Monday, September 29, 2008

New ways to injure myself

I tried to get this "can't train because of back injury" out of my system so I'm trying something else - Diversion.

I'm lacing up my ice skates and heading back to the rink. No jarring of my arm and a good way to keep fit. Also, it keeps me from trying on every last pair of pants daily in my closet to make sure I can still get into them.

For those who don't know (and who would, really) I used to skate competitively for my entire life. Yes, I was one of those weird kids that didn't go to movies or date. Instead, I spent every waking moment (hello, 4:00 am) on the ice.

So here we go again. I'm even taking lessons. They do actually have lessons for adults who skate or want to skate. And there is a rink in Austin.

The skates I have are brand new. And unless you've had the pleasure of wearing in a pair of top-notch 2-inch thick pair of leather skates, you don't know what you're missing. Let's put it this way: I bought a set of blister pads that stick to my ankles like SuperGlue made the construction guy's helmet stick to the piece of wood.

Therefore, instead of bunny slippers or a comfy pair of socks, I'm wearing my skates around the house and doing squats to wear in the ankles. (A good sign that skates are finally wearing in is a telltale crease right around the ankle area. In my case, not even a hint yet.)

Fortunately, wearing skates, although painful for now, is like wearing running shoes for me. I can walk up and down stairs in them and could probably do some laps in them.

Important clarification - I have "guards" protecting the blades of my skates as I wander. These are plastic things that I put on the blades to protect them. Skates are freakin' expensive. In high end skates, blades and boots are purchased separately. Boots cost around $800 and blades $500. I also own the BMWs of the skate world. There are some that can purchased for less so I wrote my own ticket for the half dollar sized blisters.

Also important is the higher quality the boot, the thicker the leather. The thicker the leather, the nastier the blister. And so forth.

One more note. The blades are sharper than any of my chef knives (which isn't saying much, they're pretty dull - what I mean is how sharp chef knives are supposed to be.) So trying to initiate a stop while you're wearing a cement shoe is nearly impossible. You either flip forward or wait to blast into the wall (not a good option because you don't want to dirty the perfect white leather.)

Naturally, I enjoy speed. Clearly, the only option is just decelerate until I come to a stop.

Despite all this, I'm really looking forward to a reason to get off my ever expanding butt everyday. More on this as I go along.

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