Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 YEAR IN REVIEW

So the year started awesomely, what with being placed on the official WFTDA roster for our league's charter team, and then pretty much went downhill what with my knee and all that.

However, I was able to go to a trampoline place yesterday and not have any issues whatsoever, so yay to my surgery.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Indeed with the holidays and the whatnot

so I skated on the new wheels last Saturday.  Just throw a wildly-patterned shirt on me, give me a British accent and an affinity for cars, and start calling me James May because those wheels have turned me into CAPTAIN SLOW. 

I also had to push harder to maintain speed, which didn't make my knee very happy.

So, I think I will use them during practices as sort of a training wheel so that when I go to actually play I will be the TOUGHEST SKATER OF THEM ALLLLLLL or something like that.  I am not looking forward to trying to put my bearings back into the Diamonds though.

So, my knee.  My lovely, lovely, die in a fire knee.  I didn't drive at all on Tuesday or Wednesday and I think that helped.  I can do the exercises I've been given with no problem. (I finally got the proper spelling of the jump starting thing on my knee - it's called iontophoresis.)  Every once in a while it gives off little HI I'M HERE TO RUIN YOUR DAY vibes, but knock on wood it hasn't been horrible lately.  We shall see.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

it's beginning to look a lot like I'll be skating again soon!

so, knock on really heavy wood, my knee has been doing quite well since Monday.  I tend to do more driving at the start of the week (what with the bowling stuff) and before, my knee would be achy and whatnot at the end of the day, but it's been good so far.

I think I'm gonna go skating again on Saturday to try out my new wheels, which means I have to remove the wheels currently on my skates, and clean my bearings 'cause they're FEEEEEELTHY.  Which means I have to find my bearing press.  It's in the house somewhere, I hope.  I do have to admit I look forward to it not taking 45 minutes to install the bearings in my new wheels (the one negative I have about my Diamonds).


Monday, December 16, 2013

wheeeeee.....?

So this past Saturday was the league championship bout.  My team lost. :(  Oh well, I suppose it's only fair to share the wealth, 'cause we'd won it the last two years.

I bought a new set of wheels this weekend - I'd been intrigued by them all season and had a gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket.  I present - Adonis 92a's:

(the white wheels are my Radar Diamonds).




As you can see, they're a bit wider (36mm vs. 31mm) have a waaaaay smaller diameter (50mm v. 62mm).  (They're also lighter - one Diamond with bearings is about 4 ounces, one Adonis with bearings is a hair under 3 ounces.)   From what I have read, they're great for lateral movement and quick acceleration, but maintaining speed isn't as easy.    Maybe I'll go to open skate again on Saturday and try 'em out.

My knee, knock on wood, has been doing okay.  It was bugging me a bit after the bout (but I'd done mad mad walking - almost 20,000 steps per my pedometer).  Yesterday I went with Maverick to Five Below, and he was trying to make a shot with a basketball into the garbage can-type container they keep 'em in.  He missed, I jogged after it to get it before it hit anyone/anything, lost my footing.  Derby instinct kicked in, and I went down, knees first, onto the polished concrete floor. 

With no pads, of course.

 I was not happy.

Fortunately, the only damage seems to be some nice bruises.  My PT guy said it was good that I didn't try to twist my knee as I went down, 'cause that would've been really bad.




Tuesday, December 10, 2013

sigh

the clutch on my car is very heavy and it aggravates my knee.

**sigh**

Monday, December 9, 2013

so!

Maverick and I went skating on Saturday.  I didn't do anything crazy - fast laps, slow laps, crossovers and a little bit of lateral movement (Maverick would cut in front of me and I'd need to dodge him).  We went for about an hour and a half and my knee ached a little, but it was definitely manageable. 

Had my PT session this morning; the PT guy hooked me up to this machine that forces inflammatory medicine deep into my knee.  It looks like my knee was attached to jumper cables.

"Okay, now.....gun it!"
According to the rules and regulations of the league, I can practice with the B travel team for 30 days before I have to do my travel team tryout.  So, hopefully at the first practice of the season (1/9), I'll be ready to go!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

so

since I can't play derby right now, I'm going to live vicariously through my son and his bowling career.

The team is made up of seven boys, but only five bowl at a time during a match.   They bowl two games;the winning team of each game gets two points, and then whichever team had the highest pin count for the day also gets two points (so the most you can get is 6).

It's scratch bowling, so there's no handicap given.

You can substitute bowlers in between games.  What the coach has been doing is putting the kids with the top five averages in for the first game, and then pulling the lowest-scoring kid and subbing someone in for the second game.  This is how Maverick ended up bowling second for the first three matches this year, and then first for the match yesterday (he got a 162 and was the low man on the totem pole, and the kid who replaced him bowled even worse, but WHATEVER).

A lot of parents show up for the matches, and I've definitely heard some "hey, that little guy is pretty good!" whenever he gets a strike.  :) 

Yesterday they played the toughest team in their division, and while they lost the first game, they were going to win the second game and possibly take the highest pin count points also.  One of the other team's bowlers missed a shot, and I pumped my fist and said "YES!" and then immediately realized you don't do that in high school sporting events and immediately started cowering and apologizing.  The other parents who heard were fortunately on our side and laughed.  One said "well, it's what we were all thinking." 

I blame derby. :)

The last two weeks have been insane, what with Maverick bowling 4 days a week right after school (M-W for the school and then a fun league he does on Fridays) so I only now got my first PT session scheduled.  It's for Monday at 7:00am, ugh, but the PT place is literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) around the corner from my house so it won't be as bad.  Right now my knee is okay most of the time, though yesterday it was bugging me when I had to use the clutch in my car.

Because of that, I keep thinking "It probably wouldn't hurt too much if I skated, just a little bit."  I need to not think that, I need to let everything get back to 100%.  Right?

Monday, December 2, 2013

I WANNA SKATE I MISS SKATING WAAAAAAH

Not even necessarily derby-related....I just want to put my skates on.  Even if it's at an open skate with lots of little kids around.

Monday, November 25, 2013

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

so my knee's not getting any better, so I called the ortho guy and asked him to set me up with more PT.  Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.  I also asked if wearing my brace from January 2012 would help; waiting for a response on that.

SOMETIMES LIFE IS NOT FAIR.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

I've got no motivation, where is my motivation

(gah, that song is nineteen years old.  I AM OLD OLD OLD OLD)

So yeah, the best laid plans of mice and men get really screwed up when life intervenes.  I was on a good track for going to the fitness club and doing that core class, but then Maverick made the bowling team (yeah, a 7th grader made the high school varsity bowling team YEAH MY KID IS AWESOME) and they have practices on Tuesday and I have to get him to the bowling alley which means I have to leave work at 2:30 so I can't stay late so I can't get in late so I can't go to the Tuesday class.  Sigh.

And then I was making smoothies and decided to try soy milk instead of almond milk and soy milk's really gross so that kinda turned me off those.

And I just generally have no interest in exercise because IT'S SO FRICKIN' BORING AND THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO THAN EXERCISE.

Oh, yeah, my knee - should probably update on that.  I had my MRI and it came back that I had a slight sprain of my ACL.  They said I didn't need PT or anything like that; just avoid any twisting-type motions and I should be fine by the start of the year.  Unfortunately, I forget stuff like that, so I go and walk 16,000+ steps a day (bout day, of course) and dance for, like, two minutes and my knee bugs me for the next day.  I CANNOT WIN.


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

and so on and so forth

My knee continues to be about 95% fine.  Walking around a little bit this morning in my sneakers aggravated it; and the shoes I'm wearing now, which aggravated it before, are fine.  I DON'T GET IT.

On Sunday I was helping out at the "Women's Fest" at a local mall, and one of my teammates showed up with one of her green smoothies.  I was all "that is weird, that is scary" until she said "would you like to try it?" and I said "sure, why not" and it was SO TASTY.  So I decided yesterday to try making my own. 
  I pulled out Ye Olde Blender from Approximately 1976 from the kitchen cabinet and threw in a bunch of spinach, bananas, grapes, strawberries and Greek yogurt.

IT WAS AWESOME.

It was kinda bits-and-pieces-y and too thick to strain, so I just grinned and beared (bore?) with that.  But quite good indeed.  I will need to make more.

Went to the fitness center today to try a "Core Challenge" class.  The average age in the room was 65.  So, I amped up the exercises as much as I could, although at one point during a plank, the instructor told me to raise my butt up (WHICH RUNS CONTRARY TO EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER LEARNED EVER ABOUT PLANKS).  I also rediscovered my toothpick arms, as I went with 4 pound weights and was kinda like I'VE MADE A HORRIBLE MISTAKE about halfway through.  So it was a good thing, all in all.


Monday, November 4, 2013

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Got the MRI done.  It was even noisier than I remember.  Hopefully I'll find out what the deal is at the end of the week.

Tweaked my work schedule so I can go to some of the fitness classes at the health club.  Whether I actually GO to them or not, however, is another question.

Yesterday was a "Women's Expo" at the local mall, so I went and helped out.  One of my leaguemates came by to work her shift and she had a green smoothie.  I looked at it and was like "okay, that's just creepy" but when she came back from getting something from her car, she asked me if I wanted to try it. I said "sure" and it was DELICIOUS.  She said it had spinach and kale and bananas and apples and almonds and all sort of other healthy stuff in it, so I'm gonna try making one.  We have an old-school blender at home, we'll see what happens.


Tuesday, October 29, 2013

on the opposite side of 40 now

so far so good.  Hopefully I will be able to play derby on this side of it!

MRI is scheduled for Saturday early afternoon.  Didn't realize they did 'em on Saturdays.  Good to know.  There's been no real change in it; just random periods of pain when walking.   Glad I ordered those recaps for my kneepads!

