Achy me

MONDAY

Woke up sore this morning. I guess the break from climbing and pump was good, in that your body does get used to your routine and it's nice to shake things up every once in a while. The bad is that you end up feeling like you are starting from square one after a break. Shoulders, neck and back are stiff. I'll have to try and get to Yoga or Flow a few times this week. I'm also trying to figure out what I did to my wrists... I really felt them climbing on Saturday and doing triceps yesterday. Carpel tunnel? Perhaps the open palm strike at the self defense course last Monday? (I was feeling it by the end).

Felt really tired from the combination of Pump and then two back to back skating sessions yesterday. I returned to the Beginner session and then did the intermediate. I was secretly kind of glad that I had to miss the advanced practice session to rush off to Tara's improv night at Zemra.

Still having trouble balancing on the left, but given the fact that I am so comfortable on my right on one skate, I'm starting to think that it's actually my boots or blade. I get a "grinding" sound off the ice when I try to glide and balance on the left. Not sure what that is.

I'm not comfortable with many of the beginners now, particularly the one who come from hockey that are just weaving back and forth with the wide arm swing as I'm trying to get by. I've been trying to follow the inline track patterns, and at a certain point, it gets harder to dodge someone skating hockey style when I'm at a certain speed. Another thing I've noticed besides the number of Hockey guys in this session is the fact that they all just sit down on the ice when they take a break! I'm not sure that's safe, but I certainly do know it's cold. I very different group than the last session that's for sure. I'll have to dial it back and just focus on technique during Learn to Skate. I do find it hard to get low into position, particularly with the hip-thing we were doing last week without the momentum of a certain degree of speed to get down low.

We went clockwise (normally we skate counter-clockwise) and Backwards as the warmup to intermediate session. It was pretty obvious at that point so see which people were figure skaters out there, that do things like that so smoothly and graceful. A real contrast to the overly aggresive body language of the hockey skaters. Or maybe I'm just a little more aware of body language after I revisited it in the self defense seminar Jen and I did recently. I tried to get down low into basic for the backwards skate, although I noticed most people were standing up (is that a figure skating thing?). I was suprised that I could get any semblance of a crossover going in the clockwise direction, but I guess from practicing it during inline since last summer as the warm-down I'm getting more of the muscle-memory of reverse direction. Hopefully it will come in handy when I hit the Montreal Indy-track again!

During intermediate we did a pack drill, which I felt really comfortable with since it's what we do with inline. Although again, I'm uncertain as to the degree of contact I should be having when I'm running into the person in front of me. I don't think we're actually supposed to be pushing the person in front at all, although I did try and make sure I said "contact" when I did run into them. You could tell the inliners were used to it and doing it more comfortably, but I think there were some people who weren't used to it. How do Ice people avoid contact when they are drafting in so close to the person in front?

The inliners talked about how fun the bucket drill was last week. I tried my best to remember the hip-thing and I really felt it when I was doing it right. I left just as they were proposing a game of "Asteroids", when Tara asked me later what "Asteroids" was, I told her it was a speed/agility drill where the coaches threw the cones at us as we tried to cross the ice. She didn't believe me. I guess I'm just the Boy Who Cried Wolf... I try and make up ridiculous things up to be funny and she was assuming I was doing it to her again. Carolyn told me afterwards that the advanced session focused more on technique and that she learned to torque outwards on the crosscuts... I wondered whether she was in fact actually moving her body slightly outwards away from the turn or whether it was the +1/-1 thing we do in inline to compensate us back into a squared neutral position when we THINK we are neutral, but actually twisting and dropping our shoulder into the turn.


Everyone in the car-pool decided to bail on Indoor Inline practice tonight, so I opted to stay home and try to clean up the house and get some chores done. I'm feeling achy and like I'm fighting off an illness anyways, so today is a REST DAY.


WHAT I ATE MONDAY
Flax Bagel with light cream cheese, Apple, gummie sour berries, Chicken Noodle Soup, Yogurt, salmon in dill sauce, pickle, peanut butter sandwhich, green goodnes juice. orange juice, chocolate cookie cheesecake.