I'm still here!

This is just a quick note while my boss isn't looking to say that I'm still here! I was unable to skate for most of September and October and NHRD has been on their off-season for November and December. We just had our season kickoff league meeting last night and we are ready to rock and roll for a super exciting 2011 season! Our first practice is tomorrow night and, Sod's Law, Mr. Carnate and I are closing on our first house that day. Only a handful of things in life trump derby but that's one of them.

I hope to get a post in this weeknd before my first practice on Monday but that will depend on Comcast's ability to keep their promise about turning on our interwebz on Friday.

See you all SOON!

The incredible invisible freshie.

"Where have you been?" you may ask. The answer to that well-deserved question is, "not skating". At least with the league. There comes a time in some derby girls' lives when their real life must temporarily push away their derby life. Unfortunately, I have been experiencing one of those times.

Between the tailbone injury, the leg injury, and a hellish situation at my real-life job, it has been a good two months since I've had a proper practice with the league. I was attending practices during my injured periods, just not skating, but since mid-August I have been working too much to be able to make weekday practices.

I've been trying to skate when I can - typically at lunch or at the end of the "standard" work day. It outdoor skating, which I have to say I'm not a huge fan of, so skating at Roller Kingdom on Saturday on the silky smooth surface was lovely. I know. I used the words "silky smooth surface" and "Roller Kingdom" in the same sentence but after the parking lot at work, I meant it.


I have been trying to stay involved on the weekends - those two precious days that I have deemed "mine" and which I refuse to let work defile as it has the rest of the week. You don't need to know what I do for work. It it will suffice to say that due to several unforeseen circumstances, most outside of my control, I spend a lot of time doing it as of late.

I miss derby. I miss the feeling that I'm doing something completely badass, even though I know that my skills are far from it. I am petrified that when we move to tryouts next season that I am going to fail and be exiled from this amazing group of women who I adore. The day of the meeting at work when I knew that the next few months would be hell, I spent my lunch in Mr. Carnate's car crying in the Wal-Mart parking lot about how work was going to temporarily force me to stop derby.

After a couple of productive weeks recently (and an article about Life/Work balance sent by Mr. Carnate) I decided that for one day a week (for now) my company can make do without me. It will do me (or my company) absolutely no good if I finish these projects, only to be a completely useless mass of gibbering human. One night a week of getting my ass handed to me for three hours will hopefully recharge me for the week to come. I just want to feel like I'm DOING something!

So this Thursday I am going to practice. From what I hear I am going to be in rough shape on Friday morning - must remember to strechhhhh afterward!

On the food front, Weight Watchers has been going quite well, considering my activity level has been low. I've lost 12 pounds in the last 6 weeks, although some of that may have been muscle mass from being derby-less. That's 12 less pounds to lug around the track for 25 in 5. That's 12 less pounds to land on my ass practicing transitions. That's 12 less pounds to haul up off the ground after being taken out in spectacular fashion during a drill.

I've lost 12 of these!

I have miles to go - in order to become a WW lifetime member I have to eventually make a goal weight of less that 169 pounds. I haven't been that weight since I was 19 and fresh out of basic training. I don't know if that's attainable now in my early 30's. I sure as heck am going to try. 85 pounds to go... the average weight of an 11-year old girl.

I Heart Food

My post this morning is going to be a little bit about Helen and a little bit about the person behind Helen.

I love food. I love the taste of a juicy medium-rare steak (apologies to the veggies I just grossed out). I love loaded baked potatoes. I love lasagna. I love bacon. I love ice cream sundaes. Food just tastes so freaking nice I can't stand it sometimes. This is at least a part of the reason I am the size I am today. (Note: I do eat a variety of foods, these are just some of the "bad" foods that I *love* the taste of)

In an attempt to reconcile my love of food with my desire to be able to haul my butt around the track fast enough to pass my 25 in 5 sometime this century, among a few other personal reasons, I decided to join Weight Watchers last week.

