How Much is Enough?

How much is enough? Well, that's a tough question. Here is what my training schedule has looked like for the past month:

Monday: All Star Practice 2 hrs
Tuesday: Weights with trainer (we're working on core and upper body strength, not endurance weight training)
Wednesday: Scrimmage 2 hrs (mixed then all star)
Thursday: Weights with trainer
Friday: Lunch plyo/ Open Skate 2 hrs (casual 1 on 1 with coach for strategy, technique and form. I've been lucky enough to have some team mates and fellow friend skaters come work with me)
Saturday: All Star morning practice 2 hrs
Sunday: Rest (or I go on a long slow run, depending on how ancy I'm feeling. Most of the time I go for a run.)

The original plan was to get 2 days of rest in a week. I had my training schedule arranged to where that was actually happening for a while. Two-a-days on Monday's and Wednesdays allowed for me to rest on Thursdays and Fridays (before I was seeing a trainer), but now I'm down to 1 rest day (which I barely even use).

My trainer was proud to hear that I was smart about my rest days, but now that I look at it all (as I'm typing this out), I've been living a lie! I haven't taken 2 rest days in a week in a long time. So am I doing too much? I don't know. Sometimes I don't even feel like what I am doing is enough (physically, that is).

What about the mental rest though? I'm finding myself NOT wanting to go to practice or scrimmage more and more these days. Am I over doing it? Is it catching up to me? How do I know when to take the mental time off? It's hard to tell. Preparing for this big try out has preoccupied so much of my time (and life for that matter).

I've been making some great positive physical changes. I've cut alcohol out of my diet, I'm working hard to eat cleaner, and I've been very strict about my training. The mental aspect is where I'm struggling. It feels like motivation is slipping away.

So what do I do?

Seriously. What do I do?

"You've got to work hard to maintain success"

That quote has been with me for the past couple of years. I first heard it on this Michael Phelps Under Armour Commercial. I always knew what this meant for athletes like Michael Phelps, but I never knew what it meant for me. I guess I never really saw myself as super successful in derby. Don't get me wrong, I've celebrated many victories over the seasons, but never really thought of myself as "top notch"...until this season.

I started this season as a big fish in a small pond, but the other big fish in my pond is just as big. And she's just as incredible of a skater. When I came off my injury prior to the start of the season, I said to myself "this season is MINE! I'm going to show people what I'm capable of!" and I picked out the best skater in my league and made it my personal goal to beat her All Star try out scores. I trained my tail off. Dry land workouts, running, swimming, skating, physical therapy. I revamped my diet, and paid closer attention to nutrition and fuel. I read books about Michael Phelps, and Michael Jordan. I watched basketball, football, baseball, and roller derby. I studied the best athletes facial expressions, muscle tone and muscle memory, and how they handled stressful situations. I set out to be like them. Mentally and physically.

On the day of All Star try outs, I made sure to go up against my target. Every blocking drill, I made sure I was with her. When she hit me, I made sure my hit was more powerful. For the timed lap sprint, I made sure to be in perfect form and have perfect technique. For strategy, I knew I had the upper hand due to all the film I had studied. I left that try out feeling proud and confident.

The scores were released a few days after the try outs. Sitting in my cubicle at work, I hesitated to open the file for an hour. Finally, I took a deep breath and clicked on the download. At first I didn't read the document correctly and couldn't find ANY of my scores, and just saw hers. My heart sunk when I saw her scores up at the top. I thought "This can't be right," and looked again. Sure enough, right above her scores were mine. Turns out, I had accomplished my goal. I was the top All Star scorer! I beat her in over all scoring.

After try outs, I continued to work hard because I knew that things weren't going to get easier. Just because I reached one goal, doesn't mean there aren't better athletes in the world. I have to work hard to maintain my success, but I have to work that much harder to rise above my success.

Now that I have a new goal, and now that I see the level of athleticism going into these try outs, I have a long road of hard work ahead of me. It's very exciting. I feel very motivated and confident that I can achieve my goal. Even if it takes a lifetime, I'm going to reach it!

Team USA Try Outs are in 30 days. I've been training hard again. Lifting weights, doing plyometrics, running, and spending extra time on my skates. I've been studying film and photos with my coach, and trying to incorporate the new skills I've been learning in my game. It's been exciting. But there is still much more to be done.

Oh, and I've set up a fundraiser to help offset the costs of the try outs. Please share this link! Donate if you feel so inclined! I'm going to make sure my presence is known at Team USA try outs!

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1YWn1

A Day In The Life

I always really enjoy reading other skaters blogs and about their training. I also read other non derby people's blogs too. One of my favorite posts in the blogesphere (?) is actually probably one of the most simple and probably not very exciting. A recount of a full day in the life of Kathleen Shannon of Braid Creative.

Now, I realize this might totally be creeper of me, seeing as how I know Kathleen through various acquaintances, and I played derby with her in Oklahoma (for a season), but I never was really that close to her. Yet, I read her blog like it's going out of style! I love her style, her aesthetic, her goal busting go getter attitude, and her will to explore. But most of all, I love the fact that she remains so transparent with her audience. Hell, she even once made a blog post about periods! She was my main inspiration for starting a blog, although I'm not as diligent about updating and, well, let's just be honest, I'm not the greatest writer.

But this post. This hourly breakdown of her day. This peek into her, what I see as glamorous, but isn't always so glamorous life really made me want to read more posts like this. It reminded me of Harpers Bazaar's "A Day In the Life" (my favorite being the issue that featured Karl Lagerfeld). I started scouring my already favorite blogs for very similar posts (even exact), but to no avail, couldn't find anything. That's when it hit me! Maybe I should do a series on my blog featuring the daily schedules of others!

Reading these schedules and timelines and getting a better sense of people in their realities makes me feel excited to be alive! We get so stuck in our everyday ways that turn into very mundane activities and routines, but to others, these mundane routines are adventures in life! So where do I go from here? Well, I supposed I could document my day and in the mean time, I supposed I can reach out to some of my favorite people to see if I can feature them.

Who knows what will become of this, or even if I'll be diligent enough to keep up with this project. It's worth a shot though, right?

I'll leave you with this:

6:10 AM: push snooze
6:45 AM: push snooze again
7:01 AM: crawl out of bed long enough to call work to let them know I would be late, and then crawl back into bed because I'm just. not. motivated to go to work!
7:45 AM Finally! I get out of bed, throw on my work clothes, gather my workout gear and head out the door with my bike
8:15 AM log into my computer and then walk to the break room and make some oatmeal sweetened with applesauce (the stupidest breakfast ever), get some coffee, fill my water bottle, and head to a meeting room where I sit and discuss E-Discovery, Endpoint Protection, and Backup software for the next few hours
11:00 AM head down to the gym, put on my workout clothes (I'm very excited because I'm wearing a new sports bra!) put in my ear buds, and head outside. It's plyo day. I feel like puking, and I feel groggy
11:45 AM shower and walk to the cafeteria where I load up on salad greens, onions, tomatoes, roasted garlic, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil (because let's face it, I've been eating a lot of junk lately)
12:00 PM sit at my computer here at work, comment on some facebook statuses while I eat my salad and a can of tuna
12:45ish PM: Start on this post