Week 12 another milestone

Tomorrow is exactly 12 weeks from when I first got my skates and put them on. 3 months of work and stress. Studying rules, learning to skate, working out to skate better. And last night was the big milestone. Reffing my first scrimmage.

I wasn't very good. When I outside pack reffed I had a hard time keeping up. When I inside pack reffed I did better, but I didn't make any real calls. I saw a few. Tried to call them but then second guessed myself and weenie-ed out.

But I reffed, on skates, with two teams playing. There's really not much more I could ask for.

Week 12 First Milestone

My first milestone was to make it through a worm. Wanda kind of showed me how to do while pushing me through it yesterday. And every since then all I could think about was doing it on my own. I just want to make it through.

Well today I didn't go to the gym, Meza had been sick in the night. So when I went to practice I wasn't tired. It was a scrimmage day so I only had the warm up. We started a worm drill.

I skated in the back as usual, then started to try and catch the back of the worm. One person skated ahead of me to start the worm. But then the person in front of me said to do it.

And I did. I skated up, and moved in and out. I took arms to get going faster, but I did it. I skated an entire worm. That was really cool.

After my death defying feat we had a scrimmage and I was the jam timer. Now the position of jam timer really does not seem all that complicated. But apparently pushing buttons, whistling and waving my arm at the same time is beyond my immediate capabilities.

I took pretty much the whole scrimmage, until the last 4 jams. Two of which I did correctly. And I didn't run the period clock or learn how to deal with time outs. Apparently it is one really really small step at a time.

Week 12 empty tank

I've been working really hard. And apparently at this point in my weak ass journey, a little too hard.

Today at practice my body was still aching from the day before. My muscles seemed to have little energy that tapped out quickly.

I made it through a worm warm up one time, but it was because Wanda pushed me the whole way. Man I want to be able to do these on my own. I hate being the special ed skater.

Anyways, this is a phase that I have to work hard through. And I am. Weights, cardio in the morning, skating in the afternoons and evenings. Sometimes I take a whole day off. But I'm working out at least once a day 6 times a week and 2-3 times a day 4-5 days a week.

Yes, that is workout in the morning. Go to practice and then open skate at night. Usually I can only manage 2 in a day. But every once in a while I can push it. So I'm working about as hard as I can, for now. Hopefully soon my body will catch up with me.

But today the workouts caught up with my body. I got home from practice, so sore and stiff from both days. I took a shower, got a drink and went in the hot tub.

Apparently this was not a good idea. Or the fact that my husband fried fish before practice and I ate a bunch of it. And I am quite sure I am off fried anything and fish anything for a very long time.

Anyways the exhaustion hit me after about 5 minutes and I was ready puke. I crawled into the house, onto the couch and alternated between trying to puke and laying and panting.

After about an hour it passed and the bone chilling exhaustion set in. I shivered and lay there waiting for the pain and nausea to completely go away. When I felt ok again I was able to get up and go with the family to dinner.

I am still so sore and tired, all I can do is lay here and stare at the computer.

What is totally stupid, is that for anyone else on the league, I'm not really doing all that much. But for me, and my horribly out of shape body, it's all I can do. For now.

I have two goals. By June to effectively ref for the scrimmages. And to keep up with the pack drills. Eyes on the prize.

Week 12 good practice

I feel like a horse chomping at the bit. I went to the Y today and did weights with Megsi. Then I waited around for practice. I wanted to skate. I wanted to keep moving.

Then practice happened and I once again had my ass kicked. It felt so much better today. I'm so tired all the time. But it's coming and I see it every practice.

I couldn't keep up with those freakin fast bitches. I tried and tried until my legs were shaking and I felt wrong throughout my body. But I'm so close. I can feel how much faster I am.

The hard part about speed is your form has to be good or you go out of control. So whenever I speed up, I feel like I can't control it. But today my crossovers felt a lot stronger. If I can do crossovers faster, then everything can go faster.

I need, I love, I crave working with the league. Every time I have a practice where we work with the team, it just pushes me in all the right ways.

And everyone tells me how well I'm doing. It feels good. I always have such a hard time with compliments. But I try to look at them as progress reports. Half of the beauty of joining roller derby is giving me drive and purpose to push myself physically. The other half is being able to spend time with such amazing women.