Friday, October 25, 2013

going to cry silently in the corner now

MRI will be scheduled as soon as insurance hoops are jumped through

it can take about a week to get the results (witness January 2012)

that will put me at 11/4 for earliest knowing anything

figure whatever happens will require at least 4 weeks of no skating PT, which takes me to 12/4

last bout of the home season is 12/14

so I've put in for a LOA until the beginning of the year.

see title of this post

***sigh***

So I went to scrimmage last night - it went pretty well.  I know I wasn't where I was before, ability-wise, but my coach said I did well on blocking and how she "always wanted me out there", which was nice.  Because it was Thursday, I had to leave after only half an hour of scrimmaging.  Drove home with no problems (manual transmission, don't'cha know)

I got home and my knee was so bad I thought it would buckle out from underneath me if I put any sort of weight on it at all.  I had to drag my leg behind me when walking from the sofa to the freezer to get an ice pack. 

This morning, it was essentially fine.  Just a slight ache. 

So, I have a call into the ortho guy.   My guess is that I'll have to take at least another two weeks off (since he said it would probably take 4-6 weeks to recover, and this would be week 3), which means I would be out for the November bout.  Tryouts for the travel teams start in two weeks, so I'd be out for that.  But then it becomes a question of - is this something that will bother me for the rest of my life?  Should I take travel season off too?  But can I be on the Board of Directors if I'm off-skates?  I don't WANT to take that much time off skates.  Would becoming a referee reduce the stress on my knee?  Do I want to become a referee?  I'm frustrated, and can't decide what to do.  I'm in a holding pattern until I hear back from the ortho guy (who already called, but I missed his call 'cause I was talking with my boss). 

stupid parkour.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

I'm gonna do this, REALLY I AM

so I was looking at the class schedule for the fitness place I signed up for.  There are a few that look interesting ("Core Challenge", "HardCore", a few higher intesity water aerobic classes) but the schedule for the classes is changing at the beginning of November, and if I were to do this I'd need to rejigger my work hours, so I'm going to wait a bit.  Maybe go in and just do normal individual stuff (though I have determined that I am probably more likely to do stuff if there are a bunch of people around me dedicated to doing the exact same thing).

I do get a free personal training session, so maybe I'll use that and be like TEACH ME HOW TO USE THESE MACHINES AND FIND A WEIGHT FOR ME TO START WITH.

Yes, I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I did this before a few years ago and it just turned into a magical money disappearing thing.  This time it's only for three months which I already paid for at $12 a month.  So it's not THAT bad. 

In theory, at least.  Watch me break my leg on a bicycle or something. :P

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

you're the update, you're the update, you're the update boy or girl

so yesterday my knee was sort of at about a 1-2 pain level.  It was HAY I'M HERE AND I'M YOUR KNEE AREN'T YOU LUCKLY.  So, I took some Advil before practice.

It was fine for the first 1:45 of our two hour practice, and only at the end did it start to ache.  Yay!!!!!!!

It was really really really nice being back on the track.  I could tell my endurance was down - at one point during a drill I got sent out of bounds and I was like "Okay, I'm just going to stand here out of bounds for a second before I go back in."  I also left the inside line waaaay open during a jam or two during the scrimmage part.  My coach said I looked great out there, so that's something.

My heart rate monitor went batshit insane.  My average heart rate was 161 (for my age, 90% max is 162).  My maximum was 192.  For my "zone" limits (118-154), I only spent about 35 minutes in that range, as opposed to the 1:49 duration of my exercising.  Whee?

Finally, I just (as in, about half an hour ago) did a 3 month fitness membership on Groupon for a place not too far from my work for $36 total.  Figure in theory I can go there after work and spend some time.  In theory, of course.

Monday, October 21, 2013

so

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of last week, my knee was totally fine and awesome and normal and whatever.

Saturday it was so bad I could barely walk.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

It's okay now, but I'm kinda leery about tonight.  We'll see.

I went to Sunday practice yesterday (I carpooled with someone).  It was drippy and sweat-laden and my heartrate monitor I bought was like WTF ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME QUEENIE and I took a 4 hour nap afterwards, but I WENT AND I DID IT.

Yay me.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

I've got no motivation, where is my motivation

Knee is still good.  I am resisting the temptation to put on my skates tonight.  MUST NOT SKATE.  MUST DO PT AND NOT RISK THINGS.

Sunday morning practices, the bane of my existence, is getting worse.  Not only is it now going to be at an actual gym (so there's no on-skates part), it's further away from my house AND starting half an hour earlier.  But I *have* to do it.  Not only for attendance, but I need to get back to where I was before, fitness-wise. Except it seems like EVERY SINGLE TIME I try to do something fitness-related outside of derby, I injure myself.  The times I've tried going jogging, I screw up my ankle.  Parkour, I screw up my knee.  It's frustrating.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

huh?

PT GUY: I like working with you athletic people.
ME (in my head): Wait.  I'm "athletic"?

Anyway, knock on wood, my knee's been feeling pretty good the last day or so.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Q: Will I ever learn? A: No.

ORTHO GUY: don't do anything that will make your knee hurt.

PT GUY: Take the week off skates.

ME: Oh, I'll skate, I just won't do any contact stuff.  (skates 3 laps)  Ow.  Ow. Ow. Fuck.

so yeah, lesson learned. 

Monday, October 14, 2013

so things continue apace

Our first half-hour bout on Saturday did not start well - at one point we were behind 22-1.  But we kept chugging along and chugging along until we got to the last jam, less than a minute to go, and we were behind, 63-54. 

(I, of course, was watching from right outside of the box office, screaming at the top of my lungs.)

Our jammer got lead, and our blockers held their jammer back, and back, and back.  Scoring pass - 5 points.  Other jammer breaks the pack.  They're both exhausted, you can see it in their skating.  Other jammer is about 1/2 the track behind our jammer.  Second scoring pass - 4 points and she calls it.

It's a tie.  Everyone is freaking the hell out. 

Everyone lines up for the overtime jam.  Points are scored on the initial pass.  No lead jammer, it goes for two minutes.

And....go!

Our jammer scores points.  Their jammer scores points.  Our jammer scores points.  Their jammer scores points.  Two minutes pass.  The scoreboard reads 79-78, our team on top.

Finally, FINALLY the officials blow the whistle and the bout is over and WE WON YAAAAAAAAAAY.

(we won the second bout handily.) :)

In other news, I had my PT session today.  I went to a place that's right around the corner from my house that looked like it was last remodeled back in the early 80's, in a "Basement" style. The guy was really nice, though; he did ultrasound stuff on my knee and said it looked like it was healing nicely and I should just take one more week off and then I should be good to go.  Yay!


Friday, October 11, 2013

have I mentioned that getting old sucks?

my knee needs to make up its mind on if it's going to hurt or not.  Yesterday I walked around most of the day and around Maverick's school (it was Open House night) with no problems at all.  Today (in the same shoes I wore yesterday), it's step - ow - step - ow.

And then last night I was getting these weird random sharp super-painful pains in my left hip.  I consider myself pretty resistant to pain, but I was yelling (and woke up my husband) when it would happen.

So yeah, getting old sucks.  Turning forty in 16 days.  Whee?

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa de daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

so I went to the ortho guy yesterday about my knee.  he thinks it's just a slight strain of the meniscus.  He said "take inflammatories, don't do anything that makes it hurt, here's a prescription for 4-6 weeks PT, you'll be fine."

So I think I'm going to take a few weeks off from parkour.  I think my setup is that I bought a specific number of classes, and can just take them later.  I MUST SKATE IN NOVEMBER'S BOUT. 

Monday, October 7, 2013

argh

my left knee is bugging me.  It started after parkour.  It only hurts when I walk.  Sitting, flexing, squatting, full weight is perfectly fine and dandy, but I walk and it's a pain on the inside of my leg.

Man, if I could cut my knees out and glue in cyberknees, I would BE FIRST IN LINE.  They crunch worse than Rice Krispies.

At any rate, I have an appointment with the ortho guy tomorrow (same guy I went to back in January 2012).  I really hope it's not a "you need to rest for six weeks" deal because I will be like HEY I JUST RESTED FOR SIX WEEKS GODDAMMIT I AM TIRED OF RESTING.

Friday, October 4, 2013

onward and upward continued

Last night was scrimmage, but I didn't skate.  The B team is getting together for one last-minute bout this weekend, and the first half of the night was exclusively for those who were gonna be going.  Since I'm not going, I didn't skate, and I can only go for half the practice time on Thursdays, so I wouldn't have skated anyway.  Plus, I had a little bit of twinging in my left knee that I didn't want to exacerbate.

But, I went anyway.  Our Safety Czar for the league was starting to do baseline testing for concussions and I wanted to get that done ASAP.  Basically, we had to read a bunch of numbers on a card in a certain order and whatnot, and there was a section where there was, say, the word "red" in blue ink and you had to say the color of the word rather than the word itself (the red ink on whatever printer had been used was running low, so I was like "blue....purple....streaky red....yellow....streaky orange") and then repeat lists of words and numbers given to us.

From where I was standing, I could see my times on the timekeeper's spreadsheet, as well as those of the people who took the test before me, and I actually got upset/annoyed that on the color/word test, I got a slow time.  Competitive much?  Sheesh.

I was elected as Lead WFTDA Rep, so this will be the my third (non-consecutive) term on the league's Board of Directors (this upcoming term will be the 6th term). 

In non-derby but still fitness-related news, I bought a pair of parkour shoes (these ones, which are the same kind my instructor has).  I thought they'd be insanely expensive, but $16 SIGN ME UP.  If they work well, I'll get a pair for Maverick.  I know he wants to go on with it after the lessons I bought are over.

I have to exercise today.  That whole 7 minute workout thing seems to work for me - it's long enough that I actually feel like I accomplished something, but it's only 7 minutes long. 

Completely non-derby related

I just wanted to show off my nails - for the first time in about 15-16 years they are relatively nice-looking - 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

in other news

So I've been to three parkour classes so far. I can balance just fine and dandy on one skate, but put me on a 3" beam and I'm WHOA WHOA WHOA ARM FLAILING and fall.  But it's so much fun. 

My nemesis the last few practices has been the safety vault. Yeah, it's the easiest vault to do.  I'd get up to the block and have the worst time getting over it.  Last night I was annoyed and frustrated with about a million different things so I was like GOD DAMMIT I AM GOING TO GET OVER THIS THING and I went up to it and channeled all my rage/annoyance/frustration on getting my foot up (our block is about 4' tall) and I DID IT.  (I had to use two hands, but I DID IT.)

