I crapped out last night on off-skates practice. Admittedly, it was partially laziness; I got home from a late day at work and was frankly exhausted. I know that I would have felt better if I'd suited up and gone to exercise, but I let my laziness speak for me.
However, it was partially also the muscle pain from Monday. I usually get REALLY bad DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), which I know that you're just supposed to work through as normal. My fear, though, was that if I went and brutalized my leg muscles again like I did on Monday, I'd be too sore to skate at practice tonight. It seems, so far, to be a fairly justified decision, since my legs feel a LOT better today.
It's a difficult balance for me, though - I've never been one of those people who just work out to work out. In the past, it's been an accomplishment for me to skate twice a week. It's a bit difficult to go from that into an aggressive, seven days a week training plan for the off-season, and I don't quite know how to motivate myself to keep it up. I have a feeling, though, that practice tonight (which I'm already hemming and hawing about) will be motivation enough to remember why I'm doing this.
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I knew tonight was going to be brutal... I just had a feeling. Cho certainly didn't disappoint. Endurance and body work for two straight hours.
I don't feel like updating about every minute thing- there's still a shower to take, and a bit of a snack to be had before bed, before I have to drag my sore ass out of bed in the morning.
Improvements I noticed: Last week, we did something called "the gauntlet." It was as follows: 40 laps in 10 minutes; 25 in 5; 10 in 3 with a rockstar at the end of each lap; 5 in 1. The first time through, last week, I made all the times save the 25. During the 25, I sat out. My back had cramped up so bad from pushing the 40 that I couldn't handle 25 more. I made my times on the other two, presumably because I'd had the time to rest out.
This week, I decided I wasn't going to sit out no matter what, so I didn't. My times obviously weren't as good. Cho cut our goal down for the 40 laps to 8:00. I made 38 in that time. I was able to do 21 of the 25 in 5 minutes. I just barely made my 10 with 2:48, and barely skirted my 5 at :58. However, I consider it a huge improvement, since I actually made it through all of them without giving up on my body.
Things I'd like to be better: we did a drill called thighmaster intended to work up quad and core strength. It involves squats, which have always been pretty painful for me. I'd love to say I didn't cheat on them and not go as low as I could have, but I did. I've got to learn to go ahead and go through the pain because without the pain I can't do better. I'm particularly disappointed in how I skated during that drill. I'm also disappointed with how I behaved during our hitting drill. I still have a HUGE problem with lacking the aggression and initiative to just hit people. Again, it's a holdover from Belles 'n' Bombshells, where we were taught it was better to save your hits instead of use them, which, as I believe I've noted before, resulted mostly in passive skating, and worrying too much about whether it was the right time to hit someone and missing the opportunity entirely. I'm still letting this mindset rule the day. I know I'm a hard hitter, but I don't take the initiative to show that. And I hate that.
Things I'm puzzled about: the inside the leg pain I've been talking about lately. I think I'm beginning to narrow it down to either the way my shoes/skate boots fit when I'm exercising, or the pressure of my ankle brace. It tends to be worse on the right leg, which is where I wear my brace, but I do have the pain in both legs, which leads me to think I might need different foot support in my shoes. I'm going to also try lacing the shoes a little less tightly tomorrow to see if that makes a difference, as I was getting some pretty gnarly nerve pinches along the top of my foot tonight as well that eased up a bit when I unlaced the bottom set of laces in my boot.
Still some things to improve on, but this is a long off-season. Next week, we don't have any practice starting Sunday because of Thanksgiving, so I know it will be a test of willpower. But with my husband there to remind me why I'm training so hard, I don't think that'll be much of a problem.
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