6 months....sheesh....

Oh my god…I’m not even going to discuss the fact that I’ve neglected my blog for 6 months ish (well…apart from just then…lol)

It goes without saying that there are a LOT of things that I’ve failed to discuss over the past months. Most notable of everything are the two CCR bouts that have been and gone during my distinct lack of blogging…and they were ace.

In January we skated against ourselves (with a couple of guest Romsey girls thrown into the mix) in a Pink vs Blue bonanza: Breaking the Squeal! For a day, league relations were forgotten as we prepared to do battle against ourselves. It was a great first bout, despite the fact that I completely forgot the rules and yelled at the refs for making me skate all the way round to the penalty box…and then threw Verry Cherry off the track (quite literally actually) for what I had decided was a very naughty back block (I am the law…didn’t you know???). I know I commit lots of penalties (our refs will attest to the fact that I have a love for the forearm block (ILLEGAL!) and that I spend more time than any other skater asking them ‘okay, so what EXACTLY did I do wrong…’) but I will swear on my life that they are all accidental and without malice. I don’t take kindly to what I perceive to be a purposeful push and I wreck my own vengance. I owe a lot to Ravin Maniac for practically sitting on me and shoving a sock in my mouth that afternoon! *must battle with temper before battling with rollergirls in future*

In the end, Team Blue secured a victory over Team Pink and everyone had a great time! I can't wait for our next one!



Our second bout, I Scream Sunday, took place just a couple of weeks ago…and this time we opened our hall to the Auld Reekie Roller Girls, who sent their travel team, The Twisted Thistles, to have a bash at our Belles of Centrinnians. This was the first time we’d thrown a team in to scrimage with a team from another league, and it was definitely a steep learning curve! I think my ribs have only just stopped aching! The skating was hard and fast, and the body blows came harder and faster!! Accumulations of silly little minors meant that both teams spent a lot of time in the sinbin, and at one point the Belles’ line-up consisited of a pivot and a jammer…naughty Belles…but everyone fought hard to do the best for their teams. In the end, the Thistles may have beaten us by 10 points, but I for one felt that we’d done our best not to make their win easy! I was elated to simply be skating in front of an audience (and what an audience!) and engaging in some crashy bashy action…even though we lost I think I was as happy for Auld Reekie’s win as I would have been for our own! I think I must be mellowing in my old age (I turned 27 two days before I Scream Sunday…another step up that hill!). Not only was I ecstatic for another team’s (nay…another LEAGUE’S) win, but I also managed to control my stupid old temper for *most* of the bout!

At one point I got sent off for grabbing a member of the ARRG…but the refs had failed to see that I’d been spun around by a backblock and grabbed her (sorry….whoever you were!) so that I wouldn’t have pirouetted straight into her. Fair enough, I probably should have dropped to the floor and not grabbed anyone at all, but I was angry with those Zebras (and the back block) and I made no bones about who knew it. As I sat down in the penalty box I was STILL yelling, and Ravin Maniac did her league-ly duty again and told me to shut up….this time from the bleachers! Lol…I guess I’ll learn to control myself one of these days. I really should make it my duty to remember that no-one’s going to listen to you if you start ranting!!


Me and my teeniest fan! And her wickedcool sign!


My temporary tattoo sleeve...us Belles of Centrinnians are part-time rebels you know ;) ha ha

I can’t wait for the next few bouts to come, as well as all the other skatey goodness that is to come in the sunshine months. I lost my Outdoor skates for a while (having lent them to someone and promptly forgotten that I’d done it!) but they’re back now and ready to eat up some pavements. I take them with me everywhere I go so there’s always the chance for a skate.

Race for Life is also on the adenda again, and running sessions have started (I’ve only joined in on one though…bad, lazy me) so if I manage to keep up with this blog thing you can look forward to finding out if me and my fellow runners beat our time of 29 minutes from last year! I’m hoping to get my speed up in the next few months…25 minutes should be an easily reachable target!

More soon (with any luck!) xxx

*acts like she never stopped posting*

Oh my GOD! I’m not even going to mention the ‘n’ word (neglect…willful blog-neglect) I’m just going to get on with writing. I’ve missed SO much.

Blame my job. I do! I think having a few weeks (months?) off skating and away from my teammates has made the biggest divide in my brain. I’ve been extremely depressed about it all; my fitness (and my fatness) has suffered and I’m finding it really hard to pull it back again. The regime has begun though…yesterday I skated, tomorrow I’m skating, Sunday I’m coaching (and skating), Tuesday I’m running (and I WILL be running…no lameo excuses for me this week!), Wednesday I’m skating outdoors (with less fear this week) and then Thursday it’s back to practice.

I’m getting tired just thinking about it all, but it’s essential really. I’m angry at my slowness, my lack of breath and my thighs of doom.

To make up for the non-writing and the sheer number of things that I’ve done that have gone unrecorded, this is the blog I wrote for the CCR Myspace about the race for life…



(…I’m the one on the left…then it’s Dynomite Bo, Ouija Broad and Hustle’her)

Besides Hustle'her, who'd already run the race for life a few times on a couple of different courses, I don't think the rest of us were certain what we were taking on when we offered to join her and raise money for Cancer Research on behalf of all of the Central City Rollergirls. We vowed that we'd keep our pace up through the entire 5km race, and so we began training together with this in mind. There's a lot of debate, but we estimate that the path around the Arrow Valley Lake in Redditch is about 1.4 miles so our aim was to get to the point where we found doing two laps around the lake comfortable. To tell the truth, they were less like training sessions and more like gossip fests, but I guess you've got to do something to take your mind off the torturous pain and chatting to your friends is probably the best way to get through it all!

