Sturdy Girl Skating

Didn't make practice Wednesday night,
and this season, it's unusual for me
to skip one.
Maybe I'd caught a little bug or
something, but rest seemed the better
part of valor.
Listening to my body I crashed early,
right into the middle of my comfy bed.
Talk about crashing.
Had a nice loud one last night, right
into a door.
On a solo sprint off the pack, I was
doing my best to step fast and not back
off the corners as I often do.
Feeling confident, the floor was holding
well, I wanted to carry any speed I had
through the ends.
Can't recall what I did wrong, except that
I was really trying, but after the apex,
one sec I was fine, and the next I was legs
first into the door.
The sound registered before the impact,
I thought, "not the door!", then my shoulders
hit and next my head.
Stunned.
Is a good word for how I felt.
The small part of me wanted to lay there,
as I was, arms out to my sides, legs
compressed as small as they could be.
So did Bob as soon as he got to me, but
the survivor part wanted to get up and
keep going.
It's always how it is for me.
The need to get up and go on.
Looking down, he said "don't move",
I answered back, "I'm OK".
We went back and forth using the same
phrases a few times until my need to keep
going overturned his coach's concern.
"What hurts?"
"The outside of my left ankle and my big
toe"
Dismissing his sage advice, I got up and
thought I should finish my lap.
Instead I rolled over to where my team mates
were in the middle of the floor and listened
as they expressed their concern for my welfare.
Sweet kids..
Really, their concern touched me..
Bob finally got through my thick head and
his suggestion to go take my boot off and
check my foot out didn't sound as lame as it
first had.
At that point, my toe hurt the most, and I
was to find I'd hit the door so hard the
nail had a fold line half way across it.
This morning I woke with a headache, a
sore upper back, and a nice bruise right at
the bottom of my lower back, but no lasting
damage.
Being built like a "Sturdy Girl", well, it
can be a good thing..

Sleep, Where Is Thy Refreshment?

For whatever reason I was beat by days end
yesterday.
When I got home from work at 7pm. I was toast,
dark brown working on black.
Perhaps 10 hour work days and commuting over
a 100 minutes 5 days a week is taking a toll.
Maybe it's my biorhythms..
Good thing there was no practice.
Actually had to lay down for a half hour
on the foot of my bed to get enough juice
flowing so I could stay up till nine so
I could go to bed for real.
PDX, stinks.
Sorry guys, but you do.
Since Monday, whatever could go wrong has
gone wrong, and if you were working for me
I'd fire all of you.
Do I really have to go to work today?
Guess I do.
Nationals is right around the corner and
I'm beginning to feel the fear in my stomach.
It's OK.
By now I know it's part and parcel of competing.
Of laying it on the line.
Of showing up.
On my right hand I wear a gold ring with 3
interlocking bands.
Each band stands for something I want to develop
further in my life.
Honor..
Courage..
Commitment..
Some days I get close to living my ideals, and
on others I'm not even in the same county.
Often I write about my evolution in skating, but
life is all about evolution, isn't it?

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...

My Bed

My bed plays a big part in my life.
I spend a lot of time in mine, as do most
folks theirs, sleeping the dark quiet night
hours away,reading,writing, among other things.
Over the past few weeks my bed had gone
through a wonderful transformation..
One of the blessings of my life is my Dad.
Newly acquired in the last two years, (he
was MIA for 49), he is fully part of my
life now and often does really nice things
for me. One of the more recent "nice
things", was the queen sized bed he gave me
for my birthday this year.
God love him, he is a sweet guy.
Unfortunately, he chose the set over the
phone and had it delivered sight unseen.
It's a Serta.
It looks good! Until you lay down on it.
Then you realize that that like the floor
underneath it, it's hard.
No worries I thought at first.
I'll adjust to it in a few weeks.
I didn't.
No.
Instead I woke up a cripple most mornings.
For weeks and weeks.
I concluded it was my back issue keeping me
jinked up and was beginning to think I'd
just have to live with it.
Until I bought a feather bed topper from
Kohls, during a 2/1 sale, and put it on my
card.
Free shipping was the icing on the cake :)
Heavy buggers, but worth every penny, and
the time it took to get them on my bed.
Not only is tossing and turning a thing of
the past, but I don't get out of bed like a
cold piece of twisted iron at 5am any more.
Feather beds are a miracle given from ducks
to mankind!
I swear, I am in love with every little
feather those things are stuffed with..
Thank you ducks of America, or China, or
what ever country you were born in, for your
noble sacrifice to my comfort.
I salute you!

Sprint, Sprint, Sprint

Normally when the alarm goes off in the morning
and wakes me with CAT Country playing on the
radio, I at least open my eyes to check the
time.
Not this morning..
Playing with danger, I lay in the comfort and
warmth of my bed, keeping my eyes shut, aware
on the fringes, that I was taking the risk I'd
fall back to sleep and be late for work.
That very fear was what finally got me out from
under the covers and my feet on the floor.
My beat feet..
Thursday night practice is a short late one,
8:30-9:30pm. Often I have a difficult time
getting to sleep afterwards because I'm revved
up and find it takes hours to wind down.
Getting up the next day usually isn't an issue,
even if I am tired.
But at Wednesdays practice, my legs complained
about having to work gain, and last night they
did the same thing.
But by hours end they were feeling more normal.
Fatigued, but normal.
With three weeks to go to Nationals, there is
no training time to waste. Bob's pulled his whip
out from the back of his closet, and is putting
us through sprint paces like the races horses he
wants us to be.
Buying into the fact that I have to do my best
on each drill isn't an issue.
"Train the way you want to race!"
Thankfully, I'm still feeling the Ju-Ju from
this past weekend where coaches from other
teams told me to my face that I'd raced well
in our Master 4 Lady.
Course, there is always the possibility I'll
come in last during my standard races in Omaha,
but it won't be because I didn't try hard.
Getting accustomed once again to our home floor
has been difficult. After the beautiful tight one
we had in Enola, Pa. for Regionals, it's like
skating around your garage..
We're almost to bare wood in Bethlehem and it's
a shame we won't get to practice in our race
wheels before we fly out July 14th.
No worries!
The five minutes they give you to warm up, hours
before you are called down to the floor to race,
will be plenty of time to get my MPC blue groove
back on!
LOL

