February, You Are Dead to Me

February kind of got away from me. I struggled all month with time management. Returning to Wednesday night practices means more than just an extra night of skating each week. It also means two nights a week that I am not likely to fall asleep until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning because I'm so wide awake from skating. And that means two mornings a week that I try to get every last minute of sleep possible before I have to get up and go to work, which means no morning workout and sometimes no healthy breakfast. By the weekend I'm exhausted, and I end up sleeping too late and staying up too late, and it is a tough cycle to figure out how to break. Gone are the days when I finally had my sleep schedule under control. Meanwhile, there's work. February and March are our busiest months, and I have already done my share of late nights and early mornings at the office.

All of this is to say that I didn't even come close to meeting my goals this month. In fact, somewhere about the second week of February, I stopped even bothering to keep track. I am estimating that I probably managed to do something four days a week. I know I did at least one run, one strength training session and one derby practice every single week. I am guessing I hit the fruit and veggie goal three or four days a week as well. It could be worse. It's still better than I was doing pre-surgery, but it's not where I want to be.

Speaking of surgery, though, February wasn't all bad. I did hit the six month mark from surgery--which means I am supposed to be completely healed. And I do feel much better. In fact, there were days this month where I found myself thinking, "Huh, so this is what it feels like not to be sick." Because in spite of the stress and the backsliding, I actually felt so much better than I have for probably two years.

And let's not forget my first post-surgery scrimmage!

Nevertheless, I'm not sad to see February on its way out. I'm ready to get back on track. I know it's not technically March yet, but I am hereby declaring myself officially done with February.

As for March goals, I'll keep the goals I set but didn't meet in February.

Scrimmage Recap

Friday night's scrimmage featured Free State Roller Derby's Black Eyed Suzies (my team) vs. Charm City Roller Girls' Mobtown Mods. Some extra skaters from Charm City and the Mason-Dixon Roller Vixens helped round out the rosters.

Charm City's all-star team is one of the best in the country, and some of those all-stars were skating against us. Our team is still pretty new so we weren't very evenly matched, but that's ok because the only way you grow in any sport is to play with and against strong opponents.

The most intense moment of the night for me happened while I was on the bench. My teammate Melagomaniac was jamming against an extremely tough Charm City lineup. Mel's a good skater and very tough herself, and in that jam I lost count of how many times she got knocked down--it must have been five or six at least, hard hits. I used to watch boxing with my dad when I was a kid, and that's what it reminded me of--that moment in boxing when someone gets knocked down, and you watch them struggling to get back up. Over and over Mel got back up and took another hit. And every time you could see that she was hurting a little more, and getting up a little more slowly, but every single time she got up. I kept almost wishing she'd stay down because I didn't want to watch her get hurt anymore. It was terrible and amazing and a true display of athletic heroism.

Here's Mel getting back up while three red blockers wait for her:


Here are some more photos from the scrimmage, courtesy of Keith Rideout. This is my teammate Theresa in the position of lead jammer:


And here's Ana Roll taking a whip:


And I don't know what kind of craziness is going on in this picture, but there are a LOT of people on the ground:


And here I am in the green helmet:

The Six Month Mark, and My First Post-Surgery Scrimmage

Today marks six months since I had my diverticulitis surgery.

I wrote this post two weeks after surgery and only four days after being released from the hospital. The reality of what my body had gone through had just begun to sink in. I was in pain. I couldn't walk around the block without getting tired. I couldn't lift more than 20 pounds. The surgeon told me it would take six months for the abdominal wall to heal completely, and February seemed so incredibly far away. The worst part was, I had no idea how to get from the sad physical shape I was in on that day to the shape I needed to be in to go back to roller derby. I hated that feeling of not knowing what to do to get better safely and efficiently, not knowing how the healing process was going to unfold. I'm a girl who likes a plan, and there didn't seem to be any plan except "start slow," which is what people kept telling me.

So I started slow, and I basically just made up the plan as I went along based on how my body felt on any given day. Five weeks after surgery, I started the Couch to 5K program at Week 1, running 60 seconds at a time. About thirteen weeks out from surgery, I went back to roller derby part-time. At eighteen weeks, I completed the Couch to 5K program and began regularly running 3 miles three times per week. About twenty weeks out, I added in two strength training sessions per week. As of last week, I was up to 5-6 hours of roller derby practice per week. I actually think I have more strength and endurance now than I did before surgery.

Last night, I participated in my first roller derby scrimmage since May 2011. Here's a blurry picture. I'm seventh from the left in the green helmet:



So now I know what "start slow" meant for me, and I know what the end of that six-month healing process looks like, and I feel pretty good. The main lesson here, of course, is that things work themselves out. That's a hard lesson for me because I'm impatient, and I think and worry far too much. But the fact is, I would have gotten to last night with or without the worrying. So next time I'm fretting and worrying about things I can't control, I'll try to remember that, and I'll do the best I can and trust that ultimately it will be enough.

Roller Derby Muscles

In case you were wondering:

Is Fear Ever OK?

Today a man I liked but hardly knew told me he didn’t want to continue getting to know me because I don’t want to have children. I had a feeling this was coming, and so the subject has been on my mind recently. The idea of having kids one day is the thing that scares me most in the world.

Two things scare me about having kids. First, I am afraid I would be a terrible mother. Second, I am afraid I would hate being a mother and feel trapped. Anything else in life, you can get out of. You’re in over your head in a job? Get a different job. You’re trapped in your marriage? Get a divorce. But if you’re a crappy or unhappy mother there’s not one damn thing you can do about it without hurting an innocent child.

And here’s the flip side of that. What if I did turn out to be good at it? I have a strong caretaker instinct. I’m inclined to take care of the people I love at my own personal expense. And with a child, that instinct would be even stronger. I’m afraid that I’d give and give until there was nothing left for me. Ever read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree? The kid in that book sucks all the life out of the giving tree. It’s not a happy story if you read it carefully.

I know it’s important to face fear. I don’t believe in saying no to new experiences because I’m afraid, but this seems like a special case. I think about this issue quite a bit because I’m 37 years old and, let’s face it, there’s not a lot of time left in which to change my mind. My friends who have children—even the ones who were ambivalent about their pregnancies in the beginning—tell me it’s the most amazing experience life has to offer. I do worry, sometimes, that I might be missing out on the extraordinary experience of loving and raising a child of my own. But the thing is, I just don’t know how you push through fear like that when so much is at stake, or if you even should. I mean, it seems like you shouldn’t have to talk yourself into having a child.

Obviously, all of this is bigger than getting dumped by someone I hardly know. It’s about me and my own personal emotional stalemate, and I don’t really know what to do about that...except maybe nothing.

February Goals

Now that I’m cleared for hitting, I plan to return to Wednesday night scrimmage practices with my team. Given that I still struggled with fatigue in January, I’m going to offset this extra night of derby by backing off slightly on the running this month, reducing my goal from three runs a week to two. As the year continues and I get stronger, I’ll aim to add that third run back into my schedule. In the meantime, here are my goals for February:

1. Run three miles twice a week.

2. Complete two strength training workouts per week.

3. Skate six times during the month. (A full month of twice weekly practices would be eight skating sessions. This goal gives me a little wiggle room as I add that extra practice day into my schedule in case I need the extra rest at some point.)

4. Eat 5 fruits and vegetables per day.

January Goals--How I Did

Work got extremely hectic the third week of January, and my goals took a hit as a result. That week, the only goal I met was my strength training goal. Even so, I turned things around the last week of the month when I got back on track with everything but the running goal.

Run three miles three times a week.
I met this goal in the first two weeks of the month. In the last two weeks, I ran twice a week.

Strength training twice a week.
I met this goal for the month of January. Yay me! I also exceeded it a couple of weeks with the extra upper body workouts.

Skate once a week.
I met this goal three of four weeks.

Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day.
Although there were five days this month I didn’t meet this goal, my average daily intake for the month was five a day. I’m considering this one a success.

Other Milestones
I finally passed my second assessment in roller derby. Passing this assessment makes me officially “scrimmage-ready,” which means I am cleared for hitting in practice, and I can participate in scrimmages against other teams. Although I’m frustrated that surgery slowed my progress, I’m also really proud of how far I’ve come in the two years since I put on a pair of roller skates for the first time ever.

Although I still struggled with fatigue this month, the amount of running and strength training I did was more than I was doing pre-surgery. I was rewarded with increased strength and endurance at roller derby practice. This month, I was able to skate 31 laps in 5 minutes, beating my pre-surgery speed record of 28 laps.*

*Our track is smaller than regulation size.