The morning of the race dawned grey and drizzly, but that didn't stop us from arriving at the park over an hour before it was set to start. Accompanied by Mr Gory and Fletchie dog (who wasn't allowed to join in the race on account that he would 'trip people up'…something we tested and found to be true on a few of our training sessions) we stood around in the rain for 45 minutes before the warm-up started, feeling our coats getting heavier by the second. Luckily, the rain dried up as we were called to the start line, and Mr Gory was ready and willing to tote our wet coats (and the dog, and my spare bottles of water) while he waited for us to hit the finish. He deserves a big thank you for being our packhorse and photographer for the morning, and it was lovely to know that he was waiting for us to finish as we got in place to start the race.

Using our rollergirl prowess we shouldered our way to the front of the line which meant that we had a great – and speedy - start to our race, and I think we'd covered about 500 metres before we brought the pace back to something we were all more used to. Unfortunately, the quick start meant that I spent the first two kilometres battling the worst stitch I've EVER had (I could feel the pulled ligaments for days afterwards) so I was a royal pain in the ass to my fellow joggers, demanding that they motivate me and denying that I'd manage to keep running for the whole thing. I'm fairly certain that if I'd have been tackling the course on my own it'd have been a walk, run, walk, run, walk walk walk kind of affair, so I've got to extend a massive thanks to Hustle'her, Dynomite and Ouija. Without them to spur me on I'd probably still be walking the course now!

The course was considerably more difficult than jogging round the lake alone, and running uphill on slippery grass took a lot out of us before we'd even passed the 1km marker. You could tell it was much harder work as we all gritted our teeth and set our minds to moving our legs instead of wagging our chins, and the chatter reduced down to 'are you ok?' and 'we can do this' after a time. The first three markers seemed to be VERY far between as we crossed fields and roads before finding ourselves on familiar ground jogging round the lake, but the fourth marker made it's appearance much sooner than expected and then we were on the final 500m to the finishline. Dynomite drew strength from some unknown source and steamed ahead, sprinting the last part of the race like she'd just started it, and Hustle'her was quick to follow suit. Ouija and I brought up the rear, taking the last 500m at the same pace we'd run most of the race for…I honestly don't think I could have sprinted to save my life at that point, and it was all I could do just to keep on picking up my feet and putting them down again.

We may have been split up, but we all crossed the finsh line in about 29 minutes, and although I felt like I could have puked and passed out as I accepted my medal, goodie bag and water from the nice men in cammo, I felt an amazing sense of elation. I hadn't slowed to a walk and I'd done something I never thought I'd be able to do, and as well as that I'd done it with my friends whilst raising money for charity! Five kilometres doesn't sound like a lot, but to someone who's never run for anything other than the bus before (me) it was a massive challenge to keep going for the entire course. I'll definitely be doing it again next year, hopefully with my running-mates, and hopefully in under 29 minutes! Watch this space…



…I look horrific in this picture. BLAME THE RAIN!…root of all evil *grumbles*

So, back to the present day!

I've been getting more and more excited about the idea of league coaching. I guess it says a lot about me that I like to yell at everyone and make them do as I say...but I really don't care! ha ha...I've been on a HUGE drill-hunt on t'interweb and I've discovered so many new, fun and grueling drills. I'll be taking some of them to Bedford with me this weekend to show the bandits how to cause their ladies the most pain and apres-skate aches.

I've also been feeling more and more that although I'm a good skater I'm nowhere near natural enough on my skates. The only cure for this? More skating...and not just that, but more skating on uneven, unreliable surfaces, up and down hills, and where people can see me and jeer.

I have to say, I was totally unprepared for how much people don't give a toss about people on skates. They don't realise you can't stop on a penny, they don't realise you can't skate past them when the only room they give you is two feet of pavement on a camber that threatens to spill you into the water...they also don't realise how much hard work it is. It's easy to made snide remarks when you're wandering along enjoying the sunshine, it's not so easy when you have four wheels on each foot and you're trying to duck-walk your way up a massive hill (or tip-toe up it on your toe-stops as I was more likely to be seen doing).

It's difficult...I don't like being looked at and I especially don't like being talked about WHILST being looked at, so it's not the easiest thing for me to strap skates on and waddle around in public. However, I'm not going to be a big whining baby (as Mr Gory called me when I admitted to him I'd quit skating after just one lap of the lake while Ouija and Hustle'her were happy to do another) and I'm going to keep on trying it until I'm less terrified! Right now the sheer effort of not descending into a panic attack is enough to leave me shaking and exhausted...I can't wait for the day when I can skate along outdoors without seeing visions of myself kissing the pavement, rolling over a pedestrian, gamboling into the lake or other appropriate embarrassing and painful situtaion...

...I really don't know why I'm so scared. I fall all the time in practice!...and besides that, how many kids play on rollerskates without fear?!

I'm sorely tempted to try blading though, quads seem to dislike uneven floors as much as I do!

More SOON! xx

Race for life...

On Sunday 6th July, Dynomite Bo, Hustle'her, Ouija Broad and I will be hitting the pavements of Arrow Valley Lake to join the Race for Life and raise money for cancer research.

I'm quite excited...I know it's not a huge distance, but jogging isn't really my bag (baby) so it's sort of a big deal that I'm hoping to run the entire distance. The key word there is *hoping*, as I actually don't have any clue if I can keep my body moving at speed for that long!! Today the dog and I are going to buy a stretchy running lead so he can help me train (okay...pull me up hills), it's just a shame he can't join the race with us. According to the race for life people he'll trip people over...I was shocked that they knew him so well!

Pretty pretty please click either of the race for life images and sponsor the four of us to help us reach (and maybe even double?!) our target of £200...even the teenyest donation will be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance :)