daieno bikaTurns out I already have another progress report on my single-minded pursuit of learning to skate as well as my body can cope with. Yay!
Miraculously, we were able to make all the schedules line up twice this weekend to get to an ice rink vaguely in our area. I was so excited to try out these blades, and particularly to find out what it’s like ice skating in my inline boots. I learned that yes, these boots are just as comfortable on the ice as on pavement. Which I had predicted, but it’s nice to experience the reality of it. It took about 2.5 hours of continuous skating for my feet to start noticing they had stuff strapped to them and maybe not liking it so much. But the last half hour of that session was only somewhat uncomfy, not enough for me to decide to give up the last bit of what I expected to be the only ice time I’d get for a while.
I’m a beginner ice skater, so I don’t know how to compare the experience of these blades to ‘normal’ ice skates. They are sharper than the other blades I’ve skated on, I can tell you that, and it was very helpful having real grip and real edges to work with.
I did notice a ‘wobbly feeling’ at the front when gliding, like the blades were trying to steer my toes side to side. I found that I was able to cope with/overcome it, but I’m not sure what was causing it. My (lack of) balance? The position of the blades relative to my feet? The profile of the blade rocker? The novel experience of having blades that actually grip the ice? Unclear. It happened both before and after some blade adjustments to try to get the optimal positioning, and more experimentation will be needed.
Overall, it was awesome. I was finally able to get my one foot glides going. I’m proud of myself for getting to the point where I get to decide when to put my free leg down, rather than inevitably losing my balance and having to put it down whether I want to or not. I was also able to add backwards wiggles to my repertoire of backwards lemons and C-cuts. That sounds so simple when I type it out, but required an entire 1.5 hours of practice in reality. 😆 My body just took that long to get itself organized to generate momentum and find the line between Grippy Blade and Slippy Blade in that movement.
That added up to 4.5 hours on the ice, between two sessions separated by a full rest day. That was a lot of movement for me, and although I am still very tired I don’t seem to have injured anything. I made sure to rehydrate and eat, tape my back to keep it from going haywire, and spent a lot of time lying down resting afterward. There was also a hot shower in the middle there, and some gentle movement during the rest days to make sure I didn’t just get frozen into a sore pretzel. And it worked.
Astounding. I only had a minor headache for a few hours after each session, which faded without becoming a 24 hour misery, too.
We’ll see whether my next session is on ice or sidewalks. Hard to know, with the spring weather being the way it is. I’m looking forward to finding out how this practice soaked into my brain next time, either way.
#skating #inlineskating #iceskating #figureskating #learntoskate #icerink #powerslide #adultplay #recoveryprogress #burnout #recovery
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