Maverick is loving his class too.  

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

I SKATED I SKATED I SKATED I SKATED I SKATED I SKATED

Sunday - I figured three days wasn't going to make that much of a difference, and it was the first night of Boot Camp and the coach of that needed help, so I went and I SKATED I SKATED I SKATED!

I've lost endurance, and I started getting a blister but IT WAS SO NICE TO SKATE.  OMG IT WAS WONDERFUL.

The league's rule is that when you return from a Leave of Absence, the coach of Boot Camp and New Skaters has to make sure you're not a danger on the track before you can skate in your home team practices.  Fortunately, that coach is also a teammate, so when I showed up at practice last night I was like "hey, I know you were busy last night watching the new folks, but I didn't look like I was a risk, did I?" and she said "no, I'll let the Head of the Coaches Committee know I've cleared you back to home practices."

YAAAAAAY!

I'm still no contact; planning on waiting another two weeks.  (That puts me right after the October bout and will allow me to make attendance for November.)

But I got to skate!  With my team!  It was wonderful!  Yay! 

And I do have to admit, I feel more motivated to do stuff outside of practice - I have to make up a lot of ground to get back to where I was.

ONWARD AND UPWARD!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

so technically

I don't have (at this point) eleven days until I can skate again - technically I have a week.  But, since they probably won't let me skate at Thursday scrimmage, I have to wait until Sunday and skate with the unassessed skaters (just to show I'm ok and able to skate safely).

I may end up going to the rink the day before just to get some skate time in because I am sooooooo frickin' going through withdrawal.

In other news, I did end up putting up a platform for Board of Directors position.  YEAH I KNOW.  It's for "Lead WFTDA Representative", which means I would be the liaison between our league and WFTDA.  I'm on the computer about 99.9% of my daily life anyway, it's just be one more site to visit.  Whee?

Monday, September 23, 2013

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

slowly going stir crazy

I JUST WANT TO BE PLAYING AGAIN IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT


The first bout of the season was this past Saturday; I spent the entire time up at the box office RAGE RAGE RAGE.  My team lost both its games (half hour round-robin sorta things).  RAGE RAGE

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

what's in a name?

our home team is getting new jerseys this year (it rotates each year) so I had to fill out the database with my size, number and name.

Back in the proverbial day, a lot was made about YOUR DERBY NAME IS AN ALTER EGO FOR YOUR AWESOMENESS.  The Two Evils database was religiously checked for duplicates and whatnot.

I had no personal connection to "Queen Kicktoria".  I liked how it sounded and it was available.  (Other names I liked: "Helena Handbasket", "Chick Palahniuk", "Nom de Guerre"*.)   It's not my "alter ego", it's just a nickname that I use on the track.

That's why, for about a day or so, I really agonized about going back to skating under a variant of my real last name - the original spelling of my (married) last name, which had an umlaut in it.

BECAUSE UMLAUT.

Eventually I decided to keep my derby name.  I'm Queenie.  I wear crowns.  I shriek.  I give a royal wave during team intros.  That's who I am now.

 Travel season, who knows.
------------
*and if I hadn't gotten married (or kept my maiden name), "The Wreck of the Whitney Fitzgerald"

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

so

Saturday afternoon, shortly after drinking a 20 ounce bottle of water, I had a coughing fit.

and nothing happened.

It was amazing. 

Seriously.  Y'all may not understand - I've spent the last three years of my life having to do all these little tricks and lifehacks to not wet my pants when I cough/sneeze/jump more than once, and to not have to do that..it's going to take a while to get used to.

My follow up appointment is on Thursday.  I'm hoping that my doctor will let me go back on skates, at the very least (when I asked him about going back and he said "six weeks", I'd asked about "playing roller derby") in a week or so. 

I also hope that I can get a green light quickly because I signed up for an Intro to Parkour class!  "Adult Beginner classes are designed for any adult looking to get their foot in the door into the parkour world. We offer rolling admission to all classes – there is no start or end date. Curriculum changes week to week and encompasses all forms of basic vaults, balancing, quadrupedal movements, and climbing."  

I signed Maverick up for a kid class, and we're both pretty excited about it. 

I need to find more stuff like this - jogging and weight lifting and cross training and all that, I hate with the intensity of a thousand suns and want to die.  Roller derby and orienteering, I absolutely adore.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Ow ow ow

So I had the surgery and did not end up like a character in a Robin Cook novel, so that's good.  The incisions are owie but I'm trying to not take my Tylenol + hydrocodone too often.  Whee.

Monday, August 19, 2013

eerps

I didn't realize it'd been so long since I last posted.  I know all y'all are HANGING ON  MY EACH AND EVERY WORD.

First home season practice was last Thursday and it was bittersweet for me - YAY IT'S A NEW SEASON OF ROLLER DERBY but BOO I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SKATE FOR A LONG TIME.  The practice itself was fun, except for the part where I started to get a little light-headed and realized oh yeah, the only things I'd had to eat that day were half a donut and two slices of bread (husband got home late from work so I didn't have dinner beforehand).

Team practice tonight and then my surgery on Wednesday.  Sigh.  On the plus side, my doctor said I should be able to go back to skating after six weeks, not eight like he said before.  So that's something, at least.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

FREE TIME IS WEIRD WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

yeah.  It's only been four days and I'm like I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING GOING ON AND I'M NOT GETTING ELEVENTY THOUSAND E-MAILS THIS IS NOT NORMAL

so because I am a complete glutton for punishment, I'm contemplating running for a board position in September.  NOT TREASURER AND NOT PRESIDENT though.  I've been talking with our current league VP and he's not running in the fall....so maybe.  I've been going to the board meetings in my position as Ticket Queen, and I really miss being behind the scenes on decisions and stuff. 

We'll see.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

weekend recap

This is all stuff I've mentioned before, but we had two bouts this weekend.  The first one, on Friday, was a fun bout for our city's Pride Week.  The theme of the week was "There's No Place Like Home", so our fun bout was called "Friends of Dorothy" and we had the Ruby Red Skaters vs. the Yellow Brick Rollers (my idea, Kansas [where everyone dressed in shades of black, white and grey] vs. Oz [everyone dressed in crazy bright colors] went unchosen).

So I made helmet covers, as I mentioned a few times before.  Here's a picture of the jammer covers:

FEAST YOUR EYES UPON THE SPARKLE

(the pivot covers were similar; rainbow stripe with sequins on each side.)

They went over like gangbusters.  Everyone kept saying how awesome they were, which made me very happy.

Anyway, the bout.  I was a Yellow Brick Roller and we lost.  One of our fantastico jammers couldn't get off work so we were short in that respect, and then the refs didn't make a few calls that they should've, but whatevs.

Saturday was an actual bout.  And it was amaaaaaaaaayzing.  We all just clicked as a team, we had each other's backs, we did our THANG.  I bridged like a mofo, keeping my teammates in play as the jammer tried to escape.  I didn't play that much in the second half, though, as I fell badly on my right shoulder and was like OKAY I CAN FINISH THIS JAM BUT JUST BARELY AND THEN I'M OUT.  It's still sore now.

We won, of course.

Now I'm on break.  The season starts up again on August 8, but I'll be out of town.  Then I have, like, a week and a half of practices until my surgery and I'm out.  Boo hoo.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

whee, I say! and whee, and whee again!

BOUT WEEK WAHOO, and it'll be my last bout for a while 'cause of the surgery and whatnot.  BOO HISS.

Monday's practice went well; I may be a one-trick pony with my spinning but dammit it's a good one-trick pony to be. 

I NEED TO REMEMBER TO SWITCH MY TOESTOPS.  They're flattening out majorly.

Monday, July 15, 2013

blech

so I went to Sunday practice because we were told it would only be our team (the A team was participating in a tournament) and it would give us extra time to practice together and we really really really needed to be there.

There were, of course, only eight of us.  GAAAA. 

I was sooooooooooooooo bitchy during the off skates workout.  Mr. Hyde would've looked at me and said DUDE YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN.  Things improved once we got on skates, though.

We had one skater with us who'd passed her assessment but hadn't been rostered to a team yet, and we sent her through as a jammer for part of a light scrimmage.  She did pretty well but then had to stop and puke.  I felt bad for her, and it made me realize how far I've come in my endurance and whatnot.

Then I went home and slept for four hours, which *ALWAYS* happens and which is why I don't go to Sunday practices usually.

Anyway.

Friday, July 12, 2013

ow ow ow OWWWWWWWWWW

Scrimmage last night.  Had some awesome moments (had the opposing jammer pushing up against my chest for almost the entire straightaway, earning our jammer valuable time; swooping up to where one of my teammates had a jammer trapped and knocking her out of bounds; clipping another jammer right on the turn so that she ended up so far ahead out of bounds she just called it off rather than skate back).

Then there was this one screwed up moment where I was up on one skate wildly, my second skate went out from under me and I fell on my right butt cheek.  I don't know if I hit nerves or muscles or what but it hurt SO MUCH that I could barely get up afterwards.  I finished the jam and sat out for a good ten minutes with an ice pack.  It's still pretty painful now (at least I can sit).

Thursday, July 11, 2013

bingo, bango, bongo and irving

So our final bouts of the season are being played in connection with our city's Pride Weekend, and the theme of our intraleague bout is Wizard of Oz themed - the Ruby Red Skaters vs. the Yellow Brick Rollers.  So, of course, I volunteered to make helmet covers.

They're going to be shiny red and shiny yellow, with stars of striped rainbow fabric, and the stars will be outlined with sequins.  I started working on them yesterday.  I'll need to redo the first one 'cause it looks crappy, but I've started the second and it looks pretty good so far.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

HRAPY ANIVARSERY

Five years ago tonight, I strapped on my high-boot roller skates (that had been languishing in the garage for several years previous) and stepped onto the rink at Adult Skate Night for my very first roller derby practice.

