The worst part is that I know exactly what causes them. There's a pair of hills I skate up every single day that are... not hugely steep, but very long, and my skating stride is not good for them. Most derby girls have a speedskater-esque stride, pushing straight out to the sides. Mine is much closer to an artistic/figure skater stride, pushing behind with a twist at the end for more push. It's effective on the flat and gives me a lot of maneuverability (very handy, given my major strengths as a blocker are my big dramatic sweeps and positional blocking) but when pushing up the hills the twist causes intense stabbing pain down the inside of my tibias. Trying to stretch it out is nigh-impossible, though I've had some success via enlisting other people to lean their full bodyweight onto my feet while I do it.
At least I can actually see progress now. I do this skate nightly, usually with at least a couple other people. When I was first starting out, I asked around my league for people who might want to come with me... only the people who wanted to come were VV and M, a couple (a jammer and a ref, their forbidden love is epic) who are super fit, super fast, and heavily into extreme sports. VV can sprint the bridge while pushing their baby in a pram they had made special for this purpose--the whole rig weighs about 30 kilos now, an amount that will only increase as Derby Baby grows.The other person who comes along, though not as regularly, is J--she's also a jammer, and I'm pretty sure she was a pro speed skater or something for a while. Again, crazily fit. Other people come along sometimes, but again, most of them are super fit (most people who are at my level are too intimidated to come along, I think.)
L-R: VV, M, Derby Baby, and J.
(Err, the reason I'm going by acronyms and not mentioning specific places or teams or leagues is because I have a bad habit of picking up internet stalkers every time I make myself even a little bit identifiable. Hence why all the pictures on this blog are taken with a shitty cameraphone, with crap lighting--this one was taken in the glow of J's headlights.)
But I am improving. I know this, because the first time I did the skate I couldn't keep up at all, I was gasping for air the whole way, and I wanted to lay down and die at the end. Tonight I kept up the whole way except for a little bit near the end, and even managed to talk instead of panting my way through it. All this after ten skates! It's certainly good motivation to keep going (and watching VV setting an insane pace while pushing Derby Baby is certainly motivation to push my own limits pretty hard.)
I just wish my damn shins would take the message... this bullshit is getting old.
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