:: Mindrella's Life ::

:: Thursday, August 05, 2004 ::

Still in Pain . . . .

But I only have one more day to get through and evidently my pain has inspired others to actually, almost break a sweat. In honor of my pain Christine has done 25 leg lifts and would've thrown in 25 jumping jacks too but doctor's orders forbade it. Go Christine! I'm so proud of you.

Just a quick detour though . . . . after much resistance to all things "blog," congratulations go out to Neet who finally broke down and gave in to the blogging mafia! You knew it was only a matter of time before we broke you down and you succumbed but I'm all so awfully glad you did. *smirk*

Now on to other things . . . namely me! HA! Well as the title suggests I am still in pain. Not quite so much pain but pain nonetheless. I still have Mt. Everest size craters on my ankles that are disguising themselves as blisters. I still hurt all over and now to make matters worse, my right knee is giving me a lot of problems. Well not exactly my knee but the outside right quad muscle that connects to your patella. I think I might have bursitis. Which means a trip to the doctor's office when I get home. Oh joy. But I digress. So except for that one muscle, the rest of my legs feel pretty good. I have a couple new blisters and my feet keep spasming but other than that I'm doing pretty good.

Yesterday's warmups though were brutal. I (along with some others) had ask for dryland skating - or what they call imitations - drills. They were brutal but for me very effective in getting my body to do things my body doesn't want to do. I mean hey - I was a couch potato from about age 19 to 38 my body's used to doing nothing. But I have a few new things that I can work on when I get back home. Drills yesterday were more straight-away drills, balancing etc. Very hard. We did get to do a 200 meter sprint which was fun. I almost fell on my ass but it was still fun. We were also told that our afternoon skate was whatever we wanted to work on and the coaches would just be there for us to come to for advice. I worked on the ice drills I had learned so far that week. Andrea pretty much thought I was a masochist because I would just keep working on them without taking a break. She finally told me I had to take one. I was just making the most of my time but okay, I'll take a break. Sigh! *wink*

We also took a look at the video that another one of our coaches, Todd, took during Tuesday's ice time. And yes, it's confirmed, I look pretty pathetic out on the ice. But on a good note, Todd said I had really good weight transfer and good extension. Now if I can just get those crossovers down I'd be all set.

Today's practice was just as brutal. We had to do the dreaded "low walks" for warmup. Talk about killing your thighs. We also worked on crossover drills again in the morning and for the afternoon session we had to do four laps, take a breather lap, then do a 200 meter sprint, then do another breather lap x 6! So that means 24 regular laps, 6 sprints and 12 breather laps!

At the same time as all this is going on we have some national long track sprint teams here. There's a Japanese team and a Dutch team. Both have world cup winners on them and I'm sorry, I can't tell you who they are. I don't know. I don't know long track as well as I know short track but I will try and find out. It's just fascinating to watch them though. The Dutch team members are huge! Even the women. I never realized just how big long trackers can be. Jeremy Witherspoon was on the ice a couple days ago practicing alongside the Japanese team. Evidently there's some sort of competition next week at the Oval and teams are here to practice on the ice. Sorry I don't have any more info - I'll try and find some stuff out. But I did take pictures.

Anyway, that's all the news for now. I know it's not as exciting as the last post but it'll have to do. Right now we're in the middle of a storm with thunder and lightening . . . the whole bit so I need to get back to my room.

I'll have more to post later, along with my reflections of the week and some pictures.

:: Melinda 5:34 PM [+]

Welcome to My Fun-Filled Week of Pain . . .

Or something that closely resembles the above anyway. Now, who's brilliant idea was it to take a speed skating camp? Oh yeah . . . mine. What the hell was I thinking?

Actually, it has been fun . . . exhausting . . . I can barely stand let alone move . . . but fun. So call me a masochistic with sadistic tendencies. And I hurt . . . all over! My calves hurt, my knees hurt, my thighs hurt, my hips hurt, my butt hurts, my back hurts, my hair hurts, my feet are spasming, not to mention that I have blisters the size of Mt. Everest on my ankles . . . no joke . . . Mt. Everest . . . I can even see tiny microscopic mountain climbers scaling the peaks. Okay, maybe not, but you get the picture. And even with all that, I'm still having fun - go figure?

So day one starts with orientation, warm up, and our first foray onto the ice. Olympic Ice. The "Oval." *pauses so everyone can oohh and aahh. First of all, skating on the long track rink at the oval is like skating on butter, fresh butter that no one's messed with, no one's gotten their toast crumbs on, no one's dropped or melted and then attempted to refreeze again. I stepped onto the Oval ice and I could barely feel my skates move it was that smooth. Now grant it, I'm not a great skater . . . an okay skater but not a great one so the fact that even I could tell how good the ice is is saying something.

So I'm on the ice in my new instruments of torture . . . I mean . . . skates, yeah that's it, skates and I'm gliding along and it doesn't seem so bad. We have two ice times - an hour in the morning where we do technique drills and an hour and a half in the afternoon where we do laps and focus on the techniques we just learned. Not bad. I can handle that. There's only a seminar to attend at lunchtime . . . no dryland training to speak of except for our warm ups before we get on the ice. Piece of cake right? Oh how disillusioned I was. Morning ice wasn't too bad. I made it through. Afternoon ice was killing me. I would go two laps around the rink and wonder why I was so damn tired. Well I'll tell you why. I'm a short track girl and this is long track ice! One time around a long track rink is like going almost four time around a short track rink! No wonder I was tired. Not to mention that the Mt. Everest blisters were starting to form. Not a pretty sight. After afternoon ice I did some cool downs and stretched really good (which in my case wasn't that good since I'm not at all flexible) hoping that my body would recover enough for Tuesday.

