Pushing it

Last Thursday was my first day back at derby after test-ups. I’d been allowed to attend the Wednesday scrimmage, but I had a rough day at work and didn’t want to get discouraged at derby the first time out.

I didn’t really think about it, but testing up to A- indicates that I’m at a higher level than some of the other skaters. I noticed as we were doing the drills that the trainer (Bea Ware) had her eye on me (she also ran test-ups). Quite often she’d make comments on how I was doing (“good speed skating position, Andrea”, “Andrea – what are you doing to better your jammer’s position?”). I know it’ll definitely help me continue to improve at a higher level, but it was a bit of a surprise at first!

Thursday was the first time I’d been exposed to the 50 lap exercice. 50 laps around the “big track”. I grabbed my Garmin to check my heart rate, and then realized I could also use it to help me count laps! We started skating, and I did well, lapping quite a few girls. At one point Bea said “so this is just like the marathon, right?” (I’m now known as ‘the marathon girl’). I looked at my heart rate: it was 189! Not quite like the marathon!

We kept skating and once or twice I wondered if I’d remembered to hit the lap button. Then the trainer called out “Andrea – you’re done, aren’t you?” Other people I’d passed were finishing up. How sad that I was the one tracking laps on a watch and I miscounted! In the end, I did 54 laps. I wasn’t overly careful about hitting the button right as I passed the pylon, so these numbers aren’t exact, but overall I was able to see that I really didn’t slow down at all during the drill:

In the end I mentioned that my heart rate had gotten up to 194, within 3 beats of my perceived max. Bea said she was surprised at that, but I explained that I was an endurance athlete, I’d rather go long and slow than fast. I AM glad to be doing this sort of cardio in derby, though! It’s great cross-training without the jarring!