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.)

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.

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)

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.

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.