OFF SKATE WORK OUT - because you are worth it

We are all worth it, our bodies are worth it!

We play a FULL CONTACT sport, that means that we are throwing our bodies into each other. It's gonna hurt, and sometimes you might even break, It happens... its not sometign we want to happen, so that's where the off-skate work out comes in. NOT so you can eat as much icecream as you want (even if it is a nice side-effect) but for your body to be able to take it.
For your body to be ready to take 172 pound Swedish wrecking ball... well, I am not that much of a wrecking ball, but off-skate has healped me become a better skater.

I am strong, so I can stay low, I am strong so I can take a hit, I am strong and my muscles weigh a whole bunch and makes me stable. I become a trustworthy skater on the track. I am fit, so my team knows I will last an entire game. Also my fitness makes me able to recover faster, and I am alwys ready to go, go... GO... and sometimes I rest, because that is also important!

My strenght and fitness comes from working out at places like Good To Go when I am in Stockholm and with Gotham and the amazing off-skate programs that Violet Knockout puts together for the Gotham Allstars. It also comes from my determination to become a better and stronger athlethe...

So my message to all of you out there, don't skip the off-skate, it might be what saves you from injuries in the end. AND it also gives you a body you can be proud of, a functional body that will make you able to excel in the sport you love!

Can't wait for the 2015 travel team season to really start... 

Sometimes you gotta rest and eat.

I am a go-go-go person, have you met me? I want everything to happen now now now... and I am restless and sometimes I move on so fast I don't finish what I am doing. I try to read three books at the same time and also listen to three different podcasts and when I'm online I'm always reading three diffeent articles, chattign with at least five people at the same time as I try to put a spreadsheet/article/budget/whatever I am working on together.

In short, I often overwhelm myself and sometimes I get lost in what I shouldn't be doing instead of doing what I should be doing.

Well, that was not what this blog was gonna be about, that is a totally different blog, this blog was gonna be about working out/skating and remembering to plan in recovery days. If you work out and skate as many of us do, we need to have days where we let our muscles recover. We need to let ourselves rest... our bodies need to rest to recover and become stronger. We aalso need to EAT! Food is really an important part of becoming stronger. Eating healthy is really not gonna be bad, but make sure that you are not obsessed with not eating fat or carbs... ect... you need fat and you need carbs if you work out. Everytime I start to obsess about what to eat and not to eat, I usually gain waight, because my brain omitt the word NOT...

So if I think I can NOT eat ice-cream, my brain hears I CAN eat ice-cream and I get a craving for it. I am not saying that eating ice-cream is a bad thing, but it's not dinner and I rather have something else... I do love ice-cream so I will have it a few times a week... just not everyday... everything is fine in moderation...  and with that said, gaining weight is not that bad. I've gained 5 pounds the past two months. I don't really weigh myself more than once a month, because it is not about your weight... my muscles are HEAVY, and the past two months Gotham Allstars season have kicked in, and that means LOT'S of working out... also five pounds of blocker weight is not gonna hurt me...

I know my body (most of the time), and sometimes I need to take two days off from skating and intense off-skate... it doesn't mean I am just laying in bed all day. It usually means I take a long walk, streach, take a warm bath. Have a big steak, some ice-cream and a glass or two of wine... or real good beer... maybe even a kiss or two... (HA, one can only dream).

Because we are worth it! ANd in my go-go-go life and always striving to become better, faster, harder and stronger, I sometimes forget that the resting is important... and to eat... undereating is just as bad as overeating... Overtraining is just as bad as not training at all, and will generally leave you weaker than when you began!
 Ortorexia is a thing YO!

Be careful and take care of yourself... 

More fighting fit... One extra day

Since our onskate practices have moved from Tuesdays to Mondays, we now have the great opportunity to do fighting fit twice per week. With we I mean, Chaos, me, Thunders and maybe Kim. Yesterday was our first Tuesday practice and it was only three of us there, and that s stellar, it was like we had our own personal trainer. VERY awesome, we did some more kicking, and I do ally prefer the kicking over the punching, don't know why, maybe because my strength has always been in my legs?
Well, and the fit part yesterday was kettlebell technique, and we had NONE of that. I think that Jo (the coach) laughed at us at one point, because we are so flexible and strong, but have so little awareness of our upper bodies.

