got to do something I’d never done before: toe stop runs!
In the drill we would skate backwards for a bit and when our coach blew the whistle we would go onto our toe stops and try to walk six steps (it would progress into running, but for the first few times it was just walking on toe stops). The first time I had no idea what I was doing and I fell, so one of the girls said to pretend like I was walking on high heels. I got it pretty well, I think. I definitely want practice it more because it feels weird and unsteady, but it’s doable.
The next drill we did was going out of bounds and trying to re-enter play quickly. When our coach blew the whistle we had to skate out of bounds, tomahawk stop, and quickly get back in. In the next one we would go out of bounds on a knee and then get back up and in bounds. The last one was tiring, but fun. When the coach blew the whistle we went down on our belly outside of the track and had to get up quickly. I’m still not as speedy as I want to be, but it’s a ton less flailing than it used to be and only one time it took me 3 seconds to get up (it was the last time).
Finally we did some scrimmage practice. We did some 4 on 4 (not enough people to have jammers) practicing different blocking strategies. Then we did some 3 on 3 with 2 jammers. I gave a few good hits and a TON of encouragement, tips, and compliments. Even when it was my turn to wear the jammer panty I was complimented (I didn’t do well, but the fact that I just kept going and going without giving up was good). Sometimes when I do well at jamming, I think that I might be a jammer in a real bout some day. If I work on my speed and endurance a lot, it might just happen (although I should learn to block first, lol). Also, I got a weird new injury: rink rash of the nipple! I was hit when I was jamming (she was out of play and ended up in the penalty box, so yay) and when I fell I slid on the floor and I swear my nipple hurt so damn bad. Apparently it happens to everyone, so I guess I’m proud to be part of the club?
I’m excited for Thursday practice (the last before the scrimmage!!) and I hope I keep improving. :D
Monday, September 12, 2011
Trail Skating: The good, the Bad, and the Worrisome
When I first started skating and announced my intentions to attempt to join a roller derby team, an awesome friend in Michigan told me that I really needed to try trail skating to build muscles and endurance. It’s now 2.5ish months since I got that advice and I finally gave trail skating a try. One of the biggest reasons I hadn’t tried was that I had no idea where in the world I would find a place that I could actually skate. I now feel kinda dumb for that thought, and this is why: when the team trail skates, they skate at a park that is literally a block away from the rink, which is five minutes from my house.
The Good
On Saturday there was a skills and strategy camp that most of the team went to, so we didn’t have practice. Instead of practice a few girls suggested skating on Friday in the morning and I jumped at the opportunity (I don’t work on Fridays). It was pretty cool outside (only about 77), and we skated 4 miles. We did two trails, one of them was 1 mile and I think is considered the “easy” trail. The second was a 3 mile trail and it was much harder than the first. There was a hill on the trail, and while it seemed like a tiny incline, climbing it on skates was pretty tough. I imagine if I was biking or running it would seem like nothing, but on skates it was kinda hellish.
I felt pretty great afterwards and I while I was much slower than the girls on the team (I kept up with them at the beginning, but ended up about 30ft or so behind them after the first quarter mile) I think I did well.
The next day was one where the rest of the team was going to meet up at Greenway, but it kinda went wonky. I thought we were meeting at 10am, but one girl said the team agreed on 9am (in the end, only she showed up at 9, I went at 10, and another girl said she skated a few miles sometime that morning). Still, I skated three miles alone (I did the easy route three times because I couldn’t remember which turns and forks went to the harder ones and I didn’t want to get lost), which maybe I shouldn’t have because…
The Bad
I fell. I fell and it was scary. On Saturday I was alone and while I was getting to the trail starting point I fell. I turned the wrong way down a teeny hill and in an effort to stop, I turned towards the grass with the plan to knee fall down, but I hit something and my ankle turned. I heard a pop sound as I crashed to the ground and I felt all of my derby dreams slipping away.
If you’ve read as many fresh meat blogs as I have, you’ll know that so many girls end up with broken ankles. The ones that break their ankles are usually: large (check), not fit (check), clumsy (check), don't have a background in skating (check), and aren't as careful as they should be (CHECK!). The first thought I had was that my ankle was snapped and I would have to give it all up. It was awful. I reached down to my ankle and it moved fine. A tiny twinge of pain, but that was it. I could rotate it just fine, and when I stood up it was good. I skated three miles on my ankle without a single bit of pain, and I think it was a bit mistake.