What a long, strange trip it's been.
------------------

Practice last night went well.  I worked on doing my "spin to avoid a block/get past a wall" thing during actual play, rather than just in drills.  I had to jam a few times (there were only ten of us at practice) and I worked on it and was actually relatively successful.  Our assistant coach complimented me on a few of my moves.

We had a particularly grueling interval thing in addition to our usual warmup (15 pushups, 20 situps, 25 squats, 20 lunges, 80 jumping jacks* and a one minute wall sit - repeated) so my legs are a bit sore today.   Gaa.

I think I figured out how to lace my skates so that my toe guards stay in place, though I have to replace my laces because one of them is hanging on by two little threads.  (Lately I have been banging the bejeezus out of my left big toe; I have no idea what I'm doing differently, all I know is that I finish for the night and it really really hurts.)  It will be weird/admittedly nice to be able to take a little bit of a break.

*I did not do the jumping jacks for obvious reasons

Monday, July 8, 2013

the end is in sight, or something

so the season is winding down - only two more bouts to go (an intraleague scrimmage and one official bout in one weekend).  Then about three weeks off before home teams start.

My surgery (and holy hell I cannot WAIT to have that surgery ZOMFG) will throw a monkey wrench into that, though.  Our first practice back is a league meeting on August 8 (I will be out of town), with the first home team practice on the 12th.  I'll only be able to do a few practices before the 21st (the date of my surgery).  I wonder if it's worth paying dues for that month (who am I kidding, of course I'll pay dues and go to practices).

I'm a bit worried that I will lose the semblance of fitness that I have amassed over the past whatever, too.  I've been told I can't lift more than 10 pounds for a significant period of time afterward, and can't do any sort of abdominal exercises for the same.  I could probably swim, but I don't know about submerging myself in water after that sort of procedure.  I'll have to ask.

(In a little bit of amusery, my husband and I got into a pick-up game of kickball on the 4th of July.  The next day he was complaining about how sore his legs were; I was like "oh yeah, that's right, I played kickball."  Heh.)


Friday, July 5, 2013

so! ECDX!

we lost our bout against the Philly Block Party (a pickup team of theirs), 139-70. 

EXCUSES I COULD AND WILL MAKE:

We were down a lot of our key players for one reason or another.
They played a lot of A team people.

It was fun, though.  I have no regrets.  Well, I do have one - I regret that I couldn't jump right into the pool (uniform and all) after the bout, but that was because it was raining and the pool was closed.

But yeah, ECDX was soooo fun.  Lots of derby to be watched, lots of stuff to buy, lots of hanging out with friends.   I definitely recommend it to anyone in the Eastern time zone.

I did buy new Radar Diamond wheels, and good LORD I needed them:

exact same type of wheel.  old one on the left.  EEP
 I made sure to label each one as to where on my skate it is (RIB = right skate, inner side, back wheel; LOF = left skate, outer side, front wheel, etc.) so that I can actually keep track of how they wear down YES I HAVE BEEN SKATING FOR ALMOST FIVE YEARS AND I'VE NEVER KEPT TRACK OF STUFF LIKE THAT.  It was a little wonky skating on them on Monday 'cause they were so new, but whatevs.

I also got purple Shwings because I'm a dork.  Between that and my new toe guards my skates are way over accessorized.

I am, however, running into a problem with the toeguards - the way my laces set and the way the loop you put your laces through on the toeguard run, the toeguards move around a lot.  That plus the fact that the tongue on my skates moves around all the time makes me think I should sew some sort of elastic to keep it in place.  But the problem with sewing elastic is that sometimes I do need to move the tongue completely out of place (like when I'm putting new insoles in or whatnot).  WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

si teh Tuesday? si teh Tuesday.

I didn't go to practice last night because I'd spent the entire day at work shlepping files from one room to another and back (we are losing our storage room in the building and needed to get about 20 bankers' boxes of files out of it) and I was EXHAUSTED.

Gearin' up and getting excited for ECDX.  Yay! 

Friday, June 21, 2013

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

a link! for you!

Questlove on roller-skating with Prince

I WANT CLEAR ROLLERSKATES THAT LIGHT UP AND LEAVE RAINBOW SPARKS

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

so I'm more sober now

but really the gist of my last post is pretty clear - our bout (we played second) got called at the half because the track was getting treacherous.  (I could've kept going, personally; although I did have problems where I'd hit a player out of bounds and fall myself [at least more than usual].)

Next weekend is ECDX, wheeeee fun!

Sunday, June 16, 2013

I may or may not be a wee bit intoxicated

so we were winning, WINNING I SAY, by like 176 to 3 at the half, THAT IS NOT A TYPO, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SIX TO THREE, but the track was really horrible because apparently when everyone showed up this morning the floor was FLOODED (see there's ice under them thar track and they put concrete slabs over it and then we put our sport court on that and usually it's okay but this time the ice melted and evaporated and went up and condensed and rained on the track) and it was crazy slippery and squeaky and whatnot so either the other team forfeited or the refs called it off I'm not really sure which so we only played one half and that really sucked but then there were rum and Diet Cokes and Cards Against Humanity and LIFETIME PRESENTS LUNCHABLES, THE STORY OF DEAD BABIES and there was a ref in a Godzilla costume and everything ended up okay.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

so!

last night was a particularly brutal practice - I fell and landed hard on my elbow (the elbow pads did NOTHING; I have a nice sore lump and bruise right below my left elbow) and just to the left of my tailbone, and I bonked my nose, and my left ring finger bent back the wrong way.

But ability-wise, it was a good night.

Friday, June 7, 2013

sooooooo

expanding upon last night's post:

1. we ended up doing the whole assessment.  We broke up into groups of four, each group with its own off-skates assessor, who watched us doing our THANG.  

2. I basically made myself hold my arms out so that I wouldn't be tempted to use them to get up from my two-knee fall.  It worked.

3. The 27 in 5 never gets easier.  Even with a good pace, hearing "ONE MINUTE LEFT!" when I was on lap 24 still made me panic.  My average speed was 10.03 seconds a lap; yay me.

4. The cones were a bit nerve-wracking, especially when skaters ahead of me missed cones.  I concentrated on not snaking wide and just doing tight, controlled swerving and I aced it.

5. The coach of the A team did the assessment with us.  She's 35 weeks pregnant.  Yeah.

The whole thing ended up taking about an hour and a half, after which we scrimmaged.   We've evolved to the point where the skaters in "our" lineup (we've been skating together pretty much all season) have the hive mind thing working and our personalities mesh and we're awesome together.  (An interesting anecdote: we're all on different home teams.)  So we got to work together and work our magic.

I've become more of a "chaser" this season - the last-ditch effort person who tries to get the jammer one last time before she's out of play.  Because I play derby circa 2009, I try to accomplish this by going for a big hit (which the jammer invariably jukes around and I invariably fall after), but THIS time I made myself not do it, and concentrated on keeping her behind me and slowing down and ZOMFG POSITIONAL BLOCKING and it worked for about 1/4 of the track, at which point the pack caught up to us and she got reabsorbed AW YEAH GO QUEENIE GO QUEENIE.


Thursday, June 6, 2013

so!

assessments went fine.  Did my 27 laps in 4:31 on a fairly full track (there were probably about 15 of us doing it at a time), didn't use my hands on the two-knee falls, weaved through the cones without missing a beat.

Practice night, yay!

So tonight is reassessment night and scrimmage.  They apparently plan to reassess us all in an hour; not sure how that's going to work, unless they're like "hey, we've watched you play and we know you can give whips and pushes and whatnot properly" and they're just going to have us do our 27 in 5 and jumping and weaving and whatnot.

Because our February bout was canceled because we didn't have a venue, they've added a July bout to our schedule.  This is cool, but it also means we really don't have any off-season, since home season practices start up in August (unless they adjust the home season and have it start in October, but I doubt they'll do that).

ECDX is coming up soon; very excited for that!  I think I'm going to buy myself a new set of Radar Diamonds; I've had my current set for about a year and a half and they're definitely starting to get cone-shaped.  Hopefully I won't have the issue finding natural ones like I did last time I went to ECDX.  Other than that, I'm fairly content with my skating equipment. 

Now I have to figure out what bouts to watch!  We'll probably end up getting there late on Friday so we will probably miss that stuff.  Saturday, our A team's first bout is the first one at 10:30am.  I'll wanna see Philly Block Party vs. the New Hampshire Cherry Bombs (the team we're playing at ECDX vs. a team we've already played) at 2:20pm.  Our A team's second bout is at 5:00pm.  Our bout is Sunday at 11:50am, and we'll probably leave shortly after that.  I know I have friends who are competing in fun bouts and I want to see as many of those as I can, but there also needs to be pool time and wandering around looking at stuff that's on sale time and hanging out with friends time. 

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

my coach and my team are awesome

last night was a fairly rough practice - a few people skated off with injuries, I got knocked into someone and my helmet pretty much gave her a black eye, our head ref got smacked in the face by a flailing hand, I ended up Rage Jamming (I jammed, kept getting knocked down, our coach called the jam as soon as I got through the pack, I was like I AM NOT DONE YET and kept going back around through the (now dispersing) pack.  Then I was like I AM GOING TO JAM AGAIN, GODDAMMIT, and it went a little bit better, but I did see some of my teammates making "Oooookayyyyy" faces).

So anyway, practice was weird, and with about an hour left to go, our coach was like "okay, LET'S GO GET ICE CREAM!".

So we did.

Best practice EVAR.

Monday, June 3, 2013

so

yesterday I went for an outdoor skate that ended up being a little over ten miles.

I didn't plan it that way; I took a bunch of back residential roads up to the lake, then skated along the trail by the lake, then realized oh I need to get home too and took two major streets to get back.

Two major hilly streets.

Plow stops FTW, I am tellin' ya.

Friday, May 31, 2013

indeed with the indeedery

last night's practice was horrible and miserable because it was so freaking hot and humid - everyone was completely dripping and leaving sweat angels on the floor after the off-skates portion.