The weeks in March will mainly look like follows:
Monday: on-skate 2 hours
Tuesday: fighting fit 1,5 hours
Wednesday: resting day or 1 hour gym legs/core/upper body
Thursday: fighting fit 1,5 hours
Friday: on-skate 2 hours
Saturday: resting day or 1 hour gym legs/core/upper body
Sunday: Scrimmage 2-3 hours

I have also started to be a little more conscious about what I'm eating, mostly because I tend to eat to little, compared to the amount that I work out. I have added protein shakes and chia seeds to my diet. I'm really working with a mission to become stronger and keep my body flexible and explosive. If I don't eat enough, I get sluggish and tired. I also seem to become sluggish and tired if I eat too much fried food, but everything in moderation seem to work for me

I really am a juice junkie, so my daily intake of sugar is probably out of hands, but I'm fine with that... I love my juices and am in no way planning to stop drinking all the freshly pressed juice I want nor stop my coffee consumption.... LOVE coffee...

Fighting Fit - The crying week

Yesterday at fighting fit was really weird, everyone seemed really emotional, I was on the verge of crying for no reason at all, and I was not the only one...

It was sooooo relieving when I got to do kicks followed by body punches. Yeah, felt real good to punch hard into those pads.  Sometimes the fighting part gets a little frustrating to me, since I'm so uncoordinated... 

Yesterday the crossfit part was freakin sooo hard, we have had much harder rounds, but yesterday it was just like all of us were empty.

We did:

70 push-ups with claps

70 jumping squats

70 burpees

70 switch lunges 

70 toe-touch situps

70 mountainclimbers

It is for sure not the hardest program we done, but we were ALL struggling to get trough it, except from NeveRest (her first time) who just kept going like a little mashine... Must be her cheerleading background. 

On my way home I got some protein-powder, since I've realised I'm real bad at eating, and I might not get enough calories into my body. I'm really determined to get my body into the best shape I can be! 

Starting next week, me and Thunder are going to Fighting Fit twice a week... Yeah... True story! I'm also going to start hitting up the gym more often to get some more strength training.

Next week I will also hear back from my doctor about my second MRI of my hamstring, to get to know more closely what the best sort of physical therapy would be. I just started to go to a sports massage place, and it seem to work out quite well. The level of pain is going down.

Another crazy week: Recap the past week

If you haven't noticed, but my life is crazy busy, it seem like I'm always on the move, on my way somewhere. I like it, but at the same time it does take a major toll on my sleeping habits, I'm always so wired up I have a hard time falling asleep, with insomnia as the result. So coming in to this past Friday I was operating on an average of four to five hours of sleep per night, and that is not at all enough. Especially not if you are working out as much as I am.

One of the reasons I get up quite early is work, but also that before work i wanna catch some chatting time with my girlfriend that lives in Portland. Yeah, that is the westcoast of USA, so we are working on a nine hour difference. So I make coffe and chat with her, either facetime or just voxer before I head to work.

Since i have work and I go to school part-time and I also do a whole bunch od derbywork for my leauge and so on... Yeah, and the nights I don't have derbypractice I do off-skate activities such as Fighting Fit or just go to the gym and do some weights. So... with this all said, I have very little time for my really fab and new apartment... ha ha ha... you catch my drift. It maes me miss living with someone and feeling sad about my girlfriend being so far away, I am so not motivated to keep my apartment looking as fab as it could be.

Well, last week was crazy busy:

 Monday night was boardmeeting, the last meeting of the 2013 Stockholm Rollerderby Board. We had a really great board, and I'm going to miss our meetings, I do think the new board will do a fab job. 

 Tuesday was practice on our sticky floor, we have to take a bus out to an island, and me and Loony laid track for the first time, I think it went better than we expected... We made teh track to long first, but after one lap, we could feel it, and adjusted it to be right. It was a great practice Loony ran and I gotta go over a thing that Fisit Cuffs explained so amazingly in Dresden.

Wednesday was the Annual Leauge Meeting (lasted for 4 hours and we got unicorn cake Crash made) and we voted a new board in. I am no longer on the board of Stockholm Rollerderby, that means I can put more time and work into WFTDA, European Rollerderby, Coachign AND playing myself of course!!

Thursday was Fighting Fit and Panica our new transfer skater joined together with CrackHer, and it was superduperfun, even if the part where we did 300 kettlebell swings felt a little taxing. But hey... it's only about 65 days left until Florida....

