Seriously Slick

Dear readers. I promise this post won't talk about skates or foot cramps. Looking at my tag cloud certainly puts in perspective the amount that I've been blogging about that and you are all likely sick to death of it!

The JFK Memorial Coliseum has one seriously slick floor. Before I started derby I'd never been to an NHRD bout. I know that JFK was our home venue but I had never seen it or skated there. Everyone talks about how slick the polished concrete floor is there. They weren't kidding.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of a carpeted "safety area". At first this scared the crap out of me (what do I do when I need to rest for a few seconds because I feel like I'm going to fall down?). By the end of the night, however, I decided that it was a good thing. Being forced to stay upright in a "rolly" environment while resting will only help me work on balance and core strength. The floor was strange to me at first, I figured that at least part of it was the new skates, but by the end of practices I was used to it an I enjoyed the consistency (versus the heaved wooden moguls of Roller Kingdom).

Last night was supposed to be agility but it felt like endurance to me. I know that I am weak and I know I have a looooong way to go before ever being ready to scrimmage. One of the things I have a lot of trouble with currently are knee taps. Thursday night we did, what felt to me like, a half hour of knee taps. I don't have the strength in my legs yet to push myself back up from the ground.

To be fair to myself, I can't even do knee taps OFF skates so that's probably a good place to start. In basic training when someone would get in trouble, one of the Drill Sergeants' favorite things to have us do "Iron Mikes". You start at one end of a hallway. Take a step forward with one foot and then do a deep lunge to the floor. Stand back up and bring your feet together. Step forward with the opposite foot. Rinse. Repeat.

I could do them when I was 20. 10 years and more pounds than the general public needs to know later, not so much. I can't just will myself to do them instantly because that will only frustrate me. What I NEED to do is drop a substantial amount of weight - also something that doesn't happen overnight.

Both Mr. Carnate and I have added the "My Fitness Pal" app to our iPhones and are tracking the food that we eat. It's appalling to find out just how many calories grams of fat and sodium even supposedly "healthy" food has. It's a major relearning process that will take a while.

I'm also trying to do cross-training on non-derby days. I did 30 minutes on the recumbent bike doing intervals on Wednesday. I think I'll try a different program this weekend. It definitely works the derby butt muscles. I need to dig my elliptical out from the debris in the second bedroom so I can do more things that work my quads.

I feel like I'm close to being back where I was on the old skates (sans the foot pain I'm not supposed to be mentioning). Sin D came up to me last night and said that while I wasn't low enough in derby stance that I look more confident on my skates. I don't feel it but if other people see it then I guess that's a good thing!

Per Hazel's recommendation a few posts back I did my trucks a half turn before practice on Thursday and that felt stable so I'm going to do them another half turn at open skate this Sunday. We'll see how it goes!

And now for a skate centerfold shot taken with my new Nikon D70s camera! :-D