I really think I am ready at this point to make my eating habits a "lifestyle change" as all the people who know about such things say it should be. One of the things that I have learned very quickly in the last 7 days has been that the alternative choices I've been making to try to be healthier aren't, in fact, all that much healthier after all.

For those who don't know, the Weight Watchers system assigns all foods a point value based on calories, total fat, and dietary fiber. A 200 calorie food with 8 grams of fat and 1 gram of fiber is going to "cost" more points than a 200 calorie food with 2 grams of fat and 4 grams of fiber. Each person in the program is assigned a points limit based on current weight, gender, activity level, and age. At the moment, I can have 32 points each day.

One might think, as I did, that they are being "good" by having a Chicken Caesar Wrap at D'Angelo's versus, say, an equivalent size BLT. Said chicken caesar wrap will put you out 20 points. That's right, boys and girls, 2/3 of your daily points allowance for one "healthy" wrap. Let's look at this example for a moment. Sure, it's got lettuce (0 points veggie, yay!), and chicken (lean protein, yay!), but it also has creamy caesar dressing (fatty), parmesan cheese (fatty), and a wrap (fatty). I have learned quickly to not be fooled by a food item's "healthy" appearance.

I could give any number of examples of places where, in the last 8 months since I started roller derby, I've tried to make the "healthy" choice where that choice really wasn't any good at all. Here I am wondering why I'm sweating my ass off for two hours at practice twice a week and going to an open skate on my own and NOT losing weight.

The answer to my question has johnny rocketed me in the sternum and hip checked me off into a far corner of the rink in the last week. What I'm trying to do now is reconcile my love for "bad" foods with my desire to be successful in the program. My first experiment starts today.

Mr. Carnate (who is also doing the program) and I have done really well this week. I found a way to make spaghetti and meatballs for 11 points (whole wheat pasta and ground turkey meatballs), and I made a chicken chow mein recipe packed with veggies and yum for only 5 points! We are treating ourselves to "bad" food tonight. I am planning to have one of my vices... a loaded baked potato (SO GOOD!) which will hit me 13 points all on its own. The point is, I have to plan for it. I'm being extra careful with my points today and munching on lots of veggies (cucumber slices on a hot day anyone?) which have 0 points. I can't do this every day but the beauty of the WW program is that it doesn't say, "you can't have this food because it's bad," it says, "Have the foods that you enjoy but in moderation and if they have heavy points, plan for it."

The first true test will be this weekend's away bout in Vermont. I'm staying in a hotel, dangerously close to the Ben & Jerry's and Cabot Cheese factories, and going to after parties where large quantities of food and alcohol will undoubtedly be consumed. Will I have the will power to say NO to that plate of bacon ranch fries or that giant glass of fruity carb-laden alcoholic yumminess? If I breakdown and partake, will I be honest enough to tally up what my indulgence has cost me in progress? We shall see.

Derrière Defense

I certainly have plenty of natural padding in the buttockular region but apparently not quite enough (see the last two posts). This week I managed to find some crash pads that should fit and I went ahead and got them.

SS Trixie has told me and many others that wearing butt pads of any type is like wearing confidence. I'm sincerely hoping that is the case as I seem to have lost some of mine after my fall a couple of weeks ago.

I went to open skate tonight and could definitely tell that I was being more tentative than usual, even in a recreational skating setting. If I fall again on it in the near future I could do some serious damage that no doctor can really do anything about beyond saying, "Here's a donut pillow. Have a nice day." I don't want that to happen... I still have my goal of passing my twos before the beginning of the 2011 season!

In other news, I'm playing the Seabrook Meltdowns mascot, "Atomic Betty" next weekend at Roller Consolation. I am SO EXCITED. I'm going to roast in my outfit but it's definitely going to be worth it. To top it off, the Meltdowns have invited me to their team dinner on Tuesday! I know I belong to the league as a whole but being in the unteamed purgatory can sometimes feel... lonely (even though there are 10 other people like me out there). It's nice to feel like I'm a part of something more than that, even though it's only for one day :-)

Failbone

As I mentioned in my last post I managed to fall HARD on my tail bone in a spectacular fashion nearly two weeks ago at practice. The truth is, it doesn't feel any better today than it did the day after the fall which makes me sad. I know there's nothing that can really be done for it beyond taking it easy.