Next Thursday we all have to re-evaluate for the new WFTDA minimum skills.  In theory, I'm not worried, but in practice, I have to retrain myself not to use my hands to get up from a two-knee fall.  The weaving part (10 cones on the straightaway and curve, no more than 5 feet apart, in less than 6 seconds) is also a concern, but mostly because I have no real concept of how long six seconds is and if I go too fast in weaving I often overshoot (witness my travel team tryout).  Then there's the "standing on one skate for 30 seconds while standing still".  Um, okay?


Thursday, May 30, 2013

sigh

surgery has been scheduled for August 21.  The way my summer is shaping up, it was the best time to do it.  Unfortunately, it means I will be completely off skates for at least eight weeks, which puts me to mid-October. 

sigh

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

TMI, aka DAMMIT

So remember the last time I wrote and I was gonna go with the biofeedback and figured the health insurance company would cover it now that I have an official diagnosis?

Yeah, not so much.

GRRRRRRRRRRR.

So now we're back to surgery.  Gaaaaaa.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

TMI again, you've been warned again

so I FINALLY heard from my gynecologist about the results from my urodynamics thing (only TWO AND A HALF WEEKS LATER.  ANYWAY).  He didn't say anything about the ligament being torn, and gave me two options:

1. Biofeedback, wherein they use a probe (lovely) to electrically stimulate the muscles around my urethra (even lovelier).  Six sessions, each a week to two weeks apart, 60% success rate.

2. Surgery, with all the six weeks of recuperation and a 90% success rate.

I decided to go for the former first, to see how it goes.  Funnily enough (and by "funnily enough" I mean NOT FUNNY AT ALL), he suggested the biofeedback when I first approached him about this issue back in SEPTEMBER but my insurance wouldn't cover it then.  Now that I have an official diagnosis, they most likely will, though, which is FRUSTRATING AND ANNOYING AND GRAR.

But, on the other hand, I can get it done now, and if it works, hey, no surgery!  Eee!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

bout week BUT NOT FOR ME WEEP WEEP

I am frowny-facey.

Got to try out my new toeguards at Monday's practice - I need to change the lacing a little, 'cause they were moving around a bit.  Everyone thinks they're awesome, though.

No practice for me on Thursday - Maverick's got a band concert - no bout for me on Saturday, I'm out of town, no practice on Sunday, I'm out of town, no practice on Monday for Memorial Day.  LONG TIME WITH NO SKATING SOB.

One of my teammates who came back after having a baby (in MARCH, good Lord, and she hasn't missed a beat) said "you are FEARLESS out there," after I spent a fair amount of one jam skating backwards and was able to knock the jammer out of bounds (although admittedly while I was backwards I was like okay I really do need to turn around at some point but if I do I'll probably fall so I'll just stay skating backwards).

I am wearing my strappy heeled sandals today to make sure they'll be okay to wear this weekend at the wedding.  I do NOT have strappy heeled sandal feet.  I have derby feet.  Sigh.

Friday, May 17, 2013

if I were a racehorse they'd've shot me by now

last night at practice, part of our off-skates warmup involved this thing where you stand with your right foot on this bench that is probably about 18"-2' off the ground, and your left foot is kind of hanging there.  You have to bring your left knee up and then drop it down, barely touch the ground with your left foot, and repeat.

Well, I started doing that, except I lost my balance, rolled my left ankle and fell. 

I sat out practice with a wrapped ankle (our Safety Czar was there and he's an ambulance crew guy) and an icepack and was just generally really really pissed.  I didn't get to play because of a stupid off-skates exercise.  I also didn't get to try out my new toe guards!

these are the most amazing toe guards EVER
I'm not skating in next Saturday's bout (wedding to attend, don't'cha know) so I do have a little bit of time to heal it.  (I was going to go orienteering with Maverick tomorrow morning but it looks like that's not going to happen.)

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

whee!

Our challenge bout for ECDX against the Philly Block Party has been scheduled - Sunday at 11:50am.

This is perfect for a few reasons - two of my teammates wouldn't have been able to skate if it wasn't on Sunday, and our jammer that the A team is borrowing for their bouts can skate with us.

I didn't go to practice last night because I decided to replace the broken screen on my iPhone when I got home from work and it was waaaay more stressful and took a lot longer than I expected.  I finished and was like I NEED A DRINK GEESH.

Monday, May 13, 2013

my moment of awesome

I DID NOT FALL.  At least I don't think I did

I've sensed a pattern

so 99.999% of our bouts seem to go like this:

FIRST JAM OR TWO: The other team takes the lead
EVERY OTHER JAM IN THE FIRST HALF: We annihilate them
SECOND HALF: They start getting tired; we start getting warmed up

The final score for this weekend's bout?  348-85.  One point off our biggest margin.

(here's our page at flattrackstats.com if you want to see the POWER and the GLORY.  191st in the US, 205th in North America AW HELL YEAH)

Thursday, May 9, 2013

TMI YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

So one of the things that many skaters in my league will say is "OMG I got hit so hard I peed a little" in a "can you believe it?" sort of way.  These skaters are not mothers.

The mothers of the league will groan good-naturedly when it comes to doing jumps or step-ups and say "oh, it's a good thing I do those kegels" or whatnot.

My life is "Oh, I just sneezed/coughed/did two jumping jacks and peed myself".  The kegels?  They did nothing.  I would have to wear a pad to practice and bouts (which is fun when you're wearing lift and separate shorts, let me tell you) and change it halfway through.

So after months and months of insurance annoyances and attempts to resolve it that were similar to fighting a forest fire with a squirt gun, I finally had some proper testing done and it was determined that the ligament that holds my bladder neck up is torn.  The doctor thinks it'll require surgery to fix.

Well, drat.

If it turns out that surgery is what I'll need, that means a minimum of six weeks of no lifting and no exercising.  I'll need to schedule it as soon after the last bout of the season as I can, which means mid-July.  I'll miss the first month of home season practice.  Waaaah!

But if it works, then that will be a big weight off my shoulders. 

in which I wax poetic about roller derby

So when I was talking about the revised WFTDA minimum skills a little while ago, I came at them from the POV of a veteran skater, someone who's been doing this for the last thirty years and whatnot.  I've also been thinking about the shift of derby from "hey here's this crazy thing that we're doing on roller skates" to "actual pure sport."  My conclusion is this:

I got into derby at exactly the right time.

When I started back in July 2008, there was no 25 in 5.  There was 5 laps in 1 minute (for speed) and 20 laps in 5 minutes (for endurance).  The very first time I had to do it to be rostered for a bout, four months after I started, I did 5 laps in 0:56 (11.20 seconds per lap) and 20 laps in 3:59 (11.95 seconds per lap).

Using those number today, I'd finish 27 laps in way over 5:00.

I've been able to keep up with the minimum standards (and improve upon them) because I've been skating.  (if I had to do the original test today, I'd do 5 laps in about 46 seconds, and 20 laps in, at most, about 3 and a half minutes.)

So yeah, I feel bad for the people like me, who never played sports in high school or college, who come into roller derby with the same starry-eyed THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER I HAVE FOUND MY TRIBEness that I had when I started, only to realize they can't do 27 laps in 5 minutes.  And if these people aren't given the right support and "you can do it!" attitude, they'll drop out, and derby will be poorer as a result.  Like I recently said, athletic ability will only get a league so far.


Monday, May 6, 2013

so BOUTING IS FUN, and BOUT WEEK WAHOO!

first time skating in the new venue!  the floor is ice covered with big concrete slabs topped with sport court and while it was a little scary at first because things would shift and roll, by the time we started playing it was no big deal.

I felt like I didn't play that well the first half - I fell a lot. MUST DO CORE WORK.  I pulled it together in the second half, though.  Kept with my wall and did some offense and whatnot.  My coach said I had some amazing plays which I don't remember doing.

At one point I was out there, got hit, and realized almost immediately that my contact lens had gotten dislodged.  I immediately closed my eye and kept going, letting my teammates know what had happened.  Fortunately, it turned into a power jam for us, so all I really needed to do was stand still (YAY SLOW DERBY).  I finally managed to find it on my face, so I'm skating around with my lens on my finger.  When I got back to the bench, I wet it with some tap water and stuck it back in, and then went out for the next jam (in the words of one of my friends, "watching you reinsert it afterwards looked incredibly sanitary").  Eventually at the end of the night I ended up ripping it out of my head and throwing it away.  All the makeup on the left side of my face had been rubbed away clean by that point.

The final score?  324-60, which is our largest margin of victory ever.  YAY US!

We'd played this team about a year ago, and at the afterparty a few of them came up to me and told me they were disappointed I was wearing a hockey helmet instead of the helmet I'd worn back then (Helmet 2.0) because apparently their coach had told them they would get a reward for each jewel they brought back.  I HAD A BOUNTY ON MY HEAD I AM HAN SOLO!

We have an away bout this weekend, about two hours from us.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

bout week WAHOO

ANOTHER BOUT YAY I LIKE BOUTS.

Over the weekend I went for an outdoor skate - yay!  I love skating outside.  I wore everything except elbow guards and my mouth guard, so of course I was convinced that I would fall and land on my jaw and my elbows.

Yesterday's practice went well; I jammed in a few spots but it was more of a blocker practice drill than anything, so I just kind of sailed through and whatnot.  

Friday, April 26, 2013

last night

there were only about five A team members at scrimmage, so I played on their team. (And then the jammers got switched [B team jammers played for the A team and vice veresa] so it was pretty much just like playing with my B team.)

Normally I'm Prepared Queenie and bring a plethora of scrimmage shirts, but last night I only brought white (on scrimmage nights, B team wears white and A team wears green), so when everything got all wonky weird, I had to borrow a friend's black shirt, so my number was different for the scrimmage.  That was amusing when at the end of one jam, I heard "Black, 691, low block!" and I thought THAAAAAAAAAAAT'S NOT MY NUMBER TONIIIIIIIIIIIGHT but then our Head Ref called me on the number I was wearing last night, and I did have to go to the box.

Then at one point my kneepad slipped (when does that ever happen? never) and I skinned my knee in two places.  Ow ow ow ow.

