Third practice...

That brings me to tonight, my third practice.  My quads still hurt, but I have mobility in them.  That's a start.

In an attempt to bring my inner athlete out I have tried to be proactive about my pain.  I wrapped my right quad, I stretched out before even leaving home, and I took some preemptive Tylenol.  Ready or not here I come.

I got there and started my laps.  Still shaky and still a little achy but doing alright at the start.  I am definitely slow and lumbering.  For every 3 laps the team does I do 1.  But I do them.

Then it was time to take a knee.  I was worried.  I thought I would play it smart and go down on the left leg and spare my right leg any more pain.  Crap...now my left quads hurt just as bad as my right!!  Quick realization: my quads are too weak and too tight.  Note to self...time for some yoga to stretch them and some strength training geared specifically for them.  As for tonight's practice, there will be no repeats of Tuesday.  Time to suck it up!

So I stretched to the best of my ability pain and all and got to the business of practice. 

The coach wasn't there so the assistant coach (Mouth) was busy getting the team moving so the other newbie and I went off to the side and started doing some of the work he had taught us before.  Her name is Hollyanna and I am so glad she's there to learn with.

By about 15 minutes in not only did my quads hurt but my ankles were screaming at me to make it stop.  Damn, skates are really heavy!  Deep breaths and keep moving...time to make my inner athlete earn it.  We started doing scooter pushes at Mouth's urging and I was so much slower than the 3 other trainees with me.  I had to rest my ankles frequently...but I kept chugging along.

After a while we were called over to the team to join in on some relays.  The gist of it was to skate one on one down to the other end of the rink then do some push-ups and race back (we did crunches the 2nd round).  I was nervous.  Not about the skating.  Not about the push-ups or crunches.  I was scared to death of going down on my knees to stop and get to the ground...I was sure my quads were going to rip to shreds!  Whew!  I was a wreck on the inside!

My turn quickly came and it was time to go big or go home.  So I did it.  It hurt...but my quads are miraculously still attached to my skeleton.  And I was able to get up and race back.  And I did my second round too.  It was big and it was scary (to me anyway) but I did it and it felt good.  Okay, not physically, but mentally...where it matters most.

After that Bunny (the team captain) had us doing a drill where we raced around the track at varying speeds (I kept outside so my slowness wouldn't trip anyone of course) then at her command slide to the ground flat onto our fronts.  Yikes...another big scary.  Even though I don't skate very fast yet I am still going fast enough that dropping like that is not something my body wants to do on command.  It wasn't pretty...but I did it!

Yay me. 

By the second hour I no longer felt my ankles and my quads were a nagging ache more so than a raging pain.  I made it through the whole practice and I think I did okay.  Not great, but not awful.

Rome wasn't built in a day...and neither is a derby girl.  I am going to keep plugging away and hope that a few months down the line I will be one of the girls skating inside the track rather than outside of it.