The Worrisome
When I got home from skating I noticed my ankle was just a bit puffed up so I iced it. Another few hours later and it was still kinda swollen and there was some pain in it. I wrapped it and decided not to go skating on Sunday morning to save it from agitation. I did go to the bout (and got to NSO!) yesterday, and I noticed that as long as I moved it around I didn't have any stiffness or pain. Today is different. The pain is dull feeling, but only if I move it around. The swelling is another story. My foot is so swollen right now I could feel the fluid moving around as I was walking around the house. I bought a compression sock type of thing because I don't want to use the bulky wrap and as soon as I post this I'm going to start elevating and icing. I'm also going to skip my normal Monday night skate.
The worst thing is that I'm afraid it isn't enough. Tomorrow is practice and I want to go more than anything. We're 6 weeks into fresh meat and with only another 6 weeks to go it's starting to get insanely important. I don't want to miss a practice and completely miss out three hours of skills that I need to know.
I feel so sick to my stomach just thinking about missing out on anything and wondering if my stupidity and lame fall will keep me away from this amazeballs sport. What if I've completely screwed myself over? I'm so scared, more scared than I would like to admit, and all I want in the world is to be able to strap on my skates tomorrow and give it my all.
On Saturday there was a skills and strategy camp that most of the team went to, so we didn’t have practice. Instead of practice a few girls suggested skating on Friday in the morning and I jumped at the opportunity (I don’t work on Fridays). It was pretty cool outside (only about 77), and we skated 4 miles. We did two trails, one of them was 1 mile and I think is considered the “easy” trail. The second was a 3 mile trail and it was much harder than the first. There was a hill on the trail, and while it seemed like a tiny incline, climbing it on skates was pretty tough. I imagine if I was biking or running it would seem like nothing, but on skates it was kinda hellish.
I felt pretty great afterwards and I while I was much slower than the girls on the team (I kept up with them at the beginning, but ended up about 30ft or so behind them after the first quarter mile) I think I did well.
The next day was one where the rest of the team was going to meet up at Greenway, but it kinda went wonky. I thought we were meeting at 10am, but one girl said the team agreed on 9am (in the end, only she showed up at 9, I went at 10, and another girl said she skated a few miles sometime that morning). Still, I skated three miles alone (I did the easy route three times because I couldn’t remember which turns and forks went to the harder ones and I didn’t want to get lost), which maybe I shouldn’t have because…
I fell. I fell and it was scary. On Saturday I was alone and while I was getting to the trail starting point I fell. I turned the wrong way down a teeny hill and in an effort to stop, I turned towards the grass with the plan to knee fall down, but I hit something and my ankle turned. I heard a pop sound as I crashed to the ground and I felt all of my derby dreams slipping away.
If you’ve read as many fresh meat blogs as I have, you’ll know that so many girls end up with broken ankles. The ones that break their ankles are usually: large (check), not fit (check), clumsy (check), don't have a background in skating (check), and aren't as careful as they should be (CHECK!). The first thought I had was that my ankle was snapped and I would have to give it all up. It was awful. I reached down to my ankle and it moved fine. A tiny twinge of pain, but that was it. I could rotate it just fine, and when I stood up it was good. I skated three miles on my ankle without a single bit of pain, and I think it was a bit mistake.
When I got home from skating I noticed my ankle was just a bit puffed up so I iced it. Another few hours later and it was still kinda swollen and there was some pain in it. I wrapped it and decided not to go skating on Sunday morning to save it from agitation. I did go to the bout (and got to NSO!) yesterday, and I noticed that as long as I moved it around I didn't have any stiffness or pain. Today is different. The pain is dull feeling, but only if I move it around. The swelling is another story. My foot is so swollen right now I could feel the fluid moving around as I was walking around the house. I bought a compression sock type of thing because I don't want to use the bulky wrap and as soon as I post this I'm going to start elevating and icing. I'm also going to skip my normal Monday night skate.
The worst thing is that I'm afraid it isn't enough. Tomorrow is practice and I want to go more than anything. We're 6 weeks into fresh meat and with only another 6 weeks to go it's starting to get insanely important. I don't want to miss a practice and completely miss out three hours of skills that I need to know.
I feel so sick to my stomach just thinking about missing out on anything and wondering if my stupidity and lame fall will keep me away from this amazeballs sport. What if I've completely screwed myself over? I'm so scared, more scared than I would like to admit, and all I want in the world is to be able to strap on my skates tomorrow and give it my all.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
5:07 and Clarence the Bruise
In my last post I said something along the lines of “I had a post, but I deleted it because it’s no longer relevant.” The reason being is that I said that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough because I wasn’t sore. In all of the derby blogs I’ve read, it always says that you should be sore or else you aren’t doing it right. Well, now I’m definitely doing it right.