Oh - WE'VE GOT A CHALLENGE BOUT AT ECDX!  YAY!  It's one of the "half an hour exactly, time stops for no one and/or nothing" ones against the Philly Block Party.  Wheeeeeeee!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

bout weekend recap

so I left about 12:30 and drove out to my sister's house. I'd forgotten how twisty and turny and OMFG the roads are out near where she lives; nothing like getting up to the top of a very steep hill and looking out at the road ahead and literally yelling JESUS CHRIST at what is in front of you.  I yelled "ROUNDABOUT!* WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!**" at one point***.

So I had a nice evening with my sister and her family.  I don't get to see them that often and we always have a good time when we're together.  We went out to dinner and I hit up the liquor store for the after-after party.

I am very, very glad I went up on Friday, because having a simple hour drive at a reasonable hour is much nicer than a 6 hour slog starting at crazy early in the morning.  I stopped at a yarn store near the hotel, bought some sock yarn that I really didn't need, and then got to the hotel.

The hotel.

Oh dear Lord, the hotel.

 - someone found a pair of men's underpants in their room
- our ironing board may or may not have had bloodstains on it
- the shower in another room started backing up into ANOTHER person's shower

but we were only there for a little while, and it was off to the venue!

It was a pretty nice venue for the most part (our locker room was a 10' square tent).  The floor was QUICKSAND.  Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slow.

It took us a while to find our footing - the other team played up at the jammer line and we were like "what? um, okay?"  We got all sorts of stupid penalty calls, and they didn't get any (um, when you hit someone in the arm with your head as you're ducking down and trying to skate under two people's arms, that's usually considered BLOCKING WITH THE HEAD AND YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GO TO THE BOX FOR THAT, but okay, fine, whatever) and we were a bit discombobulated and losing.

So our coach called a time out, and we took a deep breath, regrouped...

...and started to play OUR game of derby.

At half time we were leading by 50 points.


I've said it before and I'll say it again, our endurance is what makes us awesome.  We could see their players getting tired, slowing down, and we were like "oh, another jam? okay!" all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. 

At one point (and this was the best part of the bout for me), their jammer was *really* getting frustrated, and their coach yelled "SHUT UP AND SKATE" at her.  We'd gotten under their skin.  We were unnerving them.  Frustrated players are sloppy players.  (Plus, their coach yells at them to shut up?  Our coaches would NEVER do that.)

So we play, and play, and pull further away, and we win, 210-85.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

________
*I was referring to the traffic phenomenon, not the song by Yes.
**Although that is also an appropriate response to the song by Yes as well.
***Here is where I admit I was alone in the car and yelled this at no one.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand

Scrimmage tonight, away game this weekend.  Yay!  It'll be nice to have a bout but with no obligations other than to play and eat.

I'm heading out tomorrow early afternoon, and spending Friday night at my sister's (she lives about an hour away from the venue).  That way I don't have to drive for 6 hours and then immediately play. 

I have to remember to (a) sew my WFTDA patch on my white jersey and (b) switch back to my white Radar Diamonds.  Please remind me to do that.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

bout week wahoo

so my new plate works, yay!  no more cranked up to high heaven toe stops! 

last night's practice, I was using a friend's wheels (Radar Diamonds that were regrooved down to a narrower diameter), except they weren't regrooved down evenly, so it was a bit bumpy.  Between that and trying to loosen my trucks, I was a bit all over the place.

I did have one YAY ME moment, though, when we were scrimmaging.  I was jamming, and at the jammer line, everyone lined up so there happened to be a nice clear open lane for me on the outside.  Waiting for the whistle, I kept thinking "I can't screw this up, I can't screw this up, please don't let [blocker on the other side who's a really hard hitter] see me, I can't screw this up" and as soon as the whistle blew I just ran and got lead jammer.  Like I said, YAY ME.

Monday, April 15, 2013

so how's about those them thar minimum skill requirements, eh?

showing here.

My own personal concern is double knee slide without using my hands; my way to do it is to put my hands down, pop up on my toe stops and go.  That will take some getting used to doing differently.

And, of course, my nemesis, positional blocking.  Sigh.

 

BOUT WEEK WAHOO

My plate has been attached!  My plate has been attached!  Now all I have to do today is put my trucks and wheels and toe stop and new laces back on.


Friday, April 12, 2013

last night (insert the rest of the lyrics of that song by The Strokes here)

Roy's bowling season is over, so I get to stay for the full Thursday night practice now, wahoo! 

Scrimmage went ok.  At one point my left toe stop came off mid-jam.  I quickly grabbed it and kept skating, thinking DO NOT STOP WITH YOUR LEFT SKATE DO NOT STOP WITH YOUR LEFT SKATE.  (did I mention I do all my stopping with my left skate?)  Fortunately the jam ended soon enough and I was okay, although apparently I made a few NSOs nervous.

At another point, the A team was on a power jam, and I was just about to leave the penalty box.  Their strategy, of course, was to try and keep me behind their wall, once I got in.  I squeaked by on the outside by skating sideways, so my body was parallel to the track boundaries.  That got a lot of appreciative comments (including one from the A team coach).  So, yay.

I got DVDs of pretty much all the bouts from home season and started watching them (it's slow at work).  GOOD LORD I NEED TO SKATE FASTER AND FILL IN HOLES.  It's horrible. 

There's a bout tomorrow but it's the A team so I'm not playing.  Gonna be workin' front end.  Maverick is going to be helping out in Merch.  Can I just say how awesome my kid is?  He adores working in Merch.  Everyone comes up to me afterwards and tells me what a big help he is.  Makes me proud, that kid of mine. :)

Thursday, April 11, 2013

indeed

the plate arrived, yay!  I'll get it installed this weekend and I (hopefully) will be GOOD TO GO.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

well, that's interesting

I skated last night on my original pair of skates (Riedell 265 boots, standard nylon 10 degree plates).  It took a few laps to get used to them again....but then I felt like I was a lot better at juking.  Like, I could actually do it.  It's weird. The trucks were looser (I keep them cranked pretty stiff on my now skates) so maybe that had something to do with it.

At one point I was jamming in a drill, took a shoulder to my lower jaw and bit my tongue hard enough to make it bleed in two places.  Whee!  It wouldn't stop bleeding, either, so I kept having to spit out blood into my bandana.  (delicious!)  It's better now, but it stings like a mofo still.

Monday, April 8, 2013

hrm

Still plateless. :(  It'd better show up this week or I am in trouble. 

I had an epiphany yesterday - I have no trouble exercising/working out if it's secondary to what I'm actually doing.  Tell me to jog and do situps and pushups and burpees just because, and I will hate you.  Tell me to play roller derby, or to go orienteering, and I will be like OKAY I CAN DO THAT WHEE THIS IS FUN LET'S DO MORE.


Thursday, April 4, 2013

so

My new plate is on its way to me, yay!  If it shows up today or tomorrow I can give it to one of my teammates who's going to the Buffalo skate shop and ask her to reattach it. 

Thursday, March 28, 2013

skate surgery, aka WHAT HAVE I DONE

I removed the faulty plate from my skate boot.  It was slightly terrifying, by which I mean COMPLETELY TERRIFYING.  It appears that the bolts were cut down from an original longer length, which means I can't reuse them, which means if I don't find EXACTLY THE SAME BOLTS TO USE I AM IN BEEEEEG TROUBLE.

Hopefully it won't take them too long to replace the plate, so's I can get it back on before our next bout.  Gonna use my old skates in the meantime.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Update

SureGrip will replace the plate!  I just have to send the broken one to them.  Yay!

talking about my equipment

Yesterday I took apart my skates.  Cleaned my bearings (Bones Swiss; they were FEELTHY), checked my pivot cups (they were fine), tried to get my bearings back into my wheels.  Radar Diamonds, man, I love you so much but why do you have to be so difficult to put bearings back into?  I spent about half and hour working on them and only got six wheels done.

So I'm kinda sorta toying with the idea of getting new wheels.  Ideally I'd be able to get the same width (31mm) with a metal hub and possibly even a narrower diameter (< 61mm) but I get the impression that is a mystical unicorn.

Also toying with the idea of loosening my trucks over time. Mine are crazy mega hella stiff and I'm wondering if that should change or if it's a IF IT AIN'T BROKEN DON'T FIX IT sorta thing.

I called Suregrip about my plate (the right one is okay now - weird).  I sent the guy a picture of the piece that came out; we'll see what happens.

I need to get toe covers that cover the entire toe of my skate, not just the very front. I've burned through so many shoelaces because the side will catch on the floor.  (My old ones with the green crowns on them don't work with the Avenger plates.)  All the ones I've seen that fit Avenger plates are kinda huge and weird and I don't like how they look, though.  For now, I just skip the first holes when I lace them and that seems to work.

I use plain foam insoles in my skates, but I wear through the heels of them in about thirty seconds.

I have no idea what sort of cushions I use for my trucks.  I know that one is blue and one is yellow, but hardness?  softness?  I HAVE NO IDEA.

I'm liking the hockey helmet so far (I have a Bauer 7500).  It makes me feel more athletic.

My knee pads are Pro Derby 187's with purple trim.  They work well for me.

My elbow pads are 187's that I got from a teammate that are too big for me.  I wear cut-off white tube socks under them, though, to add bulk and reduce the irritation that they gave me.

My wrist guards are just typical 187 wristguards that the plastic part pops out of so I have to tape them in place.

My mouthguard is a Sisu 1.6, with a 2.4 as a backup.  White, of course, so I don't look weird in photos.






Monday, March 25, 2013

so we had a bout on Saturday

and this is how it went

it was a little touch-and-go at first when they had a power jam early on and it was 35-20, but then we did our THANG and won 239-132.

The chick who runs the skate shop in Buffalo was sick so she didn't come to the bout, so I wasn't able to give her my skates and say FIX THESE I NEED NEW PLATES.  So I have to figure out a time to get to Buffalo and get it taken care of.  Right now I can crank my toe stops all the way in and they'll stay, but I don't like having my toe stops cranked all the way in.  I AM NOT A BALLERINA.

