Speed Trials

Just came back from a preview screening of “Whip It” – the new Drew Barrymore/Ellen Page vehicle about Roller Derby. The entire RVRG crew headed out to the cinema for the screening, and what solidarity it was to have us all there together.

The movie was pretty formulaic, the story was a little asinine, but I tell you what: I felt pretty damn cool sitting in that theatre with my pleather jacket on and my peeps filling three rows worth of seats, and I was proud to answer the woman who sat next to me that YES, the girls in our league really do hit that hard. It was one of those moments where everything kind of stops and where I sort of realized that I actually AM a derby girl. (You know, it’s like those weird moments where the sound of your own name seems really odd to you – an objective realization of how you are seen in the world)

On my way home, I started reminiscing hardcore about my early days of Derby. I remember going to the Beast of the East 2008, as a spectator, to watch the girls. I bumped into a friend from high school, who I hadn’t seen in years, and she was on one of the Montreal teams. She said to me: “Derby will take over your life. But what a great thing!” and I got excited at the prospect.

However, at first, it didn’t take over my life, and I was scared that maybe I didn’t have it in me to be a Roller Girl. But I stuck with it, through my first big fall:

(that made me love that I could be so tough!)

…through hours of practices where it seemed I’d never get fast, never hit hard, and never get the strategy… Through moments of self doubt where I thought everyone was against me and rather I not even show up to practice…

and then suddenly, there it was: I was thinking about derby all the time. I was waiting for practices instead of coming up with excuses not to go. I was invested in these girls that I skate with every week:

Derby had begun to take over my life. And then I started to ref, because I couldn’t bear to attend a Derby Bout and not be on skates. I learned so much in that season of reffing, and I owe a big thanks to the refs you showed me the way!

And then a few months ago, I found my Derby Name and I got my first uniform.

That game in Albany was the pinnacle of my derby career to date. And not because I was particularly stellar or even stood out in any way (I actually warmed the bench for most of the game). No, it was a moment I won’t forget because it was THE MOST FUN I’D EVER HAD ON SKATES.. The adrenaline was pumping, and the team was so cohesive. It was an amazing time!

It’s tough to get all sappy about something that’s supposed to be so baddass, but I can honestly say that I love Roller Derby. I love what it does for me, I love what I get from it, and I love the people who do it with me. I’m playing in London, ON this weekend, and I can’t friggin’ wait!

And through all that Derby love, comes the overwhelming knowledge that not only do we have a great league, we also have an entire pack of fresh meat who have already shown their dedication and commitment, working their little butts off to make the minimum skills test and become full fledged members. Nothing warms the heart more.

Now the only thing to do is wait with great anticipation for the coming out season of RVRG’s second team: the RIOT SQUAD!!! Stay tuned…

I did keep up with my running, and cross training. However, my knee started to get really sore, and my whole legs stiffened right up, and I had to cut back on my time (on Wednesday I ran 36 min instead of 42). It was brutal. I’ve never had any of these kinds of aches or pains before, and it really is a sign that I’m getting OLDER!

Yesterday I had roller derby practice, and I bought some knee sleeves, because I was so scared of what could happen if I went without them. About halfway through the second scrimmage, I fell on my knee really weird, and it sent this shooting pain up my leg. Tears sprung to my eyes, and I got really scared. I tried to take it easy for the rest of the scrimmage, but with every fall, it created that same pain, and I don’t know what to do now. I stretched as often as I could between jams, and put my feet up the moment I got home. I am going to go out for my run today, but I’m really going to monitor how the knee feels. And maybe it’s time to set up an appointment with a Physiotherapist and get some knee strengthening exercises to build it up. Man, I hate getting older!!!

This weekend was also a time of reflection in terms of eating and weight loss. Ever since I stopped “dieting” a couple of months ago, I gained those 15lbs I’d spent the last 3 years keeping at bay. Like, I gained them in a matter of weeks. It’s totally like an albatross around my neck. I want them gone, and I want them gone NOW. But after doing a lot of reading on set points and eating disorders and restricting and all that, I found out that it’s going to take some time for my body to stop hoarding its calories, and to trust me again that I won’t starve it. I’ve also decided that I’m going to work at losing the weight slowly, aiming at 1/2 pound per week. (At the end of this 10-week running program, I hope to be 5lbs lighter. I will only weigh myself at the end of the 10-weeks, and not at all during the program).

