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On the 23rd, for the first time since I was about 13 or 14, I went ice skating. Back then, I had issues with most athletic activities. I liked the idea of skating (I use to have an American Girl doll, Samantha, and her winter story involved ice skating) but the actually activity was hard. Both times that I remember skating, I skated outside on a lake or pond. That's how ice skating is suppose to be done. Once, a now ex-boyfriend talked about ice skating while in Alabama and I was very confused. It hadn't occurred to me that people could skate on indoor ice rinks.
Now, so many years later, I got to try ice skating again. This time, I had roller skating experience and I wasn't doing it in hopes of holding hands with a cute boy (yes, that was true back then). We went to an indoor rink because while my step-daughters own ice skates, the rest of us in the family don't. I wish we had planned the location a little better but I've not had to work it out before. The place we went to, the Depot Ice Rink, was like going to the Roller Garden except it was ice instead of roller skating.
We got there and eventually got onto the ice. There was a bit of drama but that eventually passed. The strange thing was getting onto the ice. Ice is normally rather slippery. Derby has actually helped my ability to walk on ice. It felt exactly like the first time I went roller skating except I didn't wipe out. I also had more knowledge of what my body can do than when I first went roller skating.
Between all the moments of needing to tighten and loosen skates and discover that owned skates were too small, I had barely any time skating. Eventually, everyone settled down and I was able to skate. During one of these moments going around the rink, I looked over at my husband with, what I imagine to be, a look of sheer delight. Ice skates have edges! Two edges on each skate in fact! (No, I had no idea. I honestly believed that the skate was just pointy on the bottom.)
It was just like roller skating for a brief moment and I suddenly remembered the stride clinics at derby practice and all the working on inside and outside edges. With barely any effort, I was suddenly moving much faster as I pushed off the edges.
Having not been on skates in far too long (October I believe...), I was certainly able to feel this in my legs and feet. All of those muscles I haven't really used in a while were letting me know that they weren't too happy with me. It wasn't nearly as relaxing as skating can be as I was trying to move on a smaller surface with smaller edges than I'm use to. I certainly didn't like the narrow bar down the center of my feet. But it was good to be back on skates of some sort. Of course, it also made me miss roller skating a lot.
Winter break and holidays being what they are (and we had the kids for the first half of it), it was too crazy for more skating. However, we had already paid for some parkour classes and needed to get them in before the end of the month. The plan was to take a class on the 27th and then on the 31st so we'd get all of our classes in. The 27th fell through but we were able to make a class on the 29th.
Less than 10 minutes into class, I managed to hurt myself rather impressively. I was doing a wall run where I placed one foot on the wall to push myself up and then the other foot to push away from the wall, doing a 180 degree spin and then landing. The move is called a tic tac. According to my husband, I was a good 4' in the air. Now my landing...well it sucked. I managed to land on the left side of my left foot. Thankfully my derby training taught me to just relax instead of stiffening up. My foot felt like it had fallen asleep and was just starting to wake back up.
My husband helped me hobble over to the futon in the gym while the instructor got me an ice pack. For the next 10 minutes or so, I put ice on it and kept it elevated. It hurt. I was able to get my shoe back on and do some arm exercises with rings (very useful and fun and hard at the same time).
It's now a week later and there are bruises on my foot and I've been extremely inactive because of not wanting to hurt my foot further. Thanks to derby, I already knew about R.I.C.E. (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) but the internet taught me about P.R.I.C.E. where "P" means protect from further injury. This ended up meaning that the last 3 days of my vacation were spent with my foot propped up and me not really moving. And when work resumed, I did a lot of office work and took short days (also, it's the last time I'll be able to take short days until who-knows-when). I'm still frustrated that my foot hurts, especially when it gets accidentally kicked or I have to sit out of a parkour class and especially because it means I haven't been able to go skating. I'm also thankful that I'm not hurt worse. It could be a lot worse and it's certainly been a lot of pain. Normally when I get hurt, I usually go to my chiropractor and he fixes things. I'm not too sure about a foot. My husband hurt his ankle back in November and it took a few weeks for it to not hurt anymore. It'll probably be the same for me. I'm glad that it doesn't hurt to put weight on it though it does feel tight, I know that I can at least still walk.