Friday, March 22, 2013

wewt

Good practice last night; even if I did have to spend the first hour of it tallying up ticket numbers and money and whatnot.  But it's exact to the dollar, and everyone did what they were supposed to do, which is a relief.

Had a few good moves; best of which was knocking the jammer out of bounds and then she cut the track.  I love when that happens.  Only went to the penalty box once for a clockwise block.

Tonight I have to sew my WFTDA patch on my jersey.  I think I know where my patches are.  I hope.


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

my name is Queenie and I'm a one-trick pony

B team practice last night.  Whee! When all was said and done, I'd spent 26% of the previous 36 hours at the rink.

Positional blocking is getting a bit better.  I'm concentrating less on GETTING ALL WIDE and more on STAYING IN FRONT OF THE PERSON.  I picked up a trick from one of my teammates that helps (always looking over my left shoulder to the inside of the track - if I can't see the person I'm blocking anymore, it means they're going to the right, so just go right).

When I'm the one being blocked, I've developed a trick of spinning around them on the outside. It's tricky, though, because when I'm spinning my chest is facing them on the right, so if they time a hit right, I'm toast.  Fortunately most of the time they're not expecting it so I can pull it off.  I *need* to work on it on the inside, though, and that's tough for two reasons: a) usually there's not a lot of room on the inside so I worry about cutting the track; and b) I'm not as comfortable spinning clockwise as I am counter-clockwise. 

The inside part of my right heel really hurts when I put pressure on it (this happened on Sunday during a particularly intense drill of "skate to catch up with someone, then hang onto them and plow stop until they stop moving", which is not fun when I'm trying to push off on it while skating.  Hopefully a day or two off-skates will help remedy it.

Monday, March 18, 2013

update

So the Crisis on Infinite Helmets is resolved.  I went to one of the local ice skating rinks and bought a proper helmet.  It was a few model levels higher than the one I originally wanted, but the guy knocked a few bucks off it 'cause he didn't have what I wanted available.  Sweet!  I just have to return the original helmet, but it's in my car all boxed up and properly labeled, waiting to be mailed off.

Saturday was the St. Patrick's Day Parade and OH MY GOD IT WAS FREEZING OUT.  It was so cold the duct tape we used to put posters on the wagon Maverick pulled wouldn't stick.  It started to snow and the pavement was getting wet so a lot of us didn't skate (myself included).  It was still fun, though; I really like doing it every year.

Sunday I went to practice (mostly because the A team was having a team bonding session and the B team was having practice - alts were told attendance at one or the other was mandatory - I felt more comfortable going to the B team practice because I would've felt like a hanger-on suck-up at the A team bonding session, but, well, dress for the job you want, I know that now).  I tried out the new helmet and discovered one flaw with it - there aren't any holes in it that are finger-width, so if I need to scratch my head I have to take the whole thing off.  Other than that it works pretty well, and I had people tell me I can work it pretty well.  I also managed to fall directly onto my left knee from a derby-stance height because I screwed up one of my 180 degree transitions.  It hurt for a while but it's okay now.  My poor knees.

Sunday afternoon I slept, because, well, that's what I do after Sunday morning practices.

Sunday evening was Boot Camp Help - four hours this time. Guh.  Even though I didn't end up really doing that much - helping out with pace lines, wrangling my wards from one station to another - I was like I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE, YOU CAN HELP THIS SKATER WITH THIS DRILL INSTEAD I'M GOING TO SIT HERE AND EAT DIPSY DOODLES.

So in happier news, it's Bout Week!  yay!  I have to sew my WFTDA patch onto my jersey, which won't take too long but it's something I have to remember to do. (I also want to sew some sort of crown on it, also, but that will take longer.)

Friday, March 15, 2013

update

helmet confusion resolved - I'd tried on the helmet of a teammate, and it was a hair too big.  She said she'd ordered a small, so that's what i ordered.

Turned out she actually had a large.  ERPS!

I don't know if I do an exchange on the helmet, if I'll get it in time for next Saturday's bout.  There're a few local places I can go, so I'll probably end up buying another one and then returning the incorrect one.

Last night's scrimmage went well - had a few people tell me I kicked ass, and my team captain told me that I've got the right ideas when it comes to strategy and to keep yelling it out when we're on the track.  I had to jam twice - didn't get lead either time, but the second time I did get one point.  "You worked really hard for that one point," the coach said to me as I went back to the bench - it was true - I was trying SO HARD TO GET MY HIPS AROUND THE HIPS OF THIS ONE OTHER BLOCKER, and apparently I did it to the ref's satisfaction.

The weather is looking not-too-good for the parade tomorrow.  Sigh.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

so's.....

I did not go to practice on Tuesday because life conspired to throw a lot of crappy things at me at once (one of which was the fact that the hockey helmet I bought I couldn't fit on my head) and my response was to just take a nap.

The chick from Turnaround Skates is coming to our bout on the 23rd; I'm going to ask her advice on new plates.  I am thinking the aluminum version of the ones I have now (DA 45 Avengers in magnesium), because I really like what I've got now except for the whole breaking part.  I also need to get toe guards that cover the entire front of my skate because I go through shoe laces like whoa.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

and I say to myself, "what a (fill in the blank) world"

so it's like any time I try to do any cardio on my own (like jogging a mile or doing random hopping stuff) I SCREW UP MY RIGHT ANKLE.  Moral of that story (again, you think I'd have learned it the first time): DON'T DO CARDIO OUTSIDE OF PRACTICE.

Anyway.  Where did I last leave things?  The A team captain told me she'd heard I'd done well during the practice where I scrimmaged with them.  That may very well be true, but I think now my odds of ever getting rostered for an A team bout are pretty much nil, as they now have 14 people on the A team.  I'll still go to practice, though.

Boot Camp Class #2 went well; most of my group is really on track to awesomeness.

I ordered a hockey helmet for travel season (we want to be matchy-matchy with glossy black helmets, I didn't want to paint over my crown, and I wanted to get as head-protecty a helmet as I could) and supposedly it is out for delivery right now.  Whether it shows up in time for tonight's practice is anyone's guess.

St. Patrick's Day parade is on Saturday and the forecast does not look that great (cloudy and cold with some snow, high 34).  Somehow I don't think we'll ever repeat last year's weather (sunny and in the 70's).

First home bout of the season is the 23rd, yay!  Ticket Queening isn't that bad this time around, since the college we're holding it at handles all the online sales.  April is when things pick up for me (LUCKY ME).


Friday, March 8, 2013

okeydoke

I did not, repeat, NOT, throw up on Tuesday.  But I suspect the warmup was a bit easier than usual.


Tuesday, March 5, 2013

I'm not gonna lie - tonight is gonna suck

I haven't been to an A team practice the last three weeks, I haven't done any exercising outside of practice.  I fully expect to vomit and die; my only hope is that they don't happen simultaneously.

I had an epiphany last night about positional blocking - you don't have to get wide and low.  If I do that, it just makes it harder for me to get where I need to be.  A moderate stance is easier to move from, juke-wise.

I was really horked off for a lot of last night's practice, but I honestly don't remember why anymore.  I suppose that's a good thing.

Monday, March 4, 2013

and so on and so forth

I really, really, honestly and truly intended to go to practice on Sunday.  But, my mother-in-law died (she'd been sick for while, so it wasn't a shock, but still) and I needed to keep an eye on Maverick while Roy went to the funeral home.

But I did help out with Boot Camp!  There were about a dozen or so skaters there, and my group is the awesomest.  They picked up the hang of everything quickly and I am confident they will do amazingly.


Friday, March 1, 2013

in which I realize YET AGAIN I really should probably exercise outside of practice

yesterday afternoon I got a text from the coach of the A team - some (previously injured) skaters were finishing up their tryouts at scrimmage, and they were going to be skating short - would I be willing to skate with the A team during scrimmage night?

Um, sure!

Usually during scrimmage night we do B team vs. A team.  Last night was a black/white mixup for the first half, then B team vs. A team.  During the mixup I ended up jamming twice, which went okay - I got lead jam once but had to call it off before I could score, second time I had a bit of a problem getting through.  I could hear the A team coach yelling at me to KEEP MOVING MY FEET while I was jamming, so I tried doing that.

Then came the second half, when I skated with the A team.

I really need to do more (read: some) core work.  I kept falling.  A lot.  It was frustrating and I got really annoyed at myself for being such a slacker.

But there were some cool parts, too.  One lineup I was in, everyone else was an A team jammer. I made a comment like "one of these things is not like the other," and Captainness Awesome was like "what are you talking about?" and I said "you guys are all jammers" and she said "so are you," which isn't true but it was nice of her to say.

Then in one of the last jams of the night, the jammer on the B team jumped the apex, and I made sure to be RIGHT WHERE SHE WAS GOING TO LAND.  BLAMMO.  It wasn't a hit; it was a full-force collision.   I think I landed on my right ear.

But she got the penalty, so it was all worth it.

So yeah, more actual working out is in order.
------
I was asked to help out again for the upcoming Boot Camp, as sort of a "den mother" to new skaters - lead them through the stations, cheer them up when they need encouragement, that sorta thing.  I'm looking forward to it.
-----
 I don't remember where I left things, but both my plates are screwed up with regards to my toe stops.  On my left skate (my primary stopping foot), I was able to pull out a bit of plate that is supposed to surround the hex nut that holds the plate together so the toe stop doesn't move.
this is bad, right?
 And then something happened with my right plate so the same thing's happening, although there doesn't seem to be any corresponding metal that I can yank out.

I went the hex nut route for a while, but I was still having problems with the nut coming loose and all that (which kept happening to me with my old nylon plates).  So I switched to Blue Loctite, slathering the bejesus out of the threads of the toe stop and the inside of the plate and whatnot, but I think it's still loose.

Maybe I should just weld the suckers in place and be done with it.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

When last we left things...

...it was over a week ago.  I didn't go to Sunday practice, but not because I'm lazy or anything like that - I was out of town.  I didn't go to last night's practice, because Maverick had a band concert.

I *did* go to practice on Monday, but it was kind of annoying because when we divided up for skills and scrimmage, the teams were a bit lopsided.  I would yell out things, but I'd yell them out a second too late and by the time I got what I wanted to say out, it was too late and the other team had accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.  Sigh argh.