Friday was practice, only four people showed up for the off-skate part, but the ones that did, we were superfired up, maybe a little sore since the kettlebell swings from the previous day. The onskate part was run by Sloppy, and it was superfun and everyone looked amazing. I am so proud of how much Stockholm Rollerderby progress all the time, how we push ourselves to become faster and better at all times, how our rookies and our Allstars always are developing and pushing themselves. 

Saturday morning I got up superearly to catch a train at 06.21 to head down to Malmö, to watch Malmö play Copenhagen and for the Sunday Team Sweden practice! But that's all another blog...

What the fuzz and buzz is all about

No longer on the team, but hella fighting spirit...

So Stockholm Allstars are aiming to become more fit for the Beach Brawl tournament in Florida, the first weekend of may. I know, I write about it a lot, but it's because it's something I've dreamed of doing ever since I moved back to Europe. To have a team that is excited and good enough to go to US and play, and we finally  are there now. 

It's so awesome to have a goal, the team having a goal together, to play and aim to climb in ranking. Over a year ago we went and played our first big tournament together in Berlin, we prepared for it at length, and we did real well. I was really proud of the team taking third behind Berlin and London Rollergirls.

In March last year we went to Berlin and beat them, but after that it was like the air just went out, people moved and decided to take breaks from rollerderby, leaving us with to few and  unmotivated players for the Gent tournament. We just didn't seem have it in us, the aim, the spirit nor the drive.

This time it's different, it's like the entire team is buzzing, pushing, skating and wanting. Everyone are showing up at practice, ready to go, to push themselves and excited to go to Florida. We need to create a winning mind, to want this equally and to be excited for progression.

A few things I'm personally doing to become better and more fit is for sure the Fighting Fit class and recovering my hamstring. We are reintroducing the Friday off-skate before/after practice and we will have monthly team meetings where we do some bondage.... Oh, I mean bonding.... I still have some sessions left with my Personal Trainer that I was using before and after Berlin, and I'm thinking of maybe activating those. I am also really looking forward to when I can start biking to work, I probably could already, but there is something about not wanting to bike in February. It should be snow, and somewhere in my mind I do wanna hang onto the thought if it being winter... 

A hundered of it all

Go go go go.....

I wrote this Friday, but didn't have any wifi in Dresden to post it.Giving a hundred percent, today at Fighting fit we as usual did a bunch of punching combos that made me confused. It's funny how "knee, jab,cross,jab, elbow" can be so hard when I have no problem blocking a jammer while looking for my own jammer and getting hit by the other team... I guess I know why kickboxing never really stuck on me and why I love rollerderby.
Never mind, the fighting part is the most fun when we get to wrestle, we did some sparring yesterday, but I'm just not into hitting anyone and I really don't like to get punched at all. I'm not really taking the class for the fighting part, but for the second part when we really get a workout.
Yesterday we got the mission of doing 100 burpees, 100 kettlebell swings, 100 squats, 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups. We got to break it up as much as we wanted to, and whoever finished first would win wraps for the hands. Hand-wraps to have in the boxing gloves, ou know the kind Rocky would sport... You know what I'm talking about... Too my surprise I finished first, well JUST at the same time as Thunders. Since I'm a terrible counter I did do 10 extra burpees... So I got the wraps, which will be me from some pain, my wrist does act up sometimes...  We are kick-ass... It's really cool to see that it's a bunch of STRD girls that show up at almost every Thursday practice. It's Kimizooka, Thunders, Chaos, Slinky and me from the Allstars and Alpha, Ziggy and Asstroid from BSTRDs. I wish we were more girls from the Allstars. In March when we don't have Tuesday practices I think we are planning on all coming twice a week. 

Yeah, I think the byproduct of getting fit for BeachBrawl will also get us into getting fit for bikinis... Ha ha ha ha... Whatever that means...

American Football

Me and Kim all done with catching balls

So in the wake of the excitement of Super Bowl (seriously not interested but it seem like all my American friends are, thanks Facebook for teaching me everything about Seahawks) we decided to go to an American Football practice. Well, to be honest, my friend Kim is dating a girl that plays American football, and asked if anyone wanted to come and try it. So about 10 Stockholm Rollerderby girls showed up. And it was superfun, I tried rugby last winter and LOVED it, and I must say that I might jus like all he drills, I'm not too sure I'd feel about actually putting all that gear on and play it...

