i’d like to start with something that made me happy the other day at the gym. i finally got a knee support, because my right knee bothers me when i run on the treadmill for too long, but i feel like i could go much farther if it weren’t for the knee pain. well i was correct in assuming this! i wore it the other day and easily ran another whole mile, with no knee pain. i felt awesome 🙂 this takes me up to 3 miles running with no stopping, so i think it’s safe to say that my endurance is back to where it was when i was considering doing a 5k. maybe i will meet that goal this year!
now, another gym related note. when is the last time anyone has heard the song fergalicious by fergie? i totally forgot it existed, until i heard it at the gym. haha…
oh and also, i was doing a workout this week that goes 10 burpees, 30 second squat hold, 10 star jumps, 30 second plank, repeat 10 times. and god, i still hate those blasted squat holds! but i didnt have trouble with the burpees, and i was thinking during them, hmmm… doing burpees makes me feel like i could do anything. kind of like a superhero, lol. i dunno. i shared this sentiment with mark and he just laughs at the name burpees. alright, squat thrusts if you will! 😛
anywho, onto practice last night. it felt good to be skating again after a league meeting tuesday, where many goals and plans for this year were laid out. inspiring & hopeful! this is going to be a kick ass year for the radicals.
when we were skating backwards, i saw this girl my hellody from dutchland and thought whoa – that reminds me of how figure skaters skate backwards really fast when theyre getting ready to do a jump thing. i used to watch figure skating with my mom when i was younger a lot. i hope someday i can skate backwards that well. my hellody has been to a few of our practices to get in some extra skate time lately. i love her name, as i love any sanrio character of course x)
we did endless jammer, where theres 2 packs on the track equidistant and the jammer has to get through both. well on my turn i couldnt get through my first one 😦 my second turn, i got through one but not the other, cuz burger was in the other. i thought again, “ugh, i dont know what makes me think i could be a jammer….” must erase negative thoughts! if i’m ever to have a hope of accomplishing what i want. i’m getting the positively derby cd in the mail next week, so we’ll see what positive self talk can do. i used to, but got away from it. silly shark legs!
we also did a drill where we sprinted to the other end of the rink, 180ed, sprinted halfway, plough stopped, and sprinted to the end and baseball slid. then we did some sort of calisthenic together before starting it all over. it was definitely tiring due to the jack knifes, and squats, but i felt fine. i even noticed that i was getting to the end first, more than once! that surprised the shit outa me, and of course made me feel proud of myself. i’m so glad my endurance is back. and somehow with eating some crappy food the past 2 weeks, i have managed to maintain my weight.
RDWC starts sunday, and my wellness coach emailed me about some concerns she had about the diet they posted. she thinks if i were to follow it, i would be coming in way below my calorie suggestion levels daily, and it doesn’t include enough protein for a very active person like myself. now mark is a skeptic of the herbalife shakes i’ve been using, and thinks she is just trying to get me to keep buying from her. but i had just put another order in when she brought up these concerns, so i dont agree with him. i mean, if you can’t trust your wellness coach, who can you trust?
but seriously, my plan with the rdwc had already changed from last years go. last year i did not cheat at all, i stuck to the meal plan precicely with no cheats, and ended up losing about 15 lbs, toning muscles, and getting to where i wanted to be endurance-wise. so of course i felt complete success from doing it and would recomend it to anyone who asked.
am i looking to lose another 15 lbs this time around? no, that would make me underweight for my height. i’m looking to tone up and get stronger. and really, everyone is different, they have different nutritional needs. so i had planned on doing my herbalife shakes for breakfast during the work week, and follow the diet – just a little looser. perhaps not giving up all sugars, just refined ones of course. i mean i have to deviate anyway since i am vegetarian now, but they mainly stress that you just follow the guidelines in making better diet choices. so i think i’ll still do that, and just focus on getting enough protein.
so there you have it! now i’ve eaten some sweets today, so i’m off to the gym for a good sweat sesh 🙂
Archive for January, 2012
we did real pyramids on the big track for the first time since i’ve been back to practice on thursday. i was really excited, i’ve been waiting for that to kind of gauge my endurance to see if i’m back to the level i was at at the end of the summer. my goal from the jump start the new year challenge was to get back to that point – and it seems i have met that goal 🙂 we did 2-4 and then 4-2 in opposite direction. we were in two groups, fast and faster, i was in fast. i was psyched to see that i did not get all winded and huff and puff by the ends of my laps. i felt really good!
