Who Was This Person Again?

After over a month of not being on skates, just approaching the world in a bipedal fashion, instead of a rolling one ... I went back to practice on Monday night. *Groan*

Of course, I was dreading it because I didn't feel like having everyone notice that I'd forgotten how to rollerskate and wonder where I'd gone when I left to go throw up in the bathroom. That's the kind of stuff I can put off forever, if need be. But, since I knew I had to start sometime, I figured Monday was as good a time as any. Then I was excited to hear we should bring yoga mats - because to me, that meant possibly up to an hour of yoga after an hour of skating. Yay! Yoga!

But no. Instead, this Monday morphed into what our Speed Skating practices normally look like - an hour of off-skates, killer leg and core exercises and THEN an hour of endurance-based skating. Sigh. I always prefer getting the skating part out of the way before I kill off all of my stabilizing muscles with exercises.

But you know what? I made it through all those off-skates exercises (yay for working out in the off-season!) and survived the 50-lap paceline, and stayed in the game until the 2 hours were up. I kept telling myself I could quit at any moment but then just ... didn't quit. (This is the same tactic I use when jogging - Oh let's just stop at 10 minutes, okay? Alright, 15. Well now you're more than halfway done and it'd be stupid to quit now. Looky! All done!) So now I just have to make it through all this soreness and keep hitting practice after practice, and I should slowwwly return to the person that I once was. Y'know, that person who could do all this without getting as cripplingly sore. What does she look like again?