Well, I think a few of us are keen on trying it again... I like that the ball isn't round and that you can run with it... Yeah... Yeah... It was a real good time!

The drills were lots of footwork, running back and forth and getting the non-round balls thrown at us, expecting us to catch them. Yeah... 

Amy got attacked by a ball... staying with rollerderby...

The funniest part of the practice was that the girls kept on telling us "take it easy, we don't have the pads on"... Hm, and I think they were really impressed about our fearlessness in running into each other, maybe a little less impressed by our fear for balls... 

Lesson learned

I know this already, I still do it at times... I should not go to the gym without eating properly before. Without eating properly the entire day, I never eat breakfast and when I end up only having cottage cheese and two apples for lunch... The workout is doomed to fail! Well, the lack of sleep might have had some to do with it too... I had to give up after 10 burpees and rest... Yikes... And the class I took at the gym is fairly chill... 40 sec and rest 20 in blocks of three exercises...  I block of strength, one block endurance and one block of core... Straightforward and I really should not be feeling lightheaded...

Well, I am still proud of myself going to the gym, instead of just going straight home and just laying on the couch reading a book... Or watching Heroes... Books sounds smarter, right?

My own challange...

Sometimes a just doing something little everyday takes you a looong way... So I made myself a promise - I'm going to do this routine every morning for 30 days... It's not much, but it's better than nothing, and it will also get me out of bed and I probably will end up being in time for work more often.

20 sit-ups

10 push-ups

20 squats

1 min plank

10 burpees

20 lunges

And I will do it three time in a row.... Yupp... This is it! I probably will add in some exercises at times, but I have to make three sets of this everyday, and if I'm lazy in the morning I have to do it at work... Ha ha ha... Well, maybe when I get back home from work... I mean altogether it's just... 

60 sit-ups

30 push-ups

60 squats 

3 min planks

30 burpees

60 lunges

I am also thinking about getting myself a kettlebell, I like those things and they can be used for so many things. 

Writing this post makes me think about when off-skates in derby was unheard of, and barley any leauges did it... And now almost every competitive league does it... Times are changing, and it's a good thing!

Enough is enough

It's winter in Stockholm - FINALLY!

So today I skipped my gym session, my body needed to rest, so I went for a 40 min walk instead. When I woke up this morning I felt sore and my shins were aching. I still was redlined to go and do a strength class at my gym, but when walking there I just felt no inspiration and my body just felt VERY sluggish. Considering I had quite a hard workout both Thursday and yesterday, I decided that a walk was a better option.

It's important to push yourself and your boundaries, but ts also important to give yourself breaks when needed or you might end up hurt or mentally burn yourself out. It still is preseason and I know Im not completely out of shape, but I have to keep the fun in working out. 

So now I'm treating myself to juice, coffee and a sandwich at my favourite coffee shop watching the snow fall outside. Life is epic, and I am so happy to have rollerderby be a part of it.

Off-skate fighting to fit

Poor Alpha had to keep up with my terrible coordination

Like really, I totally enjoy working out, but as I've said before, I REALLY have a hard time motivating myself. So working out in a group is really what I love doing, and on Thursdays Fighting Fit is for Stockholm Rollerderby... It's about eight of us that come regularly... the first half is all about fighting and how too, I am seriously CHALLANGED in this part. Considering that I am as good in rollerderby as I am, you would like to belive that I have some sort of coordination... meh... I do have fast reactions... The second part is high intense workout crossfit stylish... Yesterday Asstroid, Kim, Thunders, Chaos, Slinky and Alpha showed up, feels like that is the usual crowd, and I like it!
Yesterday the exercise part was determined by the roll of a dice... yeah... we did roll lot's of burpees... Hella painful today, but I feel great, I'm coming back from Christmas/New Years hiatus and ready to get in better shape than ever. My hamstring IS still hurting, but I truly feel like I have the strenght back, making me feel more comfortble on the track and also while doing off-skate... I do have to remember that I need more of a warm-up than before my injury, and jamming still scares me...
I am also trying to eat better, and that really doesn't mean that I'm going to eat less, but rememebr to eat, and make good choices. Yesterday I got entrecot (it's a hunk of meat) and made a side salad of red peppers, cucumber and an avocado with soem balsamic vineger, olive oil, salt and pepper. It turned out to be yummy, but it really is so much LESS fun to cook just for yourself, sitting by the table eating alone really made me miss Eagle...
I've booked two classes at my gym this weekend, and they are classes I havn't attended yet, and I'm totally trying to coax Kim to come with me on Saturday. Me and Kim are spending Saturday making Chilli, you know one of those chilis that you cook for hours, and it becomes REAL yummy in the end!  SO looking forward too that!

