Me, Chet Wisconsin, Lauren LaBurn and Daisy Pain
Chet and Daisy
Me and Daisy before the crowds took over the dancefloor
Daisy is a Pain ;)...I'm so jealous!
I didn't even come close to getting an early night on friday, even though I felt like a zombie, but it didn't stop me being uberexcited about the LRG's New Year's Retribution Bout. The minibus was buzzing with chatter the whole two hour and a half hours there, and in a completely shocking turn of events we didn't get lost in London, we arrived early and we even had time to grab snacks before being the first in the queue to get into the hall. It all paid off and we got amazing trackside seats...and later on we were rewarded with no less than three rollergirls in our laps! N-Emma-Si5, Correctional Felicity and Slice Andice all got thrown into us from out of nowhere (it seemed)...but we held fast and didn't spill our beers.
We were cheering for Team Pink, and it was so close, but in the end Pink managed to pull ahead of Team Black and steal the Retribution victory. Unfortunately Ana Ki sustained an injury, but she was so calm that it was hard to believe she was so badly hurt! Kudos to her...I hope she recovers quickly!
The afterparty was also a lot of fun, even if it did take an age to get served at the bar! We hung out chatting with the Bedford Bandits and the London Rockin' Rollers before jumping in the minibus for the journey home. A few of us succumbed to sleep, which was some mean feat considering the rest of us spent most of the time recounting the bout, the roller disco and the next day's practice as well as singing along (very tunefully) to classic 80s songs...
In the end I got home about half three and into bed for 4am in time to grab another three and a half hour's sleep. Mr Gory's an International Paintball Star and so he was up bright and early for training, waking me and Eve L Hart so I put on the coffee and steeled myself for a two hour Trophy Wife practice on very little sleep and lots of caffine and adrenaline.
Despite wanting to puke for the whole two hours (and skating off at one point to do so) I stuck it out and tried my hardest to lead the pack as Pivot. I'm not 100% sure that Pivot is the best choice for me...it's a lot more involved than you'd probably think. To start with, like every other girl on the track you're having to fight to keep your position (and keep upright) but you're having to do this whilst continuously looking behind you and making sure that none of your team have lost their position or gotten in trouble. And while you're doing all this you're also trying to keep control of the entire pack, scream strategy to your blockers, and be the one to hold back the opposition's Jammer when she's snuck past everyone else...
My attention span isn't so great, and many times during practice it was all I could do to keep wide and low and at the front of the pack, let alone keeping any kind of control. I guess it's not the kind of thing that you're going to be perfect at straight away...maybe once I'm comfortable with the skating position then the other stuff will start to come more naturally. It's so difficult to keep dodging around the track stretched out to take up loads of room, and my thighs were killing me after just a few minutes. I was expecting to be crippled this morning but I seemd to be pretty ache-free in comparisson to my usual post-practice agony. I must be getting fitter...it's hard to believe, maybe it's more like my body has given up complaining. It must think I'm crazy! I was even practicing knee-falls with these massive disco-bruises...I swear Roller Derby has made a masochist of me!
Thinking about it, it's got to have done...from thursday to sunday I had about ten hours sleep, Skated for 7 and a half hours (5 and half at the disco, 2 at practice) travelled for around 8 hours from events and home...and it was such a brilliant weekend that I'm worried the rest of 2008 is going to struggle to match up!!