On Thursday I fell pretty hard, but I got right back up. I had a sore spot that I had a feeling might turn into a bruise, and boy was I right (pictures at the bottom of this post). Saturday was pretty awesome. We did the 25-in-5 again and I had my best time yet! 25 laps in 5 minutes and 7 seconds!! It means I’m really getting close and shaved off a hell of a lot of time from my crummy Thursday time. The vet that was watching me/keeping track of my laps told me that I was doing great for the first 15 laps, but around the 17th lap I started to wear down and get slower. If I can get my endurance up then I’ll definitely be able to make it under 5 minutes! Of course, the vets got their chance to shine and had to do 30 laps in 5 minutes (a large portion of them succeeded). After practice I rushed home to shower because there was a derby social at SkyZone, a trampoline place. It was really cool, but I felt a bit out of place.
Sunday and Monday were spent trying not to die from the soreness. I also spent way too much time looking at Clarence (the bruise). Once I got to practice last night all soreness was forgotten (or it could have been the advil, who knows). We did some more weaving (getting better!!), sticky skating, double crossovers/pushing hard with both feet in a crossover (which I am totally nailing, but am sort of scared of because they make me go super fast), falls (single knee, double knee, porn star), and one foot glides.
Okay, now the reason you’re here – bruise pictures!! This is my very first official roller derby bruise. The initial fall happened on Thursday, so almost a week ago.
Clarence on Sunday 9/4
Clarence on Tuesday 9/6
On Thursday I fell pretty hard, but I got right back up. I had a sore spot that I had a feeling might turn into a bruise, and boy was I right (pictures at the bottom of this post). Saturday was pretty awesome. We did the 25-in-5 again and I had my best time yet! 25 laps in 5 minutes and 7 seconds!! It means I’m really getting close and shaved off a hell of a lot of time from my crummy Thursday time. The vet that was watching me/keeping track of my laps told me that I was doing great for the first 15 laps, but around the 17th lap I started to wear down and get slower. If I can get my endurance up then I’ll definitely be able to make it under 5 minutes! Of course, the vets got their chance to shine and had to do 30 laps in 5 minutes (a large portion of them succeeded). After practice I rushed home to shower because there was a derby social at SkyZone, a trampoline place. It was really cool, but I felt a bit out of place.
Sunday and Monday were spent trying not to die from the soreness. I also spent way too much time looking at Clarence (the bruise). Once I got to practice last night all soreness was forgotten (or it could have been the advil, who knows). We did some more weaving (getting better!!), sticky skating, double crossovers/pushing hard with both feet in a crossover (which I am totally nailing, but am sort of scared of because they make me go super fast), falls (single knee, double knee, porn star), and one foot glides.
Okay, now the reason you’re here – bruise pictures!! This is my very first official roller derby bruise. The initial fall happened on Thursday, so almost a week ago.
Clarence on Tuesday 9/6
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Three Nights in a Row? YES PLEASE!
I had a post all typed up yesterday but I was at work and didn't get a chance to post it. It's not really all that great or relevant now, so I'm just going to forget about it.
This week we had an extra day of practice! Which means I got to go to practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (today). It was AWESOME. On Tuesday we did off-skates stuff for the first 2.5 hours and then did some skate stuff for the last 30 minutes. Yesterday and today we were on skates the whole time. We did knee slides, double knee slides, baseball slides, and porn star slides (also known as four point slides). My entire right leg was dirty from the baseball slides. It was pretty gross!
At the end of practice (tonight and last night) we did planks to derby stance (planks for a bit then up into derby stance and then down to planks and derby stance again). Those things KILL me, but I'm actually better at planks when I'm wearing my skates and gear (not sliding as much). I can actually feel the muscles that are being worked. After that we did laps where you had to be in low derby stance on the straight aways and one by one we left the laps to do 20 crunches. I never thought that I would be excited to get off my skates and do crunches, lol.
Today we did a bit more with our falls. We would skate a few feet, then do one footed glides from one cone to the next, do cross overs around the corners, and then go fast until we got midway to the next cone and have to be stopped by the time we reached it (that sounds confusing but it's not, here's a crappy paint version of what we did):
And of course, I am occasionally crap at my single knee falls. I don't know what it is, but I just cannot keep control and I usually end up turning a bit or falling right onto my bum. I wish there was a good place to practice these (I could practice outside on the concrete, but the idea of it just freaks me out). At one point we were doing them and our fresh meat coach was skating along with us and when we got to the point between the cross overs and fall he would bump us with his hip. One of the times I was bracing myself for the bump and I tripped myself hardcore. I think I have a pretty major bruise developing on my left thigh/butt/hip area. If it gets nice looking I'll shave my legs (at least in that spot) and take a picture.