People discount themselves because they haven't reached "whatever" milestones in their lives. They forget that those are just mile markers. It's the road you ride that is important and makes you who you are.

I have all the milestones. I have all the experiences. What I don't, or didn't, have is the people. They are all there. I like most of them. There are a few I just haven't gotten to know. I'm not in a rush though. So I'm getting to know them slowly and enjoying the process.

As usual I am experiencing the post practice high. I want to skate more, right now. But I am exhausted even if my brain won't acknowledge it. Tomorrow I will be sore. I will go to the gym. And go to practice, to do it all again.

Thank goodness for roller derby.

Week 12 Off skates

You get to a point in your progress of skating where just going to open skates and practice four or five days a week stops you advancing as quickly.

This is the point I am at right now. So along with all the fabulous skating, I am also doing a lot of conditioning off skates. I go to the gym 5-6 days a week working on skating related exercising.

I have terrible knees so I have to moderate everything to keep the pressure off them. And this is really cool because in the past month I haven't had a single problem with my knees.

On days that I have practice later on I focus on weight lifting. Which seems to surprise me on how much pain it causes the next day. Good, sore pain, but yes pain.

I start out with the treadmill. I crank it up to the highest incline it has, set it to 2 miles an hour and do a variety of squats. This lasts anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on how much energy I have.

I set my limits based on how my body feels. Instead of using arbitrary numbers, I just go until it burns, go as long as I can in the burn and then slow down until my breathing and muscles are mostly recovered. Then I do it again!

I do the same with weights. I go as heavy as I can until I can barely do that last rep. Then I stretch forever!

Cardio days are on days where there is no practice later on. I do the same workout on the treadmill but start with the elliptical machine. I don't stand in a normal stance on the elliptical. I hold onto the bars and hang back so there is no pressure on my knees and all the burn is in the back of my legs and abs.

I do at least 5 minutes of toe walks and ball of my foot walks. Keeping my toes, feet and ankles strong is super important too.

Right now these workouts are detracting slightly from my skating. I'm tired and sore when I go to practice. But it's just a matter of time before my body catches up and does that slingshot improvement as it gets stronger.

Week 11 Jackass in the Penalty Box

Sadly it was me who was the jackass.

Yesterday was my first scrimmage as penalty box keeper. I was working with Zilla, reading through the rules, making sure we were ready for first penalties.

Everything was going good. I was getting the timer started and stopped quickly, alerting players of mouth guards and helmets. I was feeling good, no big deal.

But there is the one little trick about the penalty box. The double jammer. When both jammers are in the box all sorts of little rules apply. I was ready, I knew them, and I choked.

My jammer came in, time started. Zilla's jammer came in and nothing. I should have released my jammer immediately and given the short time to Zilla. Nope. Just sat there, getting dirty looks and gestures from the jammers.

Finally Rpod came over and released them, properly informing me of the rule that I so very well knew and screwed up.

How lame.

Week 11 Bring the Pain

So this is my 10th week skating. 2 and a half months on wheels.

We've established a few things.
I can now skate.
I really really like skating.
I really really like roller derby.
I have a lot to learn.
I am really out of shape.

So this is what my life has become. For the most part. Occasionally there are birthdays and anniversaries or the occasional late husband to interrupt the schedule. Gym during the day to do cardio and squats or weightlifting and squats. Diet food. Practice at night and open skates.

There has been a bit of pain lately. Ever since I realized it was time to step things up I have. But it hurts a lot.

Practice yesterday was brutal. It was my first full practice with the players. I did the entire practice with them, all the drills and no extra breaks. Well I did lame out on part of drill as I was concerned I might vomit.

It is really quite shocking to see the physical condition of my team mates in contrast to my own. I expect that I am still very out of shape. I don't expect the power and endurance of everyone else to be so incredible.

When you work with a league it's almost like having 70 new mothers/sisters/friends. Everyone has their 2 cents of what you should be doing, and if you're smart you'll listen to them.

So I spent the practice being bossed around the track by my group. It hurt, it was hard, and it was good. I'm still so very slow, and weak. But they keep at me. I think that's the mothering thing. They don't give up on you even when you want to give up.

And when you do succeed. There is no pride like being cheered on by the people who coached you.