Onwards and upwards!

Although this past week has mainly been off skates that's not to say it hasn't been busy. First off I finally went to the doctor to get my ankle checked out. Yep it ended up being a bad sprain so she prescribed me some pills and advice on how to treat it and I was off on my merry way. I decided to be proactive and researched some ankle strengthening exercises to build them up and try and reduce further injury. I've been doing them while I'm watching TV so far its been alright. Next up I wanted to give my ankle some more protection since I've managed to injure both of them so far from doing derby. I did some research and found that the McDavid ankle guards appeared to do the best job. I ordered a set from the US so they should be here sometime next week. Wait until I wear them on the outside of my socks (just like the pic) at training, I'll be the coolest looking person there :P

Perhaps it was fate but I couldn't attend any of the training sessions last week as I had something on each night, on one hand it gave me a chance to let my ankle heal but on the other hand I was missing even more training which I wasn't too happy about. I'll finally be back at training again starting tomorrow night. Fingers crossed my injury streak is now over and I can get a good run of training under my belt.    

Roller Derby must be one of the few sports in the world where it's an advantage to have a huge arse. Problem is when you look in the mirror and think 'christ what a fat arse' you know something needs to change. It really sucks when you're playing indoor soccer and you can't keep up with the opposition, when you start running and you're completely knackered after a few meters or you're skating laps at derby practise and you're completely stuffed while everyone else is skating by without breaking a sweat. I've decided to do something about. Exercise wise I'm going to take up boxing classes again. Not only is it excellent cardio work but it'll help build up my upper body strength which I discovered was severely lacking when Cherry showed me how to do a proper derby hit. I made no impact on her but I went flying when she hit me. I'm sticking with indoor soccer, I'll take up running again, plus roller derby training. I'll implement all this slowly and properly so that I don't overdo it and have to spend more time off injured. 

What's the point of doing all this extra work if you're not eating or drinking properly? I decided to tackle my biggest problem which was my consumption of Coke, Cherry Coke and Dr. Pepper. I've been drinking this stuff for years, almost on a daily basis. So I bit the bullet and stopped drinking them. I'm getting crazy headaches and I'm crashing bad during the day because my body isn't getting its daily sugar and caffeine hit. I know it won't last, I just have to ride out the withdrawal symptoms. Bloody hell I sound like a junkie :) Cherry had posted some before and after shots of herself from doing derby and I was amazed how much of a difference it made to her, however, out of fear of getting punished at training if I posted the pics here you'll just have to take my word for it :)

I decided to test out my ankle last Sunday and headed out to Skatel. My ankle pulled up ok YAY but the pain on the bottom of my feet returned with a vengeance because I hadn't skated for a few weeks. It's really going to feel like I'm starting all over again tomorrow night as I had that problem when I first started skating. I tested out the new bushings on my skates and I can't believe how much of a difference they make to your skating. At first I felt as though I skating while I was drunk but once I got the hang of it it felt a bit easier going around corners.

Lastly I wanted to give a big shout out to the guys and girls that make up H.A.R.D. I don't tend to make friend's that easily but I've already made a few new friend's there (plus the few I made from WSR). They're a great bunch to hang around with, we have fun and train hard. There's fellow smart arse's which I love :) and people from all different backgrounds so you get to hear some amazing stories. Combine that with the training we're getting and I reckon we'll make a bloody amazing team on the track when the time comes to do battle against other leagues.