Sunday/Relays

There were four on the schedule for me.
Veteran 2 Lady, Master 4 Mix, Veteran 2
Mix and Master 4 Lady.
The only one I'd ever done in competition
was the 2 Mix with Jeff Foster. He and I
had been partners in Roanoke, Va., earlier
this year, and I wasn't too worried about
him pushing me into outer space during
our relay tag as I had been then.
There was no way I wanted to disappoint
him either, and I wanted to get out of
the box smoothly and make all my tags.
As it turned out Bob, our Bethlehem coach,
had partnered me with several of our stronger
guys during practice weeks previous, and
I'd come to expect a more energetic push
than the ones Jeff gave during our race.
It being a qualifying event,(he told me
later),he hadn't wanted to take any
chances on getting DQ'd so he played it
safe.
It was nice to know I could have handled
more, and now we have something to work
on for Nationals, besides me being faster!
LOL
Truth is, I didn't even try to give him a
push that mattered. Mine seem to have no
real impact on men.
What I learned from that race was to come
out for my tag on my own timing and not
the timing of the well meaning folks on my
team that were yelling for me to get out of
the box!
"THERE HE IS!!!!".
Did they think I didn't see him?
I was paying attention.
I knew where he was.
And, that he wasn't skating up to his normal
race speed.
So I listened to their urging and came out
a few seconds early, and ended up wondering
what was taking Jeff so long to get to me as
I went further up the wall and farther away
from the prime relay tag zone.
Skate and learn.
My Veteran 2 Lady with Rosemary R. was a
great first relay to warm up with and to get
rid of any bothersome butterflies lingering
around from Saturday.
We'd never relayed together before and it
showed on my tag to her.
Giving her a good heave ho, that she didn't
expect, I unbalanced her several times..
Felt like an ass about that but it never
occurred to me to push any lighter :(
Jenn yelled at me to stop pushing down, which
I didn't think I was, and I was confused on
what I was doing wrong..
I'll have to work on absorbing more of my
forward movement when I put my hands on her,
and also pushing smoother.
Gee..I felt so bad for the two guys on my
Master 4 mix team, Bret D. and Barry C..
They picked the short straw when they got the
two slowest women on our Team for their
partners..
Nothing to do for it.
Age is an issue, and there aren't many women
in our age group that speed skate.
So, fast as they are, and both men are very
fast,we pulled them down to fourth place.
It pained me to hold them back so much..
Ouch..
The most exciting relay, because of all the
screaming that broke out, was during my last
relay, the Master 4 Lady.
Here, each woman goes out and does five laps
once and that's it.
Tami Foster our fastest woman, and who we
turn to for leadership, decided before the race
that I'd be in the SOS #4 spot.
Jane Carey, the coach of Fast Forward's group
in Kendall Park, N.J. brought up the rear for
her team in the same spot.
No need for details, but it was a close race
and we both came out for our tags at the same
time.
Jane got a better push than I did or maybe I
was just slower off mine, but we headed out
together, and though I was behind her, it
wasn't by much.
Our team mates went nuts about it!
The noise got louder and louder as the laps
counted down, I picked out individual voices
here and there, but never lost my focus, never
seized up, nor lost my breath.
Think I might have swung my arms most of the
time too but don't know that for certain.
What I do know is that I was in the best sync
I've ever raced in and my only regret is that
I didn't try to pass Jane immediately after
the first corner.
It occurred to me to do so, but I didn't make
the move.
Bad Joie!
Not sure I would have even been successful..
Anyway, it was very exciting, being in a groove.
From my perspective, and for my ability, I think
I skated it well, and I wasn't ashamed to come
in after her over the finish line.
She wasn't that far ahead of me :)

Regionals-Part Two

Despite the demons in my head, trying their
best to mess with me, I didn't do any of the
things they were suggesting Saturday morning.
One, being to pack up, drive home, and never
compete again.
No, my pre-race anxiety hit an all time high
but I did what I was there to do. And that
was to roll over to the start line each time my
name was announced, and wait for the gun to
go off.
Good news.
My feet didn't move a hair during my standing
start, which as a start method, is still new
to me.
For weeks previous I'd been jumping or rolling
forward as I practiced the same start on our
home floor..
Thank God for blessings large and small!
As the morning went into afternoon, and my
races moved from the 1000m, to the 500 on to
the 700m, I found that I was skating better.
Between my own races I watched and cheered
for everyone else's, ate, chatted with my
team mates, listened to music and relaxed
as much as possible in the raucous environment.
In the 700m I was still no speed queen, but
really loved the new MPC blues I had on!
After the run off the gun, and as I settled
into my first lap, I felt smooth and rhythmic.
Like things weren't such a struggle.
Think I might have even enjoyed myself..
Don't ask me why I like those super hard
wheels better than the firm greens I've been
racing on but as I crossed the finish line
and rolled to the exit area I thought,
Damn!, these wheels were made for me:)
One of the best feelings when you compete,
at least for me, is when it is over.
After my 3rd race I was happy.
And there wasn't that huge wave of relief
that I am accustomed to experiencing..
Maybe, in spite of my shaky nerves, I'm
getting used to competing..