Ready set eat... yum yum yum... 

And then I fell asleep in the compression recovery tights that I got from my mother for my Birthday... yesterday was a good day and tonight we have rollerderby practice, so it will be a good day today too!

Fighting Fit

So it's time to get into shape again, I keep on saying that, I probably never be in the crazyass shape that I strive for... one day... one day... as long as my body is just fit to play derby I'm a VERY happy gal. I did realize the other day that I am in better shape now than when I moved to New York and started to play with Gotham. It has been a constant goal to strive for better fitness and better skills, sometimes it has been hard to push myself, but it has been worth it. Tearing my hamstring has been a challange to coem back from, and the constant pain, and pushing through but not too hard has been a struggle. Well, well... I was going to write about our new off-skate class.

So in a tiny basement in Stockholm, there is a small exercise room and a class called "Fighting Fitness" lead by a stout Australian woman named Jo. She's got a background in both rugby and martial arts... and the class "Fighting Fit" is half fighting techniques and half crossfit inspired during 90 amazingly fun and challanging minutes. Yesterday we wrestled, and in the future we have to bring our mouthguards... good thing we all have them. To be honest, I am not a person that goes to the gym just because I like to work out, I really am not, I go to the gym, to off-skate to become stronger and in that way become a better derbyplayer. I prefer to get in shape by doing fun things... like rollerderby OR snowboarding, I just happen to be hypercompetative, so the fun and easy fast turns into becomming better. I don't mind, thaty is where teh fun is at!

Jo just got a pup... very distracting  for all of us

Yesterday at Fighting Fit it was me, Kim, Thunders, Slinky, Chaos, Alpha and Eags who showed up. Oh, and Jo just got a puppy that also was present, chewing on everything and distracting us all from what we were supposed to do... It was superfun to do off-skate with Eags, and that girl can wrestle... but she just wait... she just wait... I am out to get her... It's fun to do this with a bunch of other competative derbygirls, we all push each other and ourselves, no slacking here, and lot's of soreness the next day!

From now and on I'm preparing myself to be in fighting fit condition for the upcomming season, and this is such a fun way to do it, together with teamates, it does such that the tiny basement can't fit more than eight of us... but eight is better than none! Watch out world... I am back! The upcoming few months I hope every week will be two days at the gym, fighting fit once and rollerderby two or three depending on the times we get from Stockholm City.

After practice I made Swedish Meatballs for Eagle, serving it with all the traditional fixings, even if I don't think she's ready for the lingonberry jam just yet.

Fighting Fit in the bathtub...

The neverending injury

Random picture - because blogs with picturs are better

I got hurt during a tournament in Gent in May, I was shipped off to the hospital and everyone spoke Falmmish to me and then they gave me a shot of soem really strong painkiller and I puked abd  passed out in the hospital parkinglot (true story). When I got back to Sweden I went and saw another doctor, who sent me off to the orhopedic ER, and they told me I was fine and could just start practicing right away. I thought it was strange since I was in so much pain I could barley walk. After about two weeks, I could at least start to bike, it was painful, but it was much needed exercise, and I honestly HATE being still, makes me a very moody and difficult person.

I went and saw a physical therapist in the end of May, I was still hoping that I might be back on skates for the Swedish Championships, the therapist didn't really seem to think that I was going to have a problem to recover in a few weeks. He gave me a few exercises and said that maybe come back after the summer if I was still bothered. He DID say that he suspected that my hamstring muscle was maybe partially torn, but I'd be just fine.

So I went along and did the exercises that I was given and nothing really got better, I did get back on skates first week of July July - but my hip and hamstring kept on hurting and I could not do contact at all. I did spend lot's of time coaching my team, and I had a blast doing it, but to be honest I LOVE PLAYING rollerderby, coachign is increadble, and it was very rewarding to see my team take home the win of Stockholm Rollerderby, and I got to do the warm-up with them, and that mean A LOT TO ME!

 In July I went to RollerCon and challenged myself to play a bunch of scrimmages and it was REALLY scary, because I did not really know how my leg would react and it was painful. I did still have a great time, and have no regrets. Because that really triggered me to start FIGHTING to get better, I realized that rollerderby is in my blood, and it makes me REAL happy to skate, even when I jsut coach, but playing myself is really somethign I love doing.
I pretty much went straight from rollercon and bouted in Scotland, it was painful and I still was very restricted laterally and most of all, I was hurting.

When I got back to Sweden I found myself a new Physio, whom really listened to me, and she sent me to an ultrasound to discover that I very much had torn my hamstring in Gent, but the way my leg responded to her exercises, she also suspected that it's not only the hamstring. My hamstring is now strong, but the pain is still there, so I am going for an MRI on Monday after Team Sweden try-outs, to really get to the bottom of why I am in SO much pain still.

Yesterday at practice, it hurt so much I was almost crying, I had to grab a bunch of advil after warm-up just to last the rest of practice. It still was a fun practice, and one truth remains, I love rollerderby, and I will fight and rehab my leg until it stop hurting!

Insomnia ruins my off-skate

I need an off-skate buddy, I need someone that meets up with me at the gym, and tells me to go, go, go... I am easily motivated... I know it always come down to how good you wanna become yourself, but it NEVER will be a bad thing to surround yourself with people that are JUST as motivated as you are, in that way you can bounce of each other.

I want to be stronger, faster and quicker... and currently I have a bad case of insomnia - and neither is working out very well for me. I go to bed and I fal lasleep and wake up too early and can't go back to sleep again OR I go to bed and just can't fall asleep. I don't know which one is the worst...

 Well, I chat with my girl who resides in another timezone, and that is not the worst I can do... but the lack of sleep does not make me feel crazy motivated to drag my tired ass to work-out after an eight hour workday... yikes... It sort of is a great motivator to have a girl that tells you that you are amazing, and it pushes me wanting to be a better person. I think that is a part of being in a good relationship, feeling appreciated and wanting to improve yourself.

I am easily distracted, VERY easily, and I am impulsive. Following plans and sceduals are hard for me, and at the same time I really don't react well to changes in plans. So I try my best to always be ontop of everything. I work hard for myself, and right now I will soon have to give myself a quite rigorious work-out plan... Leg is still hurting and in a week I get an MRI, and I will maybe get to know what really is wrong, or at least how to make my constant pain be less constant...

Off skate with Kimizooka

I am still limping and feeling sorry for myself...I still kept up with the other two... I am never hurt, so it's really weird that my leg is healing so slow and I have to be careful at all times... VERY frustrating... Kim is really awesome with running off-skate, I'm sore days after her work-outs... and I like it that way, why work out if you aren't going to give it you 100%... I am also starting to hang out more and more with Kim, and she is a delightful person, superfun to hang out with and awesome and motivating to work out with!

Kimizooka and Alpha Whisky... halfway thorugh...

I don't mind waiting when I can look at this

I need a kick in the ass...

I am just like everyone else - I need to work out to feel good. And just skating is just enough, we have two onskate practices per week, and in avarage I run one of them, so that means I only have one onskate practice per week. And one onskate practice per week will not keep anyone fit, it doesn't even keep you at the level you are at... so I have to find an alternative solution.
AND trust me on this one friends, I am a very lazy person, if I got to decide I probably would just go out to fancu restuarants and have great meals and good wine, and then I'd go home and watch something on TV while cuddeling with my girlfriend...

And no, I don't think it is fun to go to the gym, I never have, I've done it for a long time, when I was snowboarding and then in between and also now during derby, but it just don't motivate me. I need something more high-energy, and I also need other people to motivate me.
STRD are trying to have an off-skate on Thursdays - but it just tend to be the same 3-6 people showing up to it, apprently running in the snow seem to be very low on the list of things to do among our skaters.
 I am really considering becoming a member of Nordic Military Training, so I can do it once or twice every week. I think it might be really motivating, and it is extreamly fun for me to work out in groups and outdoor.

I also need to get better at eating, currently I run lot's and lots on sugar, especially on the afternoons, I LOVE candy - not chocolate - but little sour and salty candies... MmmMMMmmm... but I need to get better at eating, I miss my Herbalife shakes, they are yummy for breakfast, and I have run out. Krissy Krash would not be pleased with me... Currently my breakfast is a HUGE coffee with milk - and that my dear friends is NOT the best way of startign the day, we all know that!

