Remember last week when I went on my first skate?? Maybe you noted on my weekly update that I skated Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Maybe you wondered what was up with that... but probably you didn't:). Anyway, even after that first bambi legged skating trip where I couldn't hide the look of sheer terror in my eyes, I kinda wanted to skate more and I kinda wanted my own skates. But that would obviously be ridiculous, I know.
On Friday, Ty went skating with us and it kinda came out that I wanted my own skates. And derby gear. So we struck a deal that I could buy those things if I still wanted them after 12 total skates. Reasonable, right? Then I skated again on Sunday and the skates felt totally different... all wobbly and weird. I complained to J'Alissa and she explained to me that each pair of skates is different - the trucks can be tighter or looser, the wheels can be tighter or looser, the bearings can be more or less worn. She tightened up my trucks and it was worlds better but it really got me thinking more about getting my own skates. Learning how to skate is hard enough without having to adjust to drastically different skates each time!
Enter craigslist, which I have been checking hourly since my first skate trip, and a $75 pair of Reidel skates! I met the seller on Tuesday and talked her down to $60... and now I own my very own pair of skates!!! WOOHOO! I skated on them for the first time last night. I wish I could say that it was heavenly but, of course, it felt all... weird. My trusty derby girlfriend had me take a break from my 50 laps to have them checked out. The guy at the counter asked if I was free-wheeling... which sounded a little too much like free-balling and gave me a private little giggle. Anywhoo, I plopped myself up on the counter and he checked my wheels to discover that they were spinning just fine. He asked if they were new wheels and I shared with him that I'd just bought the skates and the seller said that they'd only been used four times before. He replied, 'yep, you just need to break them in'.
I continued on with my 50 laps. I didn't get to start them until 7:30 because J'Alissa got caught in traffic (I'm not brave enough yet to skate without her!) and I got to buy kneepads as my reward for completing 50 straight laps on Sunday. Anywhoo, I just finished lap 46 when they cleared the floor for pace laps... GRRR!!! I was even on pace to finish my 50 in under 45 minutes which would get me rewarded with my own wristguards.
BUT, the most exciting part of the night was talking to my first real, live derby girl who wasn't J'Alissa!!! OMG - it was so, so great. There were a bunch of people still in the retard lane after the pace skate and a girl asked me about my running tights. We chatted a bit about them and then parted. I started practicing my T stops when she came back up to me and asked if I wanted to do derby!!!! I explained that this was just my fourth time skating so I'm probably not up to it yet but that I was thinking about it. She started tell me about their orientation sessions and derby lessons. It was so exciting because she was kind of encouraging me... and it felt like I was sort of being recruited for derby. OMG. Did I mention, SO EXCITING!!! I remained cool... until she skated away and then I skated over to J'Alissa and panko'd her with all the details super duper excitedly and then she fell down laughing and it was the best thing ever! The End.
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