My feet betray me...

Foot cramps are a pain in the ass, or more literally, a pain in the foot. Any time between the finishing of this post and the beginning of Lost will be spent googling foot exercises and foot stretches.

Something has changed in the last couple of weeks causing really bad pain in the underside arches of my feet. It was so bad on Monday after only warm-ups that I didn't properly stretch because I was desperately trying to uncramp my feet. The result of me not stretching properly was that most of my muscles from the waist down felt like they were made out of wood last night. Not cool.

Last night marked the start of an agility week. I really enjoy agility weeks, even though I still can't do a lot of the drills properly. Small victories last night: weaving around at least one or two cones on one foot, mostly avoiding back pain by skating with better form, doing a successful transition from backward to forward (forward to backward, not so much), mini clockwise crossovers, and not looking down when I skate.

I get frustrated with myself when I have physical issues and I KNOW that I can technically do the drill. I know I am making progress and I know that I am stronger and faster than I was just seven weeks ago. Similar to what DKB has recently written about, I need to remember that I have been doing this for ONLY seven weeks and I shouldn't be so hard on myself.

Tank had great words of wisdom at open skate the other night (and her secret to skating the way she does). Fall more. Fall until you don't care about falling. If I'm worried about falling, I'm NOT concentrating on the skill or drill I'm doing. I definitely need to fall more.

As mentioned in my previous post, I got my very first bout recap published on DNN (Derby News Network) so that's cool. You can read the short version HERE. The full recap will eventually be up somewhere. If you want to read it, just let me know and I can send it. I've never done any sports writing before so that was a challenge for me. Lucky for me that challenges make me happy - it's the competitiveness in me.

Goals for the next month or so: Go through one whole practice without dropping out of a drill. I can slow down or take it easy if I need to but I will not stop. Skate on the "real" track during warm up laps. I skate around the outside because I'm slow but it makes me feel EXTRA slow since I have to skate faster that everyone else to even feel like I'm going the same speed.

Thursday is a normal practice with scrimmage. I signed up to do stats again; I really enjoy it. Thank you to EVERYONE in NHRD for their encouragement these last seven weeks. Hopefully I can look back seven weeks from now and be pleased at how far I've come!