However, it is totally scary because over the past three years, while I have definitely been this weight before, I’ve never STAYED at this weight for very long, because I’d always revert back to a crash diet or fast. So while I try and try to convince myself that I am doing things the right way this time, it is still very uncomfortable for me to be at this weight for so long…. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I have had an anxious feeling for the past three days.

The other terrifying thing is that I now have to actually deal with whatever it is that I’ve been repressing while going crazy on my weight. During my time with my counselor, I was given some meditative exercises to check in with my feelings (which I’ve been completely disengaged from for a long time). It may seem strange that a girl who cries at the drop of a hat is not in touch with her feelings, but it’s true, I really don’t have a clue. Whenever I cry, and I actually literally think to myself: “Oh, it must be that time of the month, or I’m just over-tired, or I haven’t had my coffee yet today, etc…” I always associate the crying with a physical ailment, and I NEVER address any kind of emotional tie that might be associated with it.

It was a pretty revealing moment when I sat with my counselor and told her that I was a highly emotional person, and then went on to talk about highly personal matters for about 20 minutes without showing ANY sign of emotion. When she asked me about it, I said, “oh well, I mostly cry in private, when I’m alone.”

There is definitely hope on the horizon, however. First of all, the 10-week program that I’m following is EXTREMELY manageable, and actually quite enjoyable. It’s something that I can build on, and sustain over many weeks.

The other extremely important thing is that Angelo and I are talking our way through this whole thing. He’s become my ally, and I trust him more now. I don’t get nearly as embarrassed if he walks in on me while I’m doing an exercise video, and I don’t get nearly as embarrassed when he “catches” me eating. That has made a huge difference. Another guy that has really lifted my spirits lately is this guy:

He comes into the apartment all the time, and we’ve named him “Hunter”. He actually belongs to our neighbour downstairs, but for the time being, he spends most of his evenings with us. It’s great. There is nothing more soothing that petting a cat and hearing him purr. We’re really getting attached to the little guy, and we’re pretty happy he’s around.

Angelo has been working on his motorbike for the past week… in our living room!

Let me explain… we’re talking motorized bicycle here!!

He bought a bicycle motor from Bike Dump Dave last Saturday, and has spent his evenings putting it together. It does look pretty cool, I must admit.

And so yesterday morning we headed down to the Bike Dump for some final fine-tuning and to give it a test run.

Angelo and Dave worked on the wiring for about an hour…

And then it was ready to go. Just look at that grin on my man’s face!!

Saturday was also the day of the first annual Ottawa Idiotarod, and the Roller Girls put a team together for the event. If you’re unfamiliar with the Idiotarod races, they’re a play on the Iditarod, which is a somewhat famous dog-sled race in Alaska. The Idiotarod trades dogs for humans, and a sled for a shopping cart.

Unfortunately, when we got there we realized only two teams had registered (boo), and that the other team was made up of bike messengers!! It reiterated that the two coolest groups in the city are the Roller Girls and the Bike Messengers! So it sort of turned into the battle of the sexes as well as the battle between two wheels and eight! In the end, though the boys were slightly faster than we were on the footrace, we ended up with more points, and won “Best Overall”. This was in no small part due to the efforts of Killer Kozac (Christine) who decorated our cart to look like a roller skate:

Oh man, this girl seriously kicks ass!! Look at that cart. Check out the toe-stop, the laces, the padding around the ankle. It was amazing!!!

And the whole team contributed to filling the cart with recycling, and donated items for a local community shelter.

All in all, it was a great time, a great race, and we hope that next year more teams will join in. I know RVRG will have a team (or two) next year!!

After the run, we just had time for a quick beer and then off to our regular Saturday practice.
Lots of skating, lots of scrimmaging. I pushed it as hard as I could, but exhaustion set in for me near the end, and I had my first ever practice meltdown!! Though we always say “there’s no crying in Derby”, it seems to me that there is nothing BUT crying in Derby. This time it was my turn; I lost my shit and cried like a baby for a good five to ten minutes in the bathroom. The worst part is that that was not the first or last breakdown I had THAT DAY. Woah, hormones much???