Ah Tuesday! I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to my feet spasming which, of course, meant that there was no way I was going to fall back asleep. I finally get out of bed around 6 a.m., put on workout clothes and go for a run/walk. Other than my feet, I don't feel too bad. A little stiff but obviously the cool down and stretching did something. I get back to my room, play doctor to my blisters (thank GOD! they're higher than where my shoes hit) and get ready for another day on the ice. We meet at 9:15, do our warmups, stretch and are ready to get on the ice at 10. Today's drills? My favorite. Crossovers! SIGH! I did the best I could but it wasn't anywhere near what everyone else could do. I am definitely the "novice" of the group (not to mention one of the youngest). My feet feel okay. I'm leaving the top eyelet of my boot free so they're not as tight around my ankles and I'm doing okay - until this afternoon. By this afternoon everything was hurting and screaming at me to stop. Did I listen. Nope. I plugged away. But I was definitely hurting big time. They also videotaped us this afternoon. Yikes! We're going to review them tomorrow during our seminar. Scary times ahead.

I am having the time of my life though. I've met some really great people, a couple of them I think I'll stay in touch with even after the camp. Our coaches are really great and our female coach is wonderful. She's a short track coach and really knows how to look at your skating and decipher what it is you really need to work on or what you're struggling with. Even things you weren't aware that you're struggling with. She's found out things about my skating that, after she tells me, I'm like "so that's what I'm doing wrong!" Everyone from the coaches to the participants are very helpful and encouraging. There's no "oh she can't skate that well so we don't want anything to do with her" mentality. The coaches encourage you to do as much as you can and if you get tired then take a rest break. I never do because if I'm paying all this money and traveled all this way I'm making the most out of my time.

Oh and a few side notes:

First, I had planned all these activities to do while I was in Calgary (albeit minus a car but I still had plans) and you know how much I've accomplished? Nada! Zip! I'm so pooped by the time I'm done for the day I go back to my room, take a shower, eat dinner and veg. Last night I was in bed by 9 p.m. and it looks like I'll be in bed around that time again tonight. (Even though sunset isn't until like 9:45. So if I'm going to bed before the sun even sets then you know I'm tired.)

Second, I never realized just how much I relied on television and/or the radio if for nothing else but for background noise when I was home. I have nothing in my dorm room. No radio, no television - nothing! And campus is really really quiet too. I've done a lot of reading. Finished two books and have started a third.

Until next time . . .

:: Melinda 5:50 PM [+]

Bon Jour from Calagary!

So I made it (with my skates) in one piece despite all the frustrations along the way. Here is but a sample:

1. It's Pride weekend in San Diego this weekend. Traffic was hell. The shuttle was over a half-hour late picking me up because no one is dispatch believed me when I told them that they needed to take the back way in, not come up the freeway.

2. Why is it people always freak out when they have to view my birth certificate?! Yes . . . I know . . . it's 2 pages . . . yes it took my mother almost a year to officially name me . . . she was old fashioned and didn't believe in *officially* naming me until after my baptism and it took her almost a year to find the right church. How many times have I told that story. DEAL! Woman at the airline counter almost didn't take it and made me repeat my story again - same with customs in Calgary. SIGH!

3. The FUCKING teenager who sat behind my sucky seat and proceeded to (a) kick it constantly causing me to contemplate just how much trouble I would get if I turned around and smacked the SHIT out of him, (b) put the tray up and down violently causing my seat to be pushed forward causing me to contemplate smacking the shit out of him again, (c) pushing the flight attendant button every 10 minutes and asking her for a drink, and (d) complain to his two friends loudly about how slow we were moving.

4. A 3 hour layover in Seattle where I (a) spent 45 minutes walking around trying to find a non-fastfood place to eat since all I had to eat all day was a muffin and (b) trying to get my cell phone to work so I wouldn't be so bored in my 3 hour layover. I finally found a spot, in the middle of a walkway and it would only let me call Linda. Everytime I tried to call someone it would switch to analog roam. FUCK!

5. Getting to Calgary at 11 p.m. Having the shuttle service tell me it'll be 40 minutes before my shuttle would leave (which I expected) only to have it turn into an hour and a half. Then the shuttle driver whet the long back-ass way to the University.

6. Checking in at 1:15 a.m., finding out I would have to wait a half hour if I wanted security to walk me to my dorm. Screw it! I walked by myself.

7. And then the clincher . . . . they gave me a basement room. In a nutshell. IT SUCKED!!!!! I had to stand on the desk to reach the blinds to lower them. The floor is softer than the mattress. The bathroom is dark, dingy and filthy. It takes a minimum of 10 minutes to get the water to even resemble anything close to lukewarm, both shower curtains were ripped and one shower shot out a stream of water that didn't even stay inside the stall, it hit the door enclosing the stall. Now grant it, it's a dormitory and I wasn't expecting the Ritz, but I was expecting it to be clean. I can't imagine having to live in those rooms and use that bathroom. It's definitely substandard living. I lived in a tent by the sea in Greece with an outhouse and an outdoor shower and it was better than this. Well . . . it was Greece.

Today though is better. I went to Conference Housing to see about switching my room. They had one available but only until Sunday so I'll have to switch rooms Sunday morning but that's okay. I leave around 3:30 a.m. on Monday so I can tough it out for one night. Although I'm not taking a shower in that bathroom again. The new room is on the 4th floor and is 1000 times better than the old room. Bathroom is 5000 times better too. And I actually did run into people I know. Little Sarah who skates in my club is here with her mother, grandmother and younger sister Jacquelyn. She's taking the kid's skating camp. So it was nice to run into familiar faces.

Well that's all from Calgary. I'll try and update more later. The library is closed tomorrow. Some sort of civic holiday but maybe on Tuesday. By then I'll have 2 days of camp to share with everyone!

:: Melinda 1:30 PM [+]