I hadn't mentioned that Maverick was home sick Wednesday and Thursday - he threw up a few times, and had a fever. It's the first time he's ever missed school *ever*, so he was overdue for it, but it was still a bummer to watch.
Early Friday morning, I ended up with whatever he had, and spent most of the morning puking my head off. It was miserable. I couldn't even keep down water for a while. I pretty much spent until last night in bed, drinking the occasional glass of water and sleeping. I can't remember the last time I went to the gym (but on the other hand, I've lost 6 pounds - too bad I'll just gain it all back).
So I'm really only sort of now, Sunday around noon, coming back to the land of the living. I'm not 100% yet, but we'll see what happens.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
so, tuesday's practice
Tuesday was geared for the skaters who want to try out for the travel team. Our travel team coach (who left halfway through because her pregnancy due date was 2/24 and HER WATER BROKE) is notorious for putting skaters through Death Paces (I would read the Facebook statuses of people after practices and they'd be like "OMFG JUST GOT BACK FROM PRACTICE DYING NOW").
So yeah, those were accurate.
Skating and skating and loop skating* and skating and pace lines and more skating and hey, let's skate and partner up with another skater and skate for a lap while you hold onto her hips and do a plow stop and pacelines where you have to hold hips and pull the 19 skaters behind you for a lap and more skating! The penny-sized blood blister that developed on the ball of my right foot that took the entire off-season to vanish? Came back about two hours in. Ow.
But I didn't have to drop out of anything, which I suppose counts for something. (During the loop skating, I kind of trailed a little off the pack once or twice, but not enough that people were yelling at me to catch up.)
I haven't ordered replacement Heartless wheels yet. I think for the scrimmage tryout for the travel team I will go back to my Fugitives. I was skittering skittering on the really sharp turns of the loop skate.
It will be interesting, the travel team tryout. There are 21 or 22 skaters trying out for an at the time unknown number of slots (probably between 18 and 20). Will I make the cut? We shall see.
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* Loop skate is where you basically skate the shape of a safety pin around cones (which I kept running over and squashing). We did them in groups of two, in a pyramid style - one group did 2 laps, then the other did 2, the the first group did 3, and so on up to each group doing 5 laps and then back down to 2.
So yeah, those were accurate.
Skating and skating and loop skating* and skating and pace lines and more skating and hey, let's skate and partner up with another skater and skate for a lap while you hold onto her hips and do a plow stop and pacelines where you have to hold hips and pull the 19 skaters behind you for a lap and more skating! The penny-sized blood blister that developed on the ball of my right foot that took the entire off-season to vanish? Came back about two hours in. Ow.
But I didn't have to drop out of anything, which I suppose counts for something. (During the loop skating, I kind of trailed a little off the pack once or twice, but not enough that people were yelling at me to catch up.)
I haven't ordered replacement Heartless wheels yet. I think for the scrimmage tryout for the travel team I will go back to my Fugitives. I was skittering skittering on the really sharp turns of the loop skate.
It will be interesting, the travel team tryout. There are 21 or 22 skaters trying out for an at the time unknown number of slots (probably between 18 and 20). Will I make the cut? We shall see.
---------
* Loop skate is where you basically skate the shape of a safety pin around cones (which I kept running over and squashing). We did them in groups of two, in a pyramid style - one group did 2 laps, then the other did 2, the the first group did 3, and so on up to each group doing 5 laps and then back down to 2.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
first real practice of the season, aka GUH
oh lordy lord lord. I am a pile of guh and a blood blister and a painful contact lens which I ripped out of my face as soon as I got home. I am thankful, however, that I kept up on the exercise stuff or they probably would've had to scrape me off the floor.
back in the empire state
So I was in North Carolina Thursday-Monday, for my grandmother's memorial service. It was a sad occasion to be sure, but it was good to see everyone on my dad's side of the family (they're spread out across the US - Virginia, California, Arizona and then us here in New York).
I used the fitness center exactly once while I was there - 15 minutes on the elliptical, yay me - and ate bunches and bunches. Sigh.
Tonight is practice for those who are going to try out for the travel team. I am still conflicted about that.
I used the fitness center exactly once while I was there - 15 minutes on the elliptical, yay me - and ate bunches and bunches. Sigh.
Tonight is practice for those who are going to try out for the travel team. I am still conflicted about that.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
middle of teh weekzar
I WENT TO THE GYM LAST NIGHT. Whee. I started feeling crappy again during the weight lifting and exercise machine portion of it, though. Don't know why.
The assisted dip/pull machine was fixed and even though I hate that machine so very much, I did my repetitions on it. My left elbow is still bugging me a little, but I slogged through it. Go me.
