We came we sold, we conquered!

And kicked ass!
Left to right: Blonde Sedition, Dolly Diablo, Shiza Revel, Cupid Stunt and Helen Fury



Sunday morning saw a collection of exceedingly dedicated rollergirls at Cheltenham racecourse by 7.30 am ready to flog vast amounts of accumulated 'treasure' to all and sundry. It was a tough day from my perspective, Sunday morning saw me up at 5am and out the house at 5.45, allowing an hour and a half for the journey which AA routefinder told me should take an hour. The extra half an hour being to cover my inevitably getting completely lost and needing to call people for directions after stubbornly driving around hoping for 20 minutes. Which is pretty much what I did.

I got there eventually and we had a fun morning raising a total of £140 for league funds which was awesome! Our own Ms Fury obviously missed her calling as a market trader and provided much amusement in luring innocent passers by with strident promises of bargains and girls in one.

Then it was straight onto practise which was a bit of a killer considering the length of the day. Unsurprisingly a bleep test endurance exercise demonstrated once again that I'm both unfit and stamina-less although I'm working on both. What surprised me was stability when being knocked - I did a contact exercise for the first time and was quite pleased at managing to stay largely upright. Unfortunately stability was somewhat less during the rest of the session - ironically the bits where people weren't trying to knock me over were the ones I was most likely to go flying on - I need more practise.

My couch to 5k program continues, I've just started week 2 today and am quite happy with it, although painfully (quite literally) aware that my lower leg muscles are very out of shape. They'll improve and I'm surprised and delighted that my chest is coping fine with running. Apparently stopping putting poisonous tar into your lungs helps you breathe. Who'da thought? Almost 6 weeks now since I quit and I'm stunned I've gone this long.

The weekend sees us off to Birmingham for the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames match against Middlesborough Milk Rollers. Its my first match as a visiting spectator team and I'm looking forward to it. Geoff is coming with - complete with his Derby Widow SRT t-shirt - and both the bout and the afterparty should be awesome. Photos will undoubtedly follow!

Take care, guys & girlies!

xx Rebel xx

*Hobble, hobble, ouch!*

Yup, two days after practise and I'm still owweee. Which just demonstrates how totally unfit I am. Partially the ouchies were caused by my landing rather heavily on my not-insubstantial ass and pulling a muscle in my back slightly, but mainly they're caused by my being an overweight, unfit lump.

But practise was good. I enjoyed it, lots. The endurance exercise was... tough. I have no stamina so 10 alternating laps of sprint / something else was kinda painful (not helped by the aforementioned ass-landing which meant I ended up sitting out a few laps and taking it really slowly on the remaining ones I did do). The back pain I'd say was partially the landing, partially the unfitness and partially that my back ain't in great condition after having 4 kids.

They are, however, all things which would be improved by better fitness and stamina levels which is why as of today I'm starting a running program - specifically this one which looks to be just what I need - a training program for someone who's never run for more than a bus before! Was pointed in the direction of matching podcasts which tell you exactly when to walk and when to run which sounds like genius to me.

So, back to skating. My legs were obviously slightly less bloated this week as my shiny new knee pads felt fine and supportive rather than trying to cut off the circulation to my feet and they're definitely easier to land on We also did a speed test which meant for the first time I have a timed 5 minute sprint. I was pretty happy with my 1 minute 10, particularly given that I'd been doubled over in pain 10 minutes previously. Need to be under a minute but that will come relatively easily I think.

It would help if I actually got my ass to every practise, I have missed an unfortunate amount. I dance around the reasons why using 'illness' or my favourite euphemism, 'tantrums' but the actual reason is my mental state at the time. But I doubt anyone on my team will judge me for it, I know my friends and family don't and I couldn't give a stuff about anyone else so the actual reason is I'm bipolar II. Manic depressive that is, the II referring to the type that's up and down like a bloody yoyo (type I possibly have it worse in that they stay very down or very very up for months or even years at a time. I at least get variety :p). I wouldn't be surprised if its relatively common amongst rollergirls, among (many, many!) other things a common characteristic is a need for adrenaline buzzes and limited perception of personal danger. I have both. Except when I'm down in which case mainly I just want to avoid being around anyone. Hence the missing practises. Its an issue and to be brutally honest, its not one that's going to go away but it will lessen with time, particularly as one of my main reasons for not going is paranoia - in the clinical sense - and that reduces with, well, trust.

Moving on so you can all stop looking vaguely embarrassed and uncomfortable, my chest hurts. You wouldn't have thought chest & shoulder muscles would take punishment skating but we did an exercise known as 'shopping cart' which, unsurprisingly involves one skater pushing another around the track. That bit was easy. The difficult bit was being the shopper and being pulled by the 'cart' - holding on was a lot harder than it looks and my arm strength is way less than my leg strength (even given relative scaling and sizes) and the muscles at the side front of the top of my chest really hurt. Not in a bad-oh-I'm-injured way... just in on ohmygod these muscles didn't know they even existed way.

Now gearing up to an extremely long Sunday this week, we're at Chelmsford Race Course from stupid-early in the morning doing a car boot sale to raise SRT funds which means I need to sort through vast amounts of accumulated crap and get it ready for flogging. Then its pretty much going to be straight from there to practise. But it will be good! And profitable! And I'll get to wear my shiny new SRT hoody which I got along with assorted tshirts and vests on Sunday (I got Geoff a tshirt with DERBY WIDOW on the back as well which amused me greatly. He's since gone out and bought a longsleeve orange top to wear underneath it at bouts (including the Blitz Dames match in a couple of weeks!) so he doesn't freeze to death.

Finally, a highly suspicious me, in sepia.



Take care, guys & girlies

xx Rebel xx