Death Paces, 2013 Edition

Half an Hour Before I'm Supposed to Be at Practice:

Me, lying on my bed, yelling "FUCK I DON'T WANT TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!"

But I went.  It was okay.  I survived; I didn't throw up.

Tonight is B team practice, tomorrow is A team practice.

Wednesday is when I die.

ugh/um/yay?

I am SO glad I kept up on exercising during the break because I would have been dead, dead, dead without it.

It probably also would've been easier if I'd remembered (a) my sneakers and (b) my helmet. (That's what happens when you bring everything in from your car to clean it and fix it and replace stuff.)  I had to borrow one from the Gear Bin.

So we had about half an hour of off-skates (jogging, stretching, burpees, squats, blargh) and then on-skates ("on one whistle, go down on one knee!" TWEET! TWEET! TWEET! TWEET! TWEET! TWEET! TWEET!) It was at this point that I threw up.

After that I was fine, though, and went on to scrimmaging.

I can only stay for about an hour and a half on Thursdays 'cause of Maverick being at home, so I only got to stay for a little bit of the scrimmaging.  I ended up jamming twice and.....

.....it went pretty well!

I wasn't lead jammer either time, but I was able to break the pack both times (each time, there was someone on the other team even with me who tried to knock me out, but I was like DON'T LOOK OVER AT HER JUST GO GO GO GO GO FORWARD and was able to outrace her).  The first time I was almost at the pack for a scoring run when the lead jammer called it, the second time everyone was all sort of congregated at the inside of the track and I thought "please don't let them go to the out right now, please don't let them go to the out right now" and went full speed around them on the outside (at one point I ended up on one skate) and got three points.  It was awesome.

I just hope they don't think that I'm perma-jammer material.  We really only have two perma-jammers and one other woman who likes to jam but gets a lot of penalties.

(There were also a few situations where someone would bump me out of bounds and start skating backwards, but I was able to quickly get in behind her and keep going, even as she was still skating backwards.)

Of course, it wasn't all perfect - I got capped at a really inopportune moment and the other team's jammer just breezed by all of us - but beyond that I was quite happy with my performance last night.

Whee!

yay!

Today's the first practice of the new season!  Yay!  It looks like it'll be a combination of league administration/meeting stuff and scrimmage.  Whee!

do pushups count if you go down enough so that your arm forms a 90 degree angle, or do you need to have your chest touch the ground?  Because if it's the former, I can do one pushup from my toes.

Queenie's 2013 Resolutions/Goals

• at least 20 minutes of exercise a day
• get rostered for an A team bout
• actually play in an A team bout (their lineups tend towards having people be benchwarmers)
• become a full-fledged member of the A team
• be able to do five pushups where I’m not on my knees
• attend at least 75% of the Sunday morning Death March practices

thus endeth 2012

so that brings the year to a close.  It was a pretty awesome year, if I do say so myself.  It didn't necessarily start that way (what with my knee and my ankle and all that other injury-ish type stuff) but ended pretty rad (what with another league championship and getting rostered as an alternate for the A team).

Ever since the rosters were announced, I've actually been exercising!  (I KNOW!)  One of my home teammates who's also an A team alternate and I have become accountability buddies - we text each other when we've done our daily output.  I've been concentrating on core work, at least ten minutes a day (sometimes 20, sometimes 30), and yesterday when I went to open skate with Maverick I definitely noticed a difference - when I'd go into a derby stance, it took absolutely no effort at all to stay there.  Yay!

(as an aside, Maverick is big enough that he can wear my first pair of derby skates.  That is SO SCARY, y'all.) 

I didn't get anything derby-related for Christmas, though I did go out to Turnaround Skates (we went to Buffalo to visit my dad) and bought new Gumball toestops.  My old ones were worn down to flat pancakes.  I also bought a new mouthguard because I lose them like nobody's business. 

The next six months are going to be crazy.  I'm going to have four practices a week (Sunday mornings, Monday night, Tuesday night and Thursday night) plus away bouts and home bouts.  I'll either die or become Superwoman.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!

I'M AN A TEAM ALTERNATE!

(This means that I am on the WFTDA charter for our team.  If I attend A team practices, there is the possibility that I will be rostered.  Just because I'm rostered doesn't mean I'll get any track time.  I am also a member of the B team; if there is a double header and I am rostered for the A team bout, it's up to the coaches' discretion if I am also rostered for the B team bout.)

EXCITED!

the waiting is the hardest part

so we're supposed to find out by the 19th.  Wheeeeeeeee......?

I'm not confident at all.  The final night - drills and scrimmage - went fair to miserably.