October really was crazy busy, I'm still recovering! It kicked off with ERRD. I watched 14 bouts over 2 days and took down notes for all of them for bout write up's. I must admit my brain did start turning to mush a little on Saturday and by the end of the tournament I was a little knackered. I think I was derby-ed out! I tried to cover as many leagues as possible and covered almost every league at least once. The tournament itself was awesome sauce. Well done to the organisers on such a great job. I can't wait for next year's one. I got to see a lot of leagues for the first time and a lot of great bouts. Some of my favourite bouts were S2D2 vs CCRG, HARD vs CRDL B, NRDL vs WIRD just to name a few. Since I covered HARD's first bout, I missed their second one because I was covering the NRDL vs SRDL bout so I missed HARD's first win :( One of my highlight's of the weekend was getting a pic with ALL three of my favourite skaters Jilla, Brig and Cherry thanks to Cherry pretty much organising it all. Any surprise it became my profile pic on Facebook hehe. The pic itself has ended up being an extra motivating factor. I fully intend to get another pic with all three of them when HARD and NRDL bout each other and I'm bouting :D
Newy had a 13km outdoor skate fundraiser for their big bout against Auckland on the 13th October. I offered to skate alongside Cass for moral support ignoring the fact that I hadn't skated in weeks because of my knee and that I've hardly done any outdoor skating. They were encouraging dress up and Cass was in a pig outfit so I chose the cow pattern for my knee and ankle strapping to blend in :) Being extra cautious, by the time I was done strapping my knees and ankles I looked like a cow held together by bits of skin. They had a group pic before they started but I stayed out of it because I'm not part of their league (I was the only non-NRDL person doing the skate) but Jilla told me to get in the pic because I was doing the skate so I joined in. I was shitting bricks most of the skate. There were a couple of hills which I snow ploughed down and lots of near misses where I almost stacked it. I did stack it once when I went over a pavement crack but I landed on the grass. It was great skating with Cass. When I wasn't skating in fear I was having fun skating alongside Cass and some of her team mates. The longer the skate went on, the more confident I was feeling. It's what I needed after I was feeling bummed out about the knee injury. It's made me want to take on the Fernleigh track which is up that way and over 30km's but that's going to take a lot of attempts before I can do the whole thing in one go. The Newy guys made me feel welcome and Booga even gave me a hug as I was leaving :)
Last week my league hosted its first ever home bout as HARD took on S2D2 (a league I'm pretty fond over). It was a pretty full on day getting everything ready before the doors open but everyone put in and it all went off without a hitch. The merby bout was good fun with the crowd getting behind all the boys. Seriously Fink is freaking awesome. He struggled a little with the physical side but his skating skills more than made up for it when he could pretty much apex jump half the track.
I was on media duties for the night but when did that ever stop me cheering on my team ;) I was cheering on my guys when they took on S2D2 while trying to take down notes. Hats off to S2D2 they were deserved winners. Ann O'War and Killabee are awesome jammers and Apolcalyss is a no nonsense blocker who more often than not annihilates opposition skaters when she them in her sight. My guys are improving with each bout, we played some nice stuff throughout the bout. Our walls are getting better, I love watching the likes of CrackherJac and Punkie Brawlster improve with each bout. Lola Ebola was back in her first bout since August and it was like she never stopped bouting. The look on her face when she nailed an S2D2 skater was like 'Fuck you I'm Lola' hehe. It was great catching with old friend's, some who I hadn't seen in a year. I also got to the meet a fellow derby writer from Victoria The Cleaner which was nice :) Since the bout was Halloween themed they were encouraging people to dress up so I thought I'd get dressed up as my favourite horror movie villian Michael Myers from the Halloween movies. I lost count of how many people came up to me telling me I was scaring the crap out of them hehe. It provided a bit of a challenge watching the bout through the mask and trying to take down notes. I had to have my notebook up to my nose and tilt my head which probably looked even more creepy but it was the only way I could see properly.
I haven't given myself much preparation since I just got back to training last week but I get to fulfill bit of a derby dream of mine by training with the Newy guys this weekend. For once I'm not putting any ridiculous expectations on myself, I'm just going to give it my all and try and have fun in the process.
Despite having some big derby moments in October I was starting to feel a little lost. The latest knee injury hit me hard but then it quickly got caught up with all the derby media work which was self inflicted. I've had 22 write up's to do in October. I was thinking yeah I could do this easily until it came to typing them up and realised it's actually a lot to do and would take up all of my free time. As the month went on I felt less like a skater, add in the fact my knee was playing up I was starting to feel as though the closest I'd get to a derby track would be as a spectator. I ended up discovering a few things over the month which helped light the fire in my belly which is just what I needed after falling into a funk. I've gone on long enough, more next week.
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