It's amazing how many activities in life use that lovely little piece of bone we call the coccyx. I've skated recreationally twice since then but hard skating and deep crossovers are quite painful. I am missing practice on Sunday for a family function (Sister Carnate is in from St. Louis) so here's hoping it starts to heal up for league practice on Tuesday.

One bad fall in 7 months of derby isn't a bad track record though... I generally end up landing on one butt cheek or fall forward (as I should be) and don't have any issues.

Summer Doldrums

I haven't written for a while... it looks like the other derby blogs I follow are equally slow this time of year. It sort of feels like nothing has been happening, but at the same time I've been busy out of my head with derby stuff. I recently took on some additional responsibility in the league and had to step back from coordinating stats to make room in my brain.

Our home season will soon be drawing to a close since after the beginning of September, several inches of ice will cover our bouting venue track. Skate Free or Die will still be busy bees as they work to become eligible for WFTDA ranking in the coming months.

I will be busy busting my butt to pass level twos before January. Most of the April class has leveled up and been teamed already so there aren't many left in that weird la la land that is Level 1's.

I fell HARD on my tailbone at Tuesday's practice. I went to open skate on Friday to test it out and I could skate but it was definitely sore and it was uncomfortable to get low and hold it.

I feel obligated to make up for my lack of skating skills with off-skates work for committees. I also do it because I adore the league and want to see it be wildly successful. This weekend, though, I think I overdid it.

With the exception of a couple of hours to watch Max Payne with Mr. Carnate I spent the ENTIRE weekend working on derby stuff. I had an inkling that I'd gone too far last night when I saw the look on Mr. Carnate's face as I was answering derby emails on my phone while he was trying to sleep. I didn't mean to continue today but it just sort of happened. I get "in the zone" on projects sometime and need to see them through immediately so I have closure. It got to be 3pm and I realized that I'd spent the better part of two days working and then realized that I needed to start thinking about practice.

I thought about having to tell Mr. Carnate, "Bye sweetie, I'm going to practice" after essentially ignoring him the entire weekend. While I love roller derby, he deserves better than that. I made the (tough) decision to skip practice to spend time with him. I know I won't get better if I'm not skating but sometimes real life and marriages need to take the driver's seat.

I hope to have more interesting news to report soon (although I did earn my first two derby bruises from Slick Tracy and Moxie Moonwalk!). I have added contact information to my profile if anyone would like to reach my outside the comments section. :-)

Swoop, swoop-eh-doop...

I made it out to open skate again last night (which worked out well since practice this evening was cancelled). I really wanted to work on transitions but I chickened out since I was the only derby person there (until Tank showed up later) and didn't want to be falling constantly all by myself.

I decided that I wanted to work on swoops... that graceful, lunging move that gets you from inside to outside or outside to inside lickety-split. I watch people like Roxie and PutUNya do them and they are so smooth and graceful with it. The look effortless while I mostly still feel like it's a weird contortion to turn that sharply. If I'm going to be a good blocker, I need to learn to be more mobile on the track I think swoops are a big part of that.

As I learned the last time we did a drill on these, turning your hips is the key. My hips, being cranky and arthritic, don't like to turn fluidly on my own. I probably looked ridiculous doing it but I found that moving my arms in the direction I want to turn, dancer-style, seemed to help. I still find swooping left easier than swooping right but by the end of my 2-hour session I was feeling ok with them.

I think this week is a blocking week which I am GREATLY looking forward to. League practice is Thursday and I'm hoping to show up early to work on transitions by myself off to the side before practice starts. I know that the endurance will come (crossovers do feel nearly second nature now) but there's a big ol' wall up between me and those turning toe stops that will allow me to scrimmage, hopefully by the end of the year!