Fresh Meat: Week 5

Biggest lesson I learnt this week?  Skating the other direction is hard.  We started off practice by doing 10 warm up laps in one direction and then 10 in the other direction.  Going anti-clockwise is easy because my right leg is used to guiding me around corners but going clockwise is ridiculous.  First off, my left leg is totally uncoordinated and cannot function as a guide.  On top of that, my right leg wants to take over which meant I went off the track at every single corner.  Can we say frustration?  Even sticky skating feels unnatural skating clockwise.  Bleh.  I'm adding that to my list of things Monique needs to practice!!

After laps, I was just about ready to go home.  I know that I sound like a broken record but skating the opposite direction left me with jelly legs.  Did I mention it was hard?  Anyhoo, after a quick water break we moved on to skating around obstacles.  Our coach for the even placed some cones on the ground and we had to skate around them first using both feet to guide us and then sticky skating slalom style.  This was much easier than anticipated and a nice break after the laps.  In other words, we got a chance to catch our breath.

Last night also included more backwards skating practice.  I first started skating backwards by accident at the stadium one day and I haven't had any trouble with this skill since.  I do find it a little had to pick up speed but once I'm going, it's all good.  Got to remember to get my centre of gravity right though, I almost face-planted twice!!

Next up, knee slides.  This is a skill I learnt during my first Fresh Meat run through so it was just a matter of getting the movements right again.  I rather like this skill because sliding across the floor on both knees feels pretty damn cool.

We ended practice with planking, which is basically the worst exercise ever.  30 seconds normal plant, 30 seconds left side plank and 30 seconds right side plank.  By the time I got home I was super achy and super exhausted and all essay writing plans flew out the window in favour of my couch and coffee.   That may sound like a post of complaint but I assure you it's not.  While this may be hard (especially for a lazy bastard like me) it's still an enormous amount of fun.