But when I got back to practice, we were in the midst of a seven-person train-of-pain (that’s when everyone lines up front to back and holds on to each other’s hips, and the girl in the middle skates her a$$ off, pushing three people in front of her and pulling the three people in the back). It’s one of my favourite drills, and I happily joined in and skated my two laps along with the rest of the girls. It was a great way to end the evening. (it also helps that the girls in the train cheer the skater on – nothing like a little positive reinforcement to get the morale up!)

Needless to say, I slept like a BABY last night!

But I will be. I have taken up the old adage that if you love something, set it free – if it comes back, it’s yours… I let go of running for a few months over the summer, and yet, somehow, it has come back to me. I spent the whole summer dog-earring a copy of Running For Mortals, and I started to see the appeal of running for pleasure, running for fun. John Bingham is big on acknowledging where someone is at present, so that they can safely progress to where they want to be in the future.

When I looked over the running programs in the book, I had to take a long hard look at my current fitness level, motivation level, time constraints, and (let’s face it) ability to see where I should begin my reintroduction to running. I determined that I should do the 10k run-walk program. At first, I was all “run-WALK??? I’ve run 10k on almost no training, and under 55min, and what are you talking about WALKING???” But then I realized that while it is true, I have run two 10k races with minimal training under 53 min actually, the fact still remains that I was not running regularly, I was not running for the joy of running. Anyone can bash out a race in a certain amount of time, if they’re really put to the wall, but I want to have a deep, lasting love affair with running, and so for now, yes, I will be running AND WALKING.

Today I ran for 5min, and walked for 1min X 7 for a total of 42 min of movement. It was the longest I had run in a LONG time. I had let myself get stuck in the 3km rut, punching out 20min runs maybe once or twice a week. It was doing me no good. Counting kilometres was doing me no good. I was running too fast and not enjoying myself. But today, I was counting minutes instead, and it was great, because I didn’t really care how far I got. I simply turned around at the 21min mark, and headed home. It was perfect.

On the 1min walks, I snapped a few pictures of the neighbourhood I ran in. Please note: I DO NOT LIVE IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD. IT IS EXTREMELY AFFLUENT AND MAKES ME NERVOUS. But it also shows just how beautiful Ottawa can be…

I was way happy with the run. At first I thought five minutes of running would seem like a long time (I thought back to those runs on the treadmill where I’d look at the timer every three seconds, hoping minutes would have gone by) but the breakdown of 5 to 1 was great and kept me motivated the whole time.

Another thing that surprised me was my heart rate and calorie burn. I thought for sure my stats would be on par (or even lower) than my stats on the 3km runs. I mean, after all, I was running the WHOLE time on THOSE runs. Surely that would equal a greater calorie deficit. I was amazed to see that I actually burned 264 calories in those 42 min, and my peak heart rate was 161bpm (my average was 140, which is still great, since I was purposely taking it slow).

The program is a 10-week program, which basically has me run-walking and cross training at a fairly steady level. It’s great because there’s a lot of variety to it, and I’m resolved to take it nice and slow this time. Another thing that John Bingham is all about is injury prevention. He says that our cardiovascular system, our muscular system, and our joints and ligaments all have different rates of improvement. So just because your lungs are able to push you through extra mileage right away, it doesn’t mean your muscles or joints are ready for it. So you have to take things slow – increasing the speed, and the distance, and the time in little itty bitty increments. After all, I have all the time in the world, don’t I?

I’m pretty pumped for this training program. I really had a great time on this run. I don’t even know how far I ran, and really, I don’t care. Sure, if I run the same course all the time, I’ll be able to see if I get FARTHER the more I run it, but other than that little measuring stick, I’m happy to just be outside, clearing my head, working my lungs, and enjoying the sites and sounds around me.

Sigh. PS. Isn’t this the cutest walkway you’ve ever seen?

Ian – the skinniest man on earth.

Ange eating a Philly Cheese Steak (gotta do it!)

Mmmm… Cheeeese Steak…

Incognito Bainsworth…

The court. Day two.

We heart PBR!

And the obligatory shot of coach, passed out, with beer in hand.