As I embarked on my plan to get in shape and start taking lessons again next week, I probably should have added actual skating to the mix before this week. Oh, well.
Today was probably the fifth time I’ve been on the ice in the last six months – the second this week. So, while a lot of muscles are getting better due to my exercise this month, they’re not necessarily the ones I’ll use for skating. But that’s okay, I’m not so much interested in getting more speed or power out of my skating right now – my goal is simply to be in better general shape so I can make it though the clinics.
Today’s skating session was 2:45 – three forty-five minute skates, with fifteen minutes between them to cut the ice.
The first session was absolute hell. The last time I skated my calves hurt, so I’ve been trying to target them more in my off-ice exercise, but today they were okay. It was the front of my legs that hurt.
Why this part of my leg would hurt while skating, I don’t understand, but it’s painful as hell. This lasted throughout the first session, but after resting while they cut the ice, it went away in the second.
Three five-minute breaks for water in the first session, two in the second, and one in the third, so I was on the ice, skating steadily, for over an hour and a half.
They’ve finally, this year, started reversing directions at this rink, so it was counter-clockwise/clockwise/counter-clockwise. Reinforcing my knowledge that I can’t do a crossover clockwise. There’s something about the lean – I’m very uncomfortable leaning in that direction for some reason.
After the skate, I had to deal with my typical, left-foot pain.
These pains I know the source of. I have some inflammation of my Achilles at the heel. Pressure on it is painful when I’m skating, so my left foot has to go forward in the skate, rather than being flush against the heel (I’m working on some kind of padding that might work), but this presses the top of my foot into the laces. So after a skate I can count on both hurting.
All I concentrated on today was skating forward – I was really just trying to work the muscles, rather than trying to improve any skills. At the end of the last session, with everyone leaving the ice, I skated to the goal line at the door end and did a simple hockey stop. Then, since people were lining up to exit the ice, I decided to skate backwards a few feet. And prompt fell on my ass. As soon as I started backward, my muscles just gave out and it was like someone had cut my legs out from under me. Not the ending I wanted.
