Duck & Run

Five o'clock Sunday, found a small group of
skaters at Bethlehem Skateaway for practice.
There were no smaller kids and many of the
regular adults were MIA.
Perhaps summer had called to them and they
were all involved in outdoor activities, like
barbecues, or rafting down the Delaware.
We warmed up in the opposite direction, then
coach Bob broke us into two teams and we did
relays.
Which outside of the tag part of it, is simply
sprint work.
Floor was slippery, which I hadn't noticed
till it was my first time to go out for two
fast laps.
One push off the corner and my right leg
just kept going across the floor. Then and
there I decided to play it safe for the rest
of practice and not push my luck, literally.
Crashing does not appeal to me normally,
and especially not this close to Nationals.
Towards the end of practice Bob pulled his
whistle out of his skate bag we were called
for starts. Being that there were only 7 of
us at that point, he didn't bother breaking
us into groups.
We all stood on the line and it was crowded.
:O
Too crowed for my taste, or delicate nerves.
LOL
Freaky to have my wheels so close to the
fingers of my team mates beside me doing
down starts. With an upstart, I don't have
to worry about having my fingers run over.
Well, our coach has eyes that "see all,
know all", and my hesitation off the whistle
to let every one get out ahead of me and
give me some room, did not allude him.
As a fix, an inspired fix, straight from his
abundant bag of tricks,he called me up one
line and had me stand there with everyone right
behind me.
Now I had all the room I could want, and six
or seven fast starters at my back, who like
a herd of buffalo could run me over in a heart
beat.
Dang!
What's a girl to do in that situation?
Run like her life depends on it when the
whistle blows.
And so I did.
Which had the coach laughing and telling me
he'd never seen me run so fast!
Terrified that I'd be mown down, I did throw
caution to the wind, and ran like the devil
was after me. Sure, everyone caught me and
passed before or at the cone, but it wasn't
because I wasn't trying to get there first!
Good stuff :)
Last night was outdoor at Emrick and because
of the heat we started out at 8pm.
Humid, but without the sun beating down on us,
it was a sweat fest but not uncomfortable.
An easy one mile warm up around the hill loop
was first and Bob paced us on his bike.
My hamstrings were tight and complained during
that first lap and for the next two. That's
when we started a drill of 5 one mile laps with
a section of sprinting on the hill.
All the work was in the sprinting and after
we reached the top we were to simply roll the
rest of the loop till we got back to the hill.
Came to the conclusion it takes me a while to
warm up, and after I do there is only a certain
sized window of time before I'm fried...