Anyway, the sneakers work pretty well, for the little bit of jogging we did on Monday.  (Mondays we spend 10 minutes tops on our off-skates warmup; on Tuesdays we spend 10 minutes just jogging.  Then comes 20 minutes of vomit-inducing interval stuff.)

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

ok, let's see what's happening

we had our closed-door bout on Saturday, against Syracuse.  They have a practice space that is deep in the bowels of one of the shopping malls there, and it's kind dark and chilly (at least until you get warmed up) and if you open the door leading to it at the wrong moment one of the outer pack referees might get a door to the face.  BUT IT'S THEIR PRACTICE SPACE AND THEIRS ALONE, so I'm jealous.

Anyway, we won by some totally insane amount (checking Facebook......253-48).  Afterwards we found out that their B team really only has six members, so the rest of their roster was made up of A team and Fresh Meat skaters (apparently one jammer said to our jammer at the line "I've never done this before - even in practice!")

Sigh.  I was talking to one of our referees afterwards, and he said something I've been thinking for a while - that unlike a lot of leagues, our B team has a pretty high skill level.  3/4 of our team has played for more than two years (more than half have played 3+ years), and to put us up against a bunch of "THIS IS MY FIRST BOUT" skaters is....well, it gets annoying, to be honest. 

I finally bit the bullet and got a new pair of sneakers.  My old pair were about five years old and I think they contributed to my knee issue the last time I went jogging.  I went to this local store that does personal fittings and threw myself at their mercy, and they gave me (well, not gave me, but provided me with and then I purchased) a pair of Nike Air Pegasus 29's.  We'll see how well they work out the next time I skate, which isn't going to be until Monday at the earliest.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

JAMES BROWN IS DEAD

so I pulled some muscle or other in my back on Thursday (between my shoulder blades) and it was really acting up last night.  I sat out most of the second half of practice, trying to get it to relax.  'Twas annoying.

I don't have practice tonight, because the coaches and captains decided that the Tuesday practice before a bout is only for rostered skaters.  So no puking for me tonight!  I'll have to figure out something to do instead. 

Monday, February 11, 2013

time should probably find a new schtick

so I WENT TO SUNDAY PRACTICE, Y'ALL.  AND IT WAS MISERABLE.  It wasn't run by Anton, it was run by Captainness Flashback, and we had to do stuff like "do ten situps, then run over to the other side of the track and back. If you finish before a minute is up, you can rest.  Then do it four more times.  Then replace the situps with 5 pushups, do that five times, then do five burpees, do that five times."    MISERY AND LOATHING.

"Jog around the rink and then do squats and star jumps and box squats and other stuff THAT I HATE DOING ZOMFG."  I DON'T JOG.  JOGGING IS NOT NECESSARILY GOOD FOR YOU, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE THE KNEES OF A 95 YEAR OLD THAT ARE ESSENTIALLY POWDER.

I think the Powers That Be are questioning the whole Sunday practice thing, though.   I was asked by the A team coach yesterday while getting my headshot done what I think of the whole thing (I think my answer was "I hate it but it's not because of anything other than my inherent laziness").

ANYWAY.

Friday, February 8, 2013

time needs to start doing more planks

so if I had to describe my derby ability, I would say I'm a decent player with occasional flashes of brilliance. 

last night's flashes was the fact that I booty-blocked the jammer out of bounds and held her behind me for a good few seconds (on a power jam).  So that was a "yay me" moment.

during the warmup, at one point we had to grapevine around the track on our toe stops.  I did it fairly slowly, and then thought "let's see if I can do this faster" and pretty much FLEW around the track.  A few people were like "Damn, Queenie, that was awesome!"

I'll take it. 

Last night we were also talking about kids and Valentine's Day and marriage and whatnot, and a few of my teammates were completely FLABBERGASTED that I'm 39.  They thought I was 31, 32.  I'll take that as well.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

time realizes it shouldn't stay up so late at night

0 for 3.  Sigh.  I WILL BEAT YOU, A TEAM WARMUP!

Other than that, it went okay.  I did a little bit better at one-on-one positional blocking, and we worked on some strategies for when the other team is on a power jam.  (at one point I just flung myself at the entering jammer, and knocked her down and out, but I also went down myself).  Another time I sort of took control of my team's blockers, saying "OKAY SOMEONE DO A BRIDGE NOW" while the jammer was pushing against my chest.  (I got a compliment from Captainness Awesome on that one.)

Then there was one point where I was jamming and just kept. getting.  knocked.  down.  My team's blockers were supposed to kind of guide me through the pack, and one of them yelled out "Queenie!" after I'd gotten knocked down for the eleventy billionth time, and I just lost my temper and screamed "WHAT?!?!?!?!?! [read: I AM DOWN HERE ON THE FLOOR FOR THE ELEVENTY BILLIONTH TIME WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT, GODDAMMIT WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME BETTER]"

I really don't lose my temper that much (probably why I aced the interview section of the tryouts)

Roy and I have decided to resurrect the clothes hanger recumbent bike from the attic.  (I KNOW!) Our coach wants us to do at least one session of interval training a week outside of practice, and since I HATE HATE HATE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE jogging, I think cycling is the way to go for now.

I've given it a little bit of thought, and what I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the most about jogging is the monotonous BORINGNESS of it all.  I'm running on a skating rink, I'm running outside, blah blah blah this is dull when is something exciting going to happen?!  One of my leaguemates said she goes trail running, which might be enough of a perk (I could mix it up with Orienteering, which I did when I was younger and loved.  I really want to do the Run For Your Lives race in August because it looks totally AWESOME.)

Monday, February 4, 2013

time realizes it's February already, freaks out

So our first bout of the travel season is coming up!  We're having a closed scrimmage in Syracuse on the 16th.  Lookin' forward to it.

Guess what?  I didn't go to practice on Sunday.  SHOCKER, I KNOW.  Sigh.  If it were up to me (and, well, it's not), I would change the theme of Sunday practices from "workout" to "something more productive."  The Sunday practices are never really very well attended (about 11 people at yesterday's) and I think if it wasn't UGH DEATH PACES attendance might be higher.  But like I said, it's not up to me.

Yesterday afternoon the Head Ref had a rules reading meeting at his house - just reading through the rule book and answering questions and whatnot.  I Skyped in and am glad I did.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

time marches and pouts

Didn't go to Sunday practice because....I'm a lazy slug.  But I think we all knew that already.

Practice last night went pretty well. One-on-one positional blocking was frustrating because people would just blast by me. I need to say "HEY I CAN'T DO THIS AT ALL CAN YOU DUMB IT DOWN FOR ME AT LEAST A LITTLE K THX BYE."

I did have an awesome moment where I totally blocked the jammer trying to jump the apex - my hip was RIGHT THERE where she intended to land.

Not going to practice tonight 'cause it's Roy's birthday.  HE'S AN OLD MAN NOW, but that means that I'm getting old too WAAAAH.

Friday, January 25, 2013

and time crunches onward

So last night was another scrimmage preceded by more exercise crap.  At the advice of one of my leaguemates I had a tuna fish sandwich for dinner and I didn't puke or anything!  Yay!

I performed a combination of craptacular and pretty damn cool last night.  Craptacular 'cause I got a bunch of stupid penalties, pretty damn cool because while I didn't jump the apex, I took a pretty big step over it.  I also *almost* got the jammer with a real big hit just as I was about to go out of play.   Ah well.


Tuesday, January 22, 2013

ok, new goal

make it through an A team practice (or even more specifically, an A team warmup) without puking.

So far, I'm 0 for 2.

Sigh.

After that it was ok, though.  There were some things I did pretty well on (getting pushed into a jammer, knocking her out of bounds and then tomahawking on a dime) and things I did craptastically on (one-on-one FRICKIN' BLOCKING WHY CAN'T I DO YOU GODDAMMIT) and things I did meh on (pretty much everything else).

As we were leaving, Captainness Awesome (who's captain of the A team) told me I did well, and while my immediate inner thought was "she's just saying that because we were both walking out at the same time and needed to say something to me", I realized "no, she probably had something to do with getting me voted 'Most Improved', so she must think I actually did relatively well" and between that and my general exhaustion and overwhelmedness, I pretty much cried the whole way home.

And now I'm rotating an icepack between my left knee (something is not right with my kneepad; I must fix it before Thursday) and my sciatic nerve (the fact that it's hurting now reminded me that I haven't really had issues with it in years; back after Maverick was born I had constant trouble with it) and the toes on my right foot (I did something screwy at the end of one drill and they've been OW OW OW ever since).

Whee.....?......!

lotsa stuff happened

my knee isn't back 100% yet - more like 80% - but it's enough for me to crash around on skates like a damn fool. 

Saturday was the league banquet - my home team for this past season (September - December 2012) voted me "Most Improved".  (Of course, at first I took it as a "You Really Sucked Before" statement, but that's because I am a negative, negative person, but I feel better about it now.)

Sunday I didn't go to Death Paces practice because (a) I was tired (b) water is wet (c) grass is green (d) Roy and Maverick didn't have bowling so everyone just sort of blobbed around the house.

The last few times I've dinked around with my skates I noticed that my left toestop wasn't staying tight in my plate.  I have DA-45 Avenger plates, which use a single bolt to hold the toestop in place (you tighten it with an allen wrency).  I'd tighten the bolt as far as it would go, and the toestop would just spin freely.  So last night at practice, I took the bolts out of both plates and looked in them - the plate broke completely around the bolt (there's a circle of metal just randomly floating around in the plate). 

So I was trying to figure out what to do - take my skates to the shop in Buffalo to get them fixed, send them back to Five Stride and say HEY IT'S ONLY BEEN A YEAR WTF, Loctite the toestops in place, duct-tape... and then my coach said "why don't you use a hex nut?" (like the way they are on skates that don't need an allen wrench to tighten).  Eureka!  I grabbed a spare skate from the gear box and fixed it.  Phew!  I should probably get it fixed properly, but this'll work until the next time I'm out in Buffalo.