I have probably thought of topics for a thousand blog posts in the last couple days, but have not had one second to sit down and actually write any of them. It's now 9pm on Sunday night and I am completely exhausted. Between baking a cake, practice, a bout, helping with our Derby 101 class, another practice and a team cookout, I feel like I have run the derby marathon. Four more days of derby start tomorrow, then a 2 day break followed by 7 days straight up to our league championships. Whew...
This month marks my one year "derbyversary" and before I put on skates and aspired to a roller girl, my life was totally different. Generally my evenings consisted of cooking dinner, eating dinner, watching tv, and going to bed. More often or not, a bottle (or two of wine) was involved. Weekends were typically full of drinks too.
It wasn't like we were going out and partying, but it added up just the same. A typical Saturday started with beers while we did yard work, then maybe go out for lunch and a drink there too. On the way home, grab a bottle of wine and drink that while we made dinner. I don't think any of us felt like we needed to drink, it was more like something that came from lack of having anything better to do.
Between the pregnancy, miscarriage, and the drinking, I put on about 10 (more) pounds and was basically a lazy slug. When I finally decided to do this derby thing, part of the reason was that I wanted to get in shape. Apparently the thought never occurred to me that I should be in better shape to play derby.
When I first started skating with my Meat class, I didn't have a ton of trouble keeping up in the endurance department (I mean we were all newbs), but I was definitely slow. As a former high school athlete (read: half-assed attempts at random sports without much enthusiasm), I gave myself a little too much credit for having done sporty things in my adolescence.
The first endurance practice that I ever attended with my league was probably one of the worst, yet important days of my derby career to date. It was an outdoors practice in late summer and we were going to skate 12 miles around a point. From the start I knew things were going to be bad. I was trying really hard and yet a giant gap was forming in front of me in the pace line. In no time, other skaters were going around me, including other meaties who I had seen quit in long drills or endless pace lines when I had kept going. At one point I remember someone passing me and patting me on the shoulder. I know she meant well, but the look on her face was clearly one of pity.
It turned out that the problem that day was the rock hard starter wheels that had come on my skates; they made pavement a miserable, torturous experience. After a very kind vet skater loaned me some hybrid wheels, I went back and skated that point with ease. I felt a little vindicated, but nothing could change how that day made me feel. Mostly because it made me realize how other people must see me and forced me to look at myself the same way.
That endurance practice was a wake-up call and I vowed to make changes. At first I just started by trying harder. I tried to never have to stop in a drill and I practiced as much as I could. A lot of times I would seek out other skaters with skills I envied and take mental notes, trying out what I saw until I was able to start doing it myself.
I guess I did something right because when it came time for drafts, I was lucky enough to get drafted by the undefeated league champions. Frankly, I didn't know what they saw in me, but I was just ecstatic to skate with them... and that was when I found out that I hadn't even gotten to the real work.
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