Working in the education sector has its drawbacks. Mainly, these drawbacks are between 5 and 6 feet tall, belligerent and can swear at me in several different languages. To make up for having to deal with such ongoing professional issues I get an obscene amount of time off. I think they worked out it's cheaper to give us 13 weeks holiday a year than it is to clean up the ensuing mess that would result from accumulated stress and pent-up rage if we didn't get regular breaks.
With all this time off, I get to spend lots of time skating in the rinks that are opened over the school breaks to give bored childminders something to do with their charges. What actually happens is that I get a whole, glorious rink all to myself, to do whatever I like in (if I don't mind the occasional small child trying to hit me with a football).
The hard part comes in amusing myself after I've done all the grunt work. Say today, where my 2 hour session was pretty much on my own (apart from a welcome interruption from the lovely Pina Collider in the last 30!). I started like I do every public skate session, with a warm up and then heavy heavy endurance/cardio. Instead of my beloved sets of five minute/25+ laps today, I did pyramids. If you don't know, pyramids is one lap as fast as you can go, then a 30 second rest. Then two laps, then thirty seconds. After five laps you're starting to feel a bit put out, but thankfully after five you go down to four, and then so on back to one. Getting off my backside for that final lap always feels like an amazing leap forward in the development of my willpower, but it does wonders for my fitness!
So, after the grunt work, what to do? I've made it my mission (apart from trying to fit 30 laps in 5 minutes) to master turnaround toe stops before the league starts back in earnest in February. Here's where not having a proper job works in my favour. I get hours of empty rink to over the same things as often as I want, in my own time, and find what works for me. I estimate I've spent about 30-40 minutes per session these holidays doing nothing but turnaround toe stops and backwards/forwards skating. That's a lot of practice! I'm not 100% on it yet, but I can do it at speed and not cause damage to the floor, so with any luck I'll have it cracked for next month.
The rest of the session was lots of practice of the skills test basics, and skating, skating, skating. Tomorrow my sister arrives and I'll be off the rink for a couple of weeks, but I've squished in a lot of skating over the last two days that I think I'll survive until I can get on a rink again. I'm hoping I can get in a lot of walking and swimming with the sibling while she's here so I stay on the fitness wagon, apparently she's keen to get out and about while she's here so all to the good!
Foodwise, this morning was toast and peanut butter and lunch was some leftover curry and brown bread. I'm currently enjoying a crisp, cold apple before I turn the spare room into habitable space. It may take some time.
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