I also did a half hour on the elliptical, during which I alternated between watching the Olympics (men's figure skating, yawn) and the pop-up rerun of LOST. Did you know that there is a love triangle between Jack, Sawyer and Kate? I would not have known that if it weren't for those pop-ups! Thank you ABC!
So today is Ash Wednesday and as a lapsed Catholic, I feel it is my duty to give up something for Lent, so I am going (read: trying) to give up eating everything that's not nailed down. Fingers crossed.
The assisted dip/pull machine was fixed and even though I hate that machine so very much, I did my repetitions on it. My left elbow is still bugging me a little, but I slogged through it. Go me.
I also did a half hour on the elliptical, during which I alternated between watching the Olympics (men's figure skating, yawn) and the pop-up rerun of LOST. Did you know that there is a love triangle between Jack, Sawyer and Kate? I would not have known that if it weren't for those pop-ups! Thank you ABC!
So today is Ash Wednesday and as a lapsed Catholic, I feel it is my duty to give up something for Lent, so I am going (read: trying) to give up eating everything that's not nailed down. Fingers crossed.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
oh! and....
Watched a lot of speed skating on...Saturday, it must've been. I learned about the sheer AWESOMENESS that is/was Steven Bradbury (Salt Lake City games - the final of the 1000m. He's last out of five, skating a fair distance behind everyone else [including Apolo Anton Ohno]. EVERYONE ELSE CRASHES, HE'S THE LAST ONE STANDING AND HE WINS THE GOLD MEDAL. And even better, THAT WAS HIS STRATEGY - to skate behind everyone else and hope enough of them fell to get him to medal status. He is totally my new hero now.)
It's really amusing to watch the crashes, as long as they don't end with, like, someone's thigh slashed open by a skate blade. I really did not need to see the replay of J.R. Celski's injury. (For what it's worth, I think I have only been in one bout where blood was an issue - the last bout of the season, I believe one of the other team's jammers got hit in the nose.)
We have a new coach this year, who is also a speed skater. I'm not quite sure how well speed-skating will translate into derby-skating. One of the better jammers on Queen City's league is a former speed-skater, but when it comes to blocking, it's not really necessarily about GO GO SO SPEED FAST FAST FAST. (Plus, if we flung our arms around like that we'd get so many penalties it wouldn't be funny.) Plus the stance is entirely different - speed skaters have flat backs, we squat like we're over a disgusting toilet. We shall see how it plays out.
It's really amusing to watch the crashes, as long as they don't end with, like, someone's thigh slashed open by a skate blade. I really did not need to see the replay of J.R. Celski's injury. (For what it's worth, I think I have only been in one bout where blood was an issue - the last bout of the season, I believe one of the other team's jammers got hit in the nose.)
We have a new coach this year, who is also a speed skater. I'm not quite sure how well speed-skating will translate into derby-skating. One of the better jammers on Queen City's league is a former speed-skater, but when it comes to blocking, it's not really necessarily about GO GO SO SPEED FAST FAST FAST. (Plus, if we flung our arms around like that we'd get so many penalties it wouldn't be funny.) Plus the stance is entirely different - speed skaters have flat backs, we squat like we're over a disgusting toilet. We shall see how it plays out.
have to remember it's Tuesday, not Monday
(three day weekends always throw me off)
So, as I said yesterday, I did not go to the gym on Friday night. I got sucked into the Opening Ceremonies with its non-functional cauldron. (And, as I said to Roy Underkill, Bob and Doug McKenzie should totally have been the ones to light it, eh.)
So that was my excuse for Friday. My excuse for Saturday was...I took like a four hour nap that afternoon. I have always slept really crappily, and who can resist the siren call of a really comfortable couch? Not me, that's who.
So Sunday's excuse was....I got up late. I was supposed to meet with our stats guy at 11am so he could give me my stats for the season, but he showed up 40 minutes late. I hung around for a while, watching the first set of fresh meat skaters go through their assessments, but I had to get back home.
(I also found out why The Bowling Powers That Be scheduled their makeup game for Valentine's Day. Back at the start of the bowling season, they said "okay, we'll schedule it for the Sunday after the Super Bowl," and no one looked at a calendar to see that oh, hey, the Sunday after the Super Bowl is Valentine's Day. Whoops.)
So that brings us to yesterday. I'd signed up to help out with the fresh meat assessments last night. They weren't at the rink where we normally have practices, because it's February Break and they have lots of private parties. So we had it at the venue where we have our late summer/fall bouts. The floor there is technically "polished concrete" but it's more like "semi-polished concrete with lots of cracks and bumps". I tried out my wheels and skidded around a lot (but I wasn't the only one). It was like doing donuts in a snow-covered parking lot. I figure if I use good 88a black Heartless wheels as pushers, and my 92a yellow Heartless as my outside wheels, I should be okay.