we did some timing drills for knocking the jammer out and turning around, and i learned what long blocking is.
its just basically a hello kitty move where your goal is to slow down ur opponent, not necessarily hit her with force. kinda wrap yourself around her front to push them out. thats gonna take a little more practice for me at least! i kept hip checking.
oh and i got mum to buy me gumballs when i was back there last weekend, along with some green astro nuts, as my nuts are pretty damn old. i was so excited to have gumballs like all the cool kids haha, it seems lots of girls got them for xmas. renee said she likes them but u do have to get used to them since theyre rounded, if ur not used to rounded toe stops, which i’m not. walking on them is easy, and popping up on them was fine, but i did notice i was wobbling when i’d try my running starts during pyramids. that’s kinda skeery cuz what if i just wobbled and toppled right over and snapped my ankle! i’m sure i will get used to them though. overall i love em. mal said she ordered em too.
liberty announced the winners of elections. courtney is staying our treasurer, and burger is new skater rep. we have a league meeting tuesday, which is good cuz we need to have a year start meeting, but i wish i could get skate time in too! x)
last nights practice was, to my dismay, mostly off-skates. i have really been wanting another endurance heavy practice to see where i’m at more. but last night started off all geared up minus skates, no sneakers.
we did a bunch of the exercises from RDW as a group, after sprinting around the track in our socks for a little bit. kinda hurt my tootsies!
by the end of the night, though they felt weird. we spent all night doing sock derby, practicing the things we’ve been working on in just our sock. liberty said if we can do it that way, and understand it, we can do it in our skates. it sure looked silly! after a while though, it didnt feel as goofy. i kept hoping we’d put our skates on though so i could get a good workout. we finally did 10 minutes to 11. boy did my feet feel fat, they were all swollen. normally that part happens after the skates have been on for a while.
by the end of the night i felt like i might be getting blisters, but today i feel fine. sock derby. who knew?
thursday’s practice wasn’t much of a workout, but thats okay. kitty broke down the things we’ve been working on and explained them a lot. i’m glad, because of course i zone out at any given moment when people are talking, so the more often i hear it the more likely i am to grasp it.
it was try out night and one girl came, and freak is back as well. so liberty was down the end with them most of the night. on the small track we did 2-4 pyramids with partner. like me and mj went together, touching the whole time, and stayed inside doing calisthenics while ginger and mal did thier laps. so sorta like partner pyramids but with an actual partner. we did them in normal and opposite directions. being on the inside doing opposite direction sucked. i felt like if i picked up my left foot i’d kick mj, so i just coasted around the corners 
we did a sort of simon says thing, and then the 2 on 1s, and 3 on 1s where the blockers hit the jammer out and skate backwards to force her to come in behind them. the other blocker makes sure she stays in play, skating backwards within 10 feet of her, or in the 3 on 1, 2 blockers fall back together and one keeps them in play.
i kind of wanted to have an endurance practice again, but oh well. i hope on tuesday we do that backwards skating weave!
tomorrow is the final day of my jump start the new year challenge. i will do my last weigh in, take after pictures, and measurements. i wonder if i have any chance of winning? probably not. i’m sure there are a lot of people competing who had a lot more weight to lose than me, and were on the shakes so they did. i know one dude posted last week that he’d lost 15 lbs already. i’ll be lucky if i did that. my goal on ichange was 10 lbs, and i passed that a little while ago and made a new goal, 5 more lbs. we’ll see. the prize is $200 for most weight loss, and $75 for most lean muscle gained, and lord knows i could use the money!
the roller derby workout challenge starts the 29th. i will miss my granola bars and peanut butter with added sugar! i am looking forward to seeing what this year’s prizes are…
i’d like to list some things i missed about derby practice while i was on leave.
- finding random bruises
- pushing myself to skate hard
- human contact
- skating backwards
- walking on my toe stops
and the only 2 things i liked about being away from derby:
- being able to get 8 hours of sleep on a tuesday or thursday night
- saving gas money
yeah so i have some bruises on my body and they bring me great joy 🙂
a lot of girls got the gumball toe stops for xmas. i want! my left toe stop is tore up a little from skating outside. i also need new laces, my one is still tied together at the end. come to think of it, my toe covers are stretched out and faded as well. derby santa clause, where were u this year?
i just got transferred to a different school, and work later hours now. i cant say how glad i am to not have to drag my tired ass out of bed at 5am on wednesdays and fridays anymore! so thankful. practice tonight, weeee….