The last thing we did before we left was get low into derby stance and the fresh meat coach was giving us hip checks. It was pretty cool and I'm glad I didn't fall and embarrass myself.
And because I'm feeling talkative, let me talk about the girls in our fresh meat. There are a couple of vets in with us. Two of the girls have skated with the team before and another did fresh meat in another league a year or so ago. Apparently the vets are just going to be in our fresh meat for another week or two and they may just test out and join the league. One of the ones that showed up for practice did the crazy awesome pace line drills with the team at the beginning.
Finally, a bit of bad news. We did the 25-in-5 again and I got 5:45 this time. *ultimate sadface* BUT I am going to qualify it by saying that I was not up to my usual form at all. I took today off of work so I could have an ultra long holiday weekend so I barely drank water (actually, I didn't drink ANY water before practice) and the only thing I had to eat was frozen yogurt for lunch and an apple that I ate on my way to practice. I will be much more prepared when we do it again on Saturday.
This week we had an extra day of practice! Which means I got to go to practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (today). It was AWESOME. On Tuesday we did off-skates stuff for the first 2.5 hours and then did some skate stuff for the last 30 minutes. Yesterday and today we were on skates the whole time. We did knee slides, double knee slides, baseball slides, and porn star slides (also known as four point slides). My entire right leg was dirty from the baseball slides. It was pretty gross!
At the end of practice (tonight and last night) we did planks to derby stance (planks for a bit then up into derby stance and then down to planks and derby stance again). Those things KILL me, but I'm actually better at planks when I'm wearing my skates and gear (not sliding as much). I can actually feel the muscles that are being worked. After that we did laps where you had to be in low derby stance on the straight aways and one by one we left the laps to do 20 crunches. I never thought that I would be excited to get off my skates and do crunches, lol.
Today we did a bit more with our falls. We would skate a few feet, then do one footed glides from one cone to the next, do cross overs around the corners, and then go fast until we got midway to the next cone and have to be stopped by the time we reached it (that sounds confusing but it's not, here's a crappy paint version of what we did):
And of course, I am occasionally crap at my single knee falls. I don't know what it is, but I just cannot keep control and I usually end up turning a bit or falling right onto my bum. I wish there was a good place to practice these (I could practice outside on the concrete, but the idea of it just freaks me out). At one point we were doing them and our fresh meat coach was skating along with us and when we got to the point between the cross overs and fall he would bump us with his hip. One of the times I was bracing myself for the bump and I tripped myself hardcore. I think I have a pretty major bruise developing on my left thigh/butt/hip area. If it gets nice looking I'll shave my legs (at least in that spot) and take a picture.
The last thing we did before we left was get low into derby stance and the fresh meat coach was giving us hip checks. It was pretty cool and I'm glad I didn't fall and embarrass myself.
And because I'm feeling talkative, let me talk about the girls in our fresh meat. There are a couple of vets in with us. Two of the girls have skated with the team before and another did fresh meat in another league a year or so ago. Apparently the vets are just going to be in our fresh meat for another week or two and they may just test out and join the league. One of the ones that showed up for practice did the crazy awesome pace line drills with the team at the beginning.
Finally, a bit of bad news. We did the 25-in-5 again and I got 5:45 this time. *ultimate sadface* BUT I am going to qualify it by saying that I was not up to my usual form at all. I took today off of work so I could have an ultra long holiday weekend so I barely drank water (actually, I didn't drink ANY water before practice) and the only thing I had to eat was frozen yogurt for lunch and an apple that I ate on my way to practice. I will be much more prepared when we do it again on Saturday.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
I went skating on concrete yesterday. My knee is swollen.
Luckily, those two statements are not related in the slightest. Today I helped a friend move, and because I am so very graceful, I smacked my knee on the U-Haul's trailer hitch. Of course it's the same knee that I keep hurting, so that's delightful. It's bruising and pretty sore and I feel completely stupid. The worst part is, I was in such pain I couldn't stop giggling/laughing. Is that going to be my new thing? Am I just going to laugh when I get hurt? That can't possibly be a normal thing.
Sooo, to the important skating bits of this weekend! First off, I have updated my Gear Post!! I ordered and am waiting for my elbow pads, wrist guards, and mouth guard (should receive them tomorrow or Tuesday) but I do have my wheels!!
When I was first putting my wheels on
I got these wheels from a fellow cross stitcher that I know through flickr and tumblr (it's been super awesome to see how many of my fellow crafty and stitchy friends are also into derby). She's doing derby and is currently upgrading, so she offered to sell me her wheels at a super cheap rate. So now I have some Radar Tuner and Radar Flat Out wheels!!
