Monday, June 3, 2013

Mischief Monday: New Sports

I am sore this morning. Kind of an all over muscle soreness with a few concentrated areas that hurt worse- my hip, my elbow, and the portion of my foot with the blister. All of this, because I joined a new sport. We had practice for the first time last night. And the mischief part of that? It doesn't involve the dogs. The new sport is Roller Derby.

Derby Day One-4012
Geared up but afraid to stand up
I don't normally post my non-dog stuff on the blog, I know. But, this new sport will be practices two or more times per week for at least the next seven weeks, so will be taking up a lot of my time, and I think I might want to have something to look back on and see how far we've come. So far, it is a lot of fun, but I kind of feel like the trainers are trying to kill us and have us melt into the ground. First, we skated in circles (once we got the courage to stand up on skates for the first time in years!). Then, we did falling and stopping drills where we were introduced to some of the basic ways to stop yourself when moving- three of which involve deliberately falling- knee stops, using left, right, or both knees. What falling on your knees repeatedly means is that you have to get up off your knees over and over and over again, and my thighs are telling me about it this morning!

Derby Day One GoPro-5520
First attempt at 25 laps in 5 minutes. No, I got no where close!

After we got the hang of the basic ways to stop, including T-stops and plow stops as well as the knee stops, the real torture began. (By this point, by the way, I had fallen once on accident, landing on my not-padded hip and my elbow, both of which are also telling me about it this morning.) We did a time trial of how many laps we could finish in 5 minutes. Man, I started off pretty strong, but by that point, my legs were killing me and I'd developed a blister on my foot, and it was all I could do to keep going after a few laps. To pass Boot Camp, you need to skate 25 laps minimum in the five minutes given. I made it to 14 and felt dead at the end. I'm confident that by the end of Boot Camp I'll have a hard time believing I could only make 14 laps and that I thought it was hard!


Derby Day One GoPro-5558
Being pushed by a partner around the track.
We also did a bunch of different drills. One of them involved being pushed and pushing a partner around the track. It sounds like it would be easy to be pushed, but staying in a deep enough crouch to not fall over but not actually moving your own legs for momentum really makes the thighs burn deep. And pushing a partner was surprisingly easy in comparison. We switched back and forth who was pushed and who was the pushee to help spread the pain more evenly.

Derby Day One GoPro-5545
Equal spacing and speed practice, with extra crazy mixed in
We also did a line drill to practice even spacing and speed. The spacing and speed part wasn't too hard until some of the trainers and more experienced girls started weaving back and forth up the moving spaced line! Thinking about where the weaving skater was, looking back for her, and not freaking out when she passed within inches of me, all that made the equal spacing a lot more difficult.

To throw in a little more torture, we were introduced to burpees on skates (which I now need to seriously practice without skates, along with my lunges, because ouch) as well as a "Simon says" type game on skates.  Basically, torture.

But in the end, it was so much fun. I can't wait for the next class.

9 comments:

  1. You are so brave!!! This does look like a lot of fun though =)

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  2. Stiff is good when it means you got some great exercise! I'd be too scared of falling to try that sport, however.

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  3. That is so awesome. I can't wait to read more about it too so I hope you'll definitely post about it more!

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  4. Oh my dog! That looks like so much FUN!!! Go you!
    www.dogtreatweb.com

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  5. Sounds painful but furry cool! I'm sure by the end of the seven weeks you will be rocking those rollers!

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  6. And here I thought Roller Derby was a glamorous sport...lol. You are very brave.

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  7. Roller Derby as in smacking people and stuff? We used to watch Roller Derby with my Nana and those girls were ruthless - yep, we LOVED it but you know I only skated once and hurt my back so bad I never tried it again...I was 40 :) Sounds like a blast though!!!

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  8. My person says that looks a little scary. You are very brave.

    BUT - a sport without Dogs??? What kind of sport is that??

    Licks,
    Cobi

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  9. Only one word ... crazy!!! Lol, I remember watching Roller Derby on TV as a kid and loving it but man, it's scary stuff. Good luck. I'm glad you're enjoying it you crazy girl :)

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