The fresh meat, as I've said before, are absolutely awesome. It's so awesome to see so many women frickin' excited to skate. I think towards the end of last season we got a little apathetic, kinda "we've been skating nonstop for over a year* now we need a break". So we've had our break and are now WE NEED TO SKATE NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW DAMMIT, and I think the influx of fresh meat is adding to the excitement.
On Thursday I have to fly down to North Carolina for my grandmother's memorial service. I hate flying with the intensity of eleventy billion suns. I am going to have to sedate myself up the wazoo. (Xanax FTW!) It means I'm going to miss the Cooked Meat party (celebration of the Fresh Meat who make the league) *and* the first league practice, about which I am kinda bummed.
Oh - so I did get my stats last night. I have no idea what they mean, but apparently in one game I did really well. Yay me? Our stats guy had the numbers from two bouts - one bout where we lost, I played pivot about a third of the time and during those jams the other team scored eighty trillion points. Whoops. I don't like being pivot - I'm not good at telling people what to do. I like inside blocker (put me on the line and I will stick there like glue) and back. Outside you need to be able to move around the track more than I am really able to do, though maybe this year I will be better at that.
Tonight is Gym Night Whether I Like it Or Not. Kyle is on vacation so I won't have Death Paces, but I can go and tinker around on some of the machines and do a half-assed job of it. I wonder if the assisted dip/pull machine is fixed. God, I hope not.
--------------------------
*The timeline of our league kinda goes like this - the league began to take shape in February 2008; I joined in July 2008. We started bouting in May 2009 and ended in November 2009. So I, at least, skated 16 months without a break.
So, as I said yesterday, I did not go to the gym on Friday night. I got sucked into the Opening Ceremonies with its non-functional cauldron. (And, as I said to Roy Underkill, Bob and Doug McKenzie should totally have been the ones to light it, eh.)
So that was my excuse for Friday. My excuse for Saturday was...I took like a four hour nap that afternoon. I have always slept really crappily, and who can resist the siren call of a really comfortable couch? Not me, that's who.
So Sunday's excuse was....I got up late. I was supposed to meet with our stats guy at 11am so he could give me my stats for the season, but he showed up 40 minutes late. I hung around for a while, watching the first set of fresh meat skaters go through their assessments, but I had to get back home.
(I also found out why The Bowling Powers That Be scheduled their makeup game for Valentine's Day. Back at the start of the bowling season, they said "okay, we'll schedule it for the Sunday after the Super Bowl," and no one looked at a calendar to see that oh, hey, the Sunday after the Super Bowl is Valentine's Day. Whoops.)
So that brings us to yesterday. I'd signed up to help out with the fresh meat assessments last night. They weren't at the rink where we normally have practices, because it's February Break and they have lots of private parties. So we had it at the venue where we have our late summer/fall bouts. The floor there is technically "polished concrete" but it's more like "semi-polished concrete with lots of cracks and bumps". I tried out my wheels and skidded around a lot (but I wasn't the only one). It was like doing donuts in a snow-covered parking lot. I figure if I use good 88a black Heartless wheels as pushers, and my 92a yellow Heartless as my outside wheels, I should be okay.
The fresh meat, as I've said before, are absolutely awesome. It's so awesome to see so many women frickin' excited to skate. I think towards the end of last season we got a little apathetic, kinda "we've been skating nonstop for over a year* now we need a break". So we've had our break and are now WE NEED TO SKATE NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW DAMMIT, and I think the influx of fresh meat is adding to the excitement.
On Thursday I have to fly down to North Carolina for my grandmother's memorial service. I hate flying with the intensity of eleventy billion suns. I am going to have to sedate myself up the wazoo. (Xanax FTW!) It means I'm going to miss the Cooked Meat party (celebration of the Fresh Meat who make the league) *and* the first league practice, about which I am kinda bummed.
Oh - so I did get my stats last night. I have no idea what they mean, but apparently in one game I did really well. Yay me? Our stats guy had the numbers from two bouts - one bout where we lost, I played pivot about a third of the time and during those jams the other team scored eighty trillion points. Whoops. I don't like being pivot - I'm not good at telling people what to do. I like inside blocker (put me on the line and I will stick there like glue) and back. Outside you need to be able to move around the track more than I am really able to do, though maybe this year I will be better at that.
Tonight is Gym Night Whether I Like it Or Not. Kyle is on vacation so I won't have Death Paces, but I can go and tinker around on some of the machines and do a half-assed job of it. I wonder if the assisted dip/pull machine is fixed. God, I hope not.
--------------------------
*The timeline of our league kinda goes like this - the league began to take shape in February 2008; I joined in July 2008. We started bouting in May 2009 and ended in November 2009. So I, at least, skated 16 months without a break.
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