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.

eep (gets kinda icky in paragraph #3)

so in doing that run/jog/whatever on Saturday I did something to my left knee, as when I went to Sunday Morning Death Paces it was hurting.  MORAL OF THE STORY: Don't go running/jogging/whatevering.

Anton Apolo OhHELLno wasn't there on Sunday - he's been sick - so two leaguemates ran practice, which was worse.  Anton does a lot more explanation of what we're doing before we do it, which equals "sweet wonderful rest time".  Sunday it was "okay, do this and this and this and this and GO!"

I got accidentally whacked in the face with someone's hand at last night's practice, so I ended up with a bloody nose.  It wasn't that big a deal, except for the part where some of the blood accidentally went down the back of my throat and I coughed up a nickel-sized blood clot.  That was gross and took me a while to recover from.  It's not broken or anything, just sore if I brush my hand with it and there's the faintest shadow of a bruise.

Not going to practice tonight - want to give my knee a chance to recover.  I'm a little worried about it - there's a bruise on my kneecap, but I don't know if it's that which is causing me pain or if it's a repeat of January 2012.  I SERIOUSLY HOPE NOT.

file under "um, wow"

A Team members are required to keep a food journal 2x a week.

Mine is a sheet of paper with the single word CARBS on it.

So on a whim (and because the weather was not horrid today, and because I'm supposed to also be cross-training on non-practice days), I decided to go for a jog and see how long it would take me to run a mile.  I've done this before, with results of a 5K in just about 40 minutes and a hair under twelve minutes and being *totally* on pace for a 10:56 mile.

My fastest mile ever was 10:34, back when I was a kid and actually ran and did fun runs and whatnot.

Today's result?

10:08.

another night, another derby practice.

So last night was scrimmage.  Preceded, of course, by about half an hour of stretching and jogging and all the lovely things I hate so very much.

I volunteered for jamming again.   Two majors in my first attempt, whee, but in my second, against one of the best A team jammers, I got lead and scored four points to her zero.  Yay!

A few of my teammates have different ideas for strategy than I, which is annoying, but the only thing you can do is go along with it.  It's better to all be doing the same thing than everyone doing their own thing.

so! um. I'm just going to take a nap here

So I had my first A team practice last night.  I got the impression it was not as hardcore as it will be in the future.  It was mostly drills and the like - there are some people who still need to be placed on a team, so the tryout process was still going on - and I slogged my way through it more or less.

Afterwards, I met with the A team coach and she showed me my evaluation sheet for the tryout process. They graded it out of 100 - if you got above a 60, you're an alternate, and if you got above a 75, you're an A team member.  I got a 66.25.   Basically it boiled down to:

• my fitness is crappy (I got a 4.5 out of 10)
• my agility is crappy (I can't do hockey stops to save my life, I bobbled the obstacle course in a buncha places* and the less said about my one-on-one positional blocking, the better)
• my attitude is great and my team work is really good as well.

Then I went home and could not turn my brain off to save my life. I think I got about an hour and a half of sleep, tops.

Gaaah. We'll see how long I can keep this up.
----------------
*I had an off day on agility and skills day (and the coaches noticed this as well).  There are one or two things I screwed upon the obstacle course that I know I would nail on a second attempt, and I got marked off on a thing I wasn't aware that I had to do (I went first on the obstacle course, and after the second or third person they told us we had to do our tomahawks in both directions).

Almost dead but not quite

So, last night was our first B Team season practice.  I am excited for the season!  Yay!

I discovered that I'm absolutely horrible at one-on-one positional blocking.  I can't get around people, they can get around me easily.  I do much better with other people.

I had a few fancy footwork moves, yay me.

I have to admit I'm a little bit terrified about tonight - partially because it's an A team practice, partially because I'm meeting with the A team coach who's going to give me a review of my tryouts and suggestions for the upcoming season.

We shall see what happens, I guess.