we did the skating backwards weave again on thursday. it is so frustrating! its one of those things that i just want to force myself to do over and over until i get it perfect. grrr. practice will eventually make perfect though. its such an awkward feeling, but so was regular weave when i started doing that i suppose.
we did 3 on 1s where the middle blocker was to fall back and knock the jammer out. i couldn’t get through when i jammed, and kept getting knocked down and out. i totally let it get to me and it made me remember i suck at jamming! i kind of forgot about that since i’ve been gone. so i was standing there beating myself up over it, and of course forgot that i was the middle person and what i was supposed to be doing. i just drifted off into my own thoughts and forgot where i was for a moment. not good! when i snapped back, my mind went blank on the positions for communicating. one, pivot and two. ack! must exercise my mind and get back up to speed.
kitty showed us a drill called the windy city touchdown. cones are set up in a zigzag pattern on the track and you just grapevine in or out towards the next one and touch it and wait for the whistle to go to the next. its a good exercise for your legs i guess. we went backwards and forwards. i had trouble figuring out what way was easier to grapevine though, like left foot in front or right. i liked it though.
i also liked another drill that sarah found online, where you keep your hands on your helmet and make your way across the rink – right knee down, left knee down, right up, left up, jump. and so on all the way across. its supposed to be a great core workout since you cant use your hands to help you get up. i thought it’d be more challenging actually. i hope we do it more!
havina announced she’s leaving, i guess her work schedule is too crazy. that sucks, she was a great addition to the team. her hip checks were phenomenal! i think we are having try outs thursday. i hope we get some new talent this winter!
i am so glad to be back 🙂 and the best part is i feel like i never left! i was so afraid that i’d forget how to skate or lose all my skills in a month. but its just like riding a bike. and i feel like i’m in better shape than when i left, so thats cool. the 2 lap swedish still had me huffin and puffin, but it felt so good to challenge myself again.
since i rotated my wheels, they feel balder. i noticed when i tried doing plough stops, and during swedish. i haaate skidding out around corners, and though that didnt exactly happen, i came pretty close to it. i kind of lost control on the one corner that used to always give me trouble when i first started. man, that feels like eons ago. i used to always fall and get so frustrated! if only i’d known it was because of my crappy wheels.
what i really want to do is send in my poisons to get re-grooved. i have to look it up online and see how much it costs. theyre disgusting from skating outside.
anyway kitty showed us a new weave. its a backwards weave where you face the skaters in the pace line and skate backwards. boy did that feel wierd! i sucked at it, especially trying to get going at first, but at least i wasnt the only one who had trouble. i hope we do it more so we get more comfortable to work up to face to face blocking.
i had eaten a lot of extra calories during the day to account for burning so many skating, its a sizeable leap from my normal workouts, and i didnt want to short change myself too much. but then liberty announced that there was going to be a league meeting, but dress to skate as well. luckily the meeting only lasted an hour so i got an hour of skate time in.
oh, also i was scared about only getting 4ish hrs of sleep after practice and feeling exhausted at work today. so yesterday i tried to lay down for a 20 minute nap. everything i read says naps can be a very healthy pick me up if you take a 20 minute one in the afternoon. i set my alarm, had mark call me, but alas i snoozed and slept for an hour. i am telling myself that it is not a total failure – compared to the naps i used to take (after inducing a food coma from stress eating a hot fudge sundae daily), one hour is not that big of a deal. what i was most wary of was that it may start a cycle. like i’d be tired after work today, and then have to nap again, and so on an so forth. basically, how it went before. but i was pleasantly surprised to realize as i left work today that i never crashed!
i kept the pma high and did not let myself get too comfy on the couch watching post lunch frasier, and jumped right into a workout. so it is now 7:59pm and i expect to be crashing soon. going to bed so early means less time to spend with my boyfriend, but its the price i pay to stay on a “normal” sleeping schedule.
also of note is how wired i was after practice last night. more wired than i think i’ve ever been! it didnt help that mark had passed out on the couch with a headache and i had to actually blow dry my hair after showering to take cujo out since he’d already peed inside once and it was fucking frigid outside. i had a delicious shake – cookies and cream with peanut butter and banana blended in – as a post workout snack, used lavendar dr bronners to calm, and tried my damndest to meditate …but my body wasnt having it, i was wide awake. i probably only got four and half hours tops. oh well. i need to look up some methods to wind down and fall asleep quickly.
all in all, i am so psyched to be back ❤ derby love ftw!
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