A Little Lean is All It Takes

After a 2 month long hiatus from any form of roller skating (and pretty much any exercise for that matter) due to illness and LIFE in general, last night I broke back into the world of derby :) 

I've decided to start skating with the Crown City Rollerz Royal Pains down in Cortland.  It is a 40 minute trek but it makes the most sense for me right now: instead of trying to commit to 3+ practices a week with ACRD here in Syracuse (if I had even made the team) I can skate with CCR once a week.  Plus I have a gaggle of friends from my original Fresh Meat class who are making the trek down there as well.  Plus it seems that everyone at CCR is SUPER nice.  I had barely walked in the door when people started walking up (or skating up!) to introduce themselves to the newbie.  I was starting to get pleasantly confused that word of my arrival seemed to be spreading around the track (Caitlin is here, make haste, make haste!) - AAAAND then I realized that I still had my name scrawled in big letters across the back of my helmet . . . .   haha :)  It is a good thing it was on there - my normal MO in a new place is to keep my head down and my unwitting signage forced me to interact with some big tuff impressive roller girls. 

It was a little intimidating walking into the sports complex - "The Mac" - where CCR practices.  This was not an intimate Fresh Meat class of 12 newbie skaters - this was a real honest to goodness league - about 50 women zooming around a gi-normous track.  For a good portion of the 2 hour practice the Fresh Meat were separated from the veteran skaters (but I am told that every practice is different so it may not be that way next time!).  Being back on skates, it felt as though my body remembered what it was supposed to be doing, but my brain was racing saying "Wait! What are we doing? We have to think this through!".  So the first 5 minutes were scary when I was debating with myself whether or not to jump into the fray or to keep skating large circles around the perimeter in a perpetual warm-up!  Once I  convinced my brain to calm down, I was able to join in with the other Fresh Meat.  In no time I was sweating and smiling, huffing and puffing a bit, definitely feeling that my hamstrings were going to be barking at me the next day.

All in all, I am so grateful to be sticking with derby (thanks to encouragement from numerous sources).  Skating with CCR was great - I even learned a few new skills - whips and hits!  Well, "hit" may be exaggerating it a bit.  We practiced leaning into each other to push the other girl out of bounds and then we practiced giving our partner a little butt "bump".  Apparently I have to rediscover how to use my hips, because there was something essential not happening in order to get my tush from A to B.  I'm not too worried though - I'm looking forward to next week's practice already :)