All I do is grunt and groan

What's with the strange heading? I've had this line in my head for the past few days. Before your minds go in the gutter it's a line from Weird Al's Living with a hernia (a parody to the music of Living in America by James Brown). Thankfully I don't have a hernia but I've certainly pushed myself this week in terms of off and on skating training hence why the line has been stuck in my head. With all this mention of Weird Al here's a link to the video clip for Living with a hernia - pure genius!

Ness and I went for our regular Saturday session at Skatel but this time we catch up with Atomic Cherry the lady who started WSR. She was brilliant. She answered all our questions and gave us lots of tips. To be able to now learn from her on a weekly basis is a major plus. She began showing me how to do crossovers (for you non-derby folk they look something like this)

I still can't do them yet but I will one day after no doubt enduring many stacks in the process. One thing I noticed is that I still have this fear of falling so I'm not pushing myself as much I know I can while I'm skating. I'm going to have to get over it otherwise I'll only progress so far.

Ness and I went skating outdoors on Sunday arvo. I was really pleased with how much more comfortable I am now skating outdoors after my first disasterous attempt. I tried skating in the opposite direction that I skate when I go to Skatel and my legs started killing me. When you constantly skate in the one direction your body gets used to it but you're also favouring one side of your body which means you'll have one strong leg and one weak leg. I made a mental note to start skating in a clockwise direction when I'm skating outdoors to build up the strength in my right leg.

Monday I started running while listening to week one of the couch to 5km podcast and quite frankly it sucked as I'm extremely unfit and overweight. The one plus was that I was able to run more than my last attempt. Dammit though I have to stick with it as I've set myself some big goals and I need to do this to achieve them.

Tuesday night we didn't have a skating training session. WSR organised a gym endurance session at Penrith. It was quite funny seeing a large group of tattooed and bright coloured hair women from all shapes and sizes overtake a gym. First off we had a spin bike class. My legs were sore from running the night before so no surprise it sucked but I stuck it out. Towards the end when we had to stand up and cycle I was so stuffed that I wouldn't have been suprised if a granny with a walking frame would have walked faster than I was cycling at that stage. We then had a circuit where we teamed up and had to do various physical activites. Because we were changing so quickly to go to the next activity it wasn't hard. I think we spent more time laughing and having fun in that session then busting a sweat.

Last night I had my session with Joe at the gym. His motto is 'Don't stop' so it's not surprise there's been times where I've almost thrown up over the time he's trained me. He pushes you beyond your limit which is exactly what I need as I tend to fall to the ground and give up when I hit the proverbial wall. Last night was no different. The funniest moment was when I had to run across the gym while dragging Joe for some resistance training. I probably looked stupid but who cares!

One last thing for those non-derby folk if you don't know by now when you do derby you need to have a derby name. It has to be completely original, no other person involved in derby can have it. Naturally most of us freshies have already begun thinking of names. I've got two in mind. The thing is you can't really say it before you've registered the name as someone else might take it. Here's a link to the official list there's some pretty cool names on there! If anyone has any suggestions for my derby name feel free to suggest it!