In Praise of Endurance

Man, posts with me are like buses, aye. A spate of two posts a day, then bugger all for nearly a fortnight. We lost the game against Dead Wreckoning, but it was the most fun, happy and positive game of roller derby that I think it's possible to have. Mascara Massacre went out on the track with just nine players (to Dead Wreck's 11), with some really unfortunate injuries seeing us with less than two full line-ups. However, we played incredibly bloody hard, fought for every point and eventually went down by just twelve points. According to those in the know, that's the narrowest margin Dead Wreckoning have ever lost by, and it's nice to think that with an extra player or two we might have held to a win. There were heaps of hugs and smiles all round after the game and the afterparty was just great, lots of beer (of course) fun and good chat. I was somewhat the worse for wear the next day but how much of that was down to the beer and how much was down to having the stuffing knocked out of me in successive jams is a job to say.

Me, about to hit Pieces of Hate. I managed not to fall down! (that time)

However, I wanted to write about something that springboards from a post I read on derbygirls by Blockodile Dundee (the link appears to be broken, which is a crying shame). In it, she talks about the joy of derby in letting her see her body as a tool, seeing beyond just the aesthetic and appreciating all the things her body can do, first on and now also off the track. It was a lovely thing to read and, in my opinion, right on the money. I care a truckload less about my wobbly bits since derby took over my life, and now have a really strong appreciation for all the totally awesome stuff my 80kg, 170cm frame can do, apart from grow bruises like mould and develop five o'clock shadow on the armpits. 

I read the article before the bout and, although I was really bloody proud of the fact I managed to skate three, even four jams in a row that night and actually hit stuff with effect (more on that in another post), it wasn't until last night's endurance training that I really understood what I can do these days.

I'm so pleased our league now has an optional endurance night. It's the night used to have scrimmage training, the thinking being that finishing a scrimmage at 10:30pm on a Monday night is a surefire way to be wasted for the rest of the week (amen). A new slot opened up, trainings changed times and now Monday night is all about pushing it. I always make an effort to go, unless I've trained/bouted the Saturday and Sunday (otherwise I'll DIE). So, last night was endurance night. We were lucky enough to have Misfit, a veteran skater with the Minnesota Roller Girls, training us and she worked us incredibly hard. So hard that I we could have quit forty five minutes before we did and I've still have said she worked us really hard. She kicked our ass on endurance, intervals, skate drills, off-skate drills, ab workouts, everything that could be worked out was worked out and by the end I felt like I really had nothing left in the tank. Her three rules were "Nobody cheats, nobody quits, nobody complains" or else the entire group would be punished for it. So nobody cheated, nobody quit and nobody complained, apart from the odd "I am LOVING this" said in a gritted-teeth-I-hate-this-and-all-of-you kind of way.

It was about halfway through that I really started to appreciate what I could put my body through and what it can do. Train for two hours straight with only blink-and-you'll-miss-'em breaks to grab a mouthful of water? Sure. Fall hard on that side you hurt during the bout when sprinting in the anti-skatewise direction? Get back up without thinking about it and GET BACK ON THE PACE. Keep going when the coach introduces an exercise after you gave your last weeny bit of energy to the last exercise which she said was the last one? If you insist.

I'm sure that if I'd found something else physical that grabbed me the way derby has taken over then I could push myself as hard as I can these days. It's probably not JUST a derby thing, but the feeling of finally getting to the end of a workout/training session/bout and knowing that you poured absolutely everything you had into it is probably the most intensely rewarding feeling you can have with your clothes on.

That said, try to do your weights program the next day and your body will politely go tell you to fuck off.