I only got to skate with them for an hour yesterday and it was a very miserable skating session. Heather, Itzel, and I went out to Barber Park to skate at the rink there (Barber Park is where the Orlando Psycho City girls do their practices every Sunday). Heather and Itzel are heroes, because this is where they practice every week, and were practicing at tonight (even after the sweaty ordeal of moving Itzel). It was so damn hot and the coated concrete was really dirty. I will need to wash my wheels before I take them anywhere because they got so gross.
Hopefully tomorrow night's usual Adult Skate session will give me a chance to properly test out my wheels. I definitely noticed a difference even on that crappy surface, but I imagine the difference will be even greater once I get on a different surface.
Also, eeep! Less than a week until recruitment night! I think I'm starting to really bother Heather and Itzel because I spend all of my time interrogating them on what they do at training. I want to get started now! I know I will regret saying that, but I am excited to learn! They can do all of these cool falls with an IDGAF expression and they act like it's not an amazing thing that they're doing. "Oh, we're just doing a fall and turning around 180 degrees and then getting up in less than a second, no big deal." JEALOUS, I am so jealous. ONE WEEK!
Sooo, to the important skating bits of this weekend! First off, I have updated my Gear Post!! I ordered and am waiting for my elbow pads, wrist guards, and mouth guard (should receive them tomorrow or Tuesday) but I do have my wheels!!
I got these wheels from a fellow cross stitcher that I know through flickr and tumblr (it's been super awesome to see how many of my fellow crafty and stitchy friends are also into derby). She's doing derby and is currently upgrading, so she offered to sell me her wheels at a super cheap rate. So now I have some Radar Tuner and Radar Flat Out wheels!!
I only got to skate with them for an hour yesterday and it was a very miserable skating session. Heather, Itzel, and I went out to Barber Park to skate at the rink there (Barber Park is where the Orlando Psycho City girls do their practices every Sunday). Heather and Itzel are heroes, because this is where they practice every week, and were practicing at tonight (even after the sweaty ordeal of moving Itzel). It was so damn hot and the coated concrete was really dirty. I will need to wash my wheels before I take them anywhere because they got so gross.
Hopefully tomorrow night's usual Adult Skate session will give me a chance to properly test out my wheels. I definitely noticed a difference even on that crappy surface, but I imagine the difference will be even greater once I get on a different surface.
Also, eeep! Less than a week until recruitment night! I think I'm starting to really bother Heather and Itzel because I spend all of my time interrogating them on what they do at training. I want to get started now! I know I will regret saying that, but I am excited to learn! They can do all of these cool falls with an IDGAF expression and they act like it's not an amazing thing that they're doing. "Oh, we're just doing a fall and turning around 180 degrees and then getting up in less than a second, no big deal." JEALOUS, I am so jealous. ONE WEEK!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Accident Prone
I haven’t even started doing derby yet and I’m already able to count the bruises and scrapes that I’m starting to get. Okay, fine, I can do the counting on one hand, but still!
I’ve always been a bit accident prone (it runs in my family), so falling and getting hurt is as natural to me as breathing. Although I will say that I have never broken a bone or been seriously injured. *knocks on wood* So far I have fallen about 4 or 5 times, but once I actually become Fresh Meat I know I won’t be able to keep track of the number.
Below are photos of my knees after two separate falls.
On Monday night I decided to participate in the second backwards skate portion (we started learning to skate backwards in the Saturday class, so I knew to waddle and do scissors). I had my kneepads with me, but I only wore them for a short time that night. So when I got off balance and fell forward, it was straight onto my left knee (the one that looks worse). I skated back to my stuff to take a look and saw that my fall had re-opened the wound so it was bleeding again.
From reading other derby blogs, I know I’ll be falling a lot, so I guess it’s good to get some practice.
I’ve always been a bit accident prone (it runs in my family), so falling and getting hurt is as natural to me as breathing. Although I will say that I have never broken a bone or been seriously injured. *knocks on wood* So far I have fallen about 4 or 5 times, but once I actually become Fresh Meat I know I won’t be able to keep track of the number.
Below are photos of my knees after two separate falls.
On Monday night I decided to participate in the second backwards skate portion (we started learning to skate backwards in the Saturday class, so I knew to waddle and do scissors). I had my kneepads with me, but I only wore them for a short time that night. So when I got off balance and fell forward, it was straight onto my left knee (the one that looks worse). I skated back to my stuff to take a look and saw that my fall had re-opened the wound so it was bleeding again.
From reading other derby blogs, I know I’ll be falling a lot, so I guess it’s good to get some practice.
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