I wanna look like I did a year ago and also feel like I did a year ago - full of energy and strong ... and skating once a week will not make it happen. I need more and more and more... and only I can decide waht I want to do with myself! Sometimes it's just hard to kick yourself - especially when you have a really comfortble couch and very goodlooking girlfriend and six more seasons of SuperNaturals to watch...

Me in January 2011 (in LA with Krissy Krash)

Kamikaze Kitten's blogg

and picture is shamelessly stolen from her blogg

One of my favorite skaters from London Roller Girls has a blogg - Kamikaze Kitten... check it out - she talks about the importance of cross-training... you see - it is not only me!

Crawling in dirt and LIKING it

So we try to do an off-skate activity each week - one of the days we don't have on-skate practice. So one of our fresh meat practice fount this Nordic Military Training - that are a bunch of people that meet up and do drills no matter what the weather or time of the year it is... So since the fresh meat had a  rules session tonight, and Loony had to work -  me, Twisted and Mousetrap Mary decided to see how much fun this can be a cold November night in Stockholm when it's around 10 degrees Celsius...

We got there and they asked us if we wanted to be in the the Basic or the Rookie group - since we felt like we should hang with the kool kids, we chose Basic.. .and if this was Basic, I really do not wanna know what their Regular group is like (or I probably do... )
AND IT WAS AWESOME... I will be sooo soooore tomorrow and we probably did planks for about 15 minutes during the training, we made human tunnels we had to crawl thru on the wet grass and there were burpees, jumps, sit-ups, push-ups, some jogging, more jumping, me smiling and laughing. We had a ONE minute water break during the entire practice, and I thought I was bad in giving people waterbreaks.
Did I tell you it was fun, I kept on smiling the entire time! It was almost as fun as the Ruffie training we did with Fysgruppen in Malmö - just different... more raw, wet and dirty...I for sure have to scrub my nails before I head to the office tomorrow...

I wish I had a picture to share with you guys - but as always - my camera on the phone is just not co-operating with me... so I hope my picture painting with words have been good enough for you!

How I love off-skate work-outs....

I love bootcamps that has off-skates

So I was one of those girls that started derby because I thought it looked kool, I probably just wanted to go out and hit some girls, or hit on them, I probably liked the thought that the other girls were going to wear short skirts...
  Honestly, there could be tons of more to this story, but I don't think I put that much thought into why I wanted to do derby, except from that I had just discovered that I thought roller-skating was fab and I was really looking for something to do except spending my money at the Wild Rose  or some queer club, being terrible at talking to chicks I thought were hot, and have crushes on my friends and getting my heart broken and mending it by tequila and jumping into bushes... (there were some really good times in there too) I also had the very attractive habit of chain-smoking...

Well, long story short, I found derby and I loved it, I skated, skated and skated some more, I learned to jam, I learned to hit and got used to get hit. I got more fit than my sorry smoking ass had been in ages, I quit smoking and actually became good, no I became a GREAT derby player. I started to add extra skating sessions, I skated around Green Lake and I went to speedskating classes - I was having a grand ol' time learning to skate and playing derby. At some point I felt like I hit a wall, it was like it was telling me ''here but not further''  and I just could not figure out what I was missing.... It wasn't until I transfered to Gotham, I found that last little thing that was so easy to add in - but that just had not caught up to my brain yet... OFF-SKATE!  Off-skate made it possible to take my derby to a new level. I became stronger, felt better about myself and most of all - I became a better derby-skater!

It made me remember back in the days when I was a competative snowboarder - when I would get up before the sun rose (I lived in Tärnaby, yeah, not the sun not rising doesn't really mean that much that far North) to go for a jog before we would head down to class. We would do both strenght, agility, endurance and plyos several times a week, and I remember being sore - but also having one of the best seasons of my life, and with the least injuries too...

Off-skate practice is crucial to make you a better derby-player, it is not everything, but I promise, adding off-skate into your weekly practice scedual is gonna make your team so much better... and you know what? Just half an hour twice a week makes a big difference... Yeah - I know I am crazy...

OFF-SKATE is FUN!! Mostly because it makes me a kick-ass derby player my team can relay on but also because I can impress impressive people like Krissy Krash, Beater and Mad Maloony... yeah... that too... muuuscles... muscles... he he he he (btw Mad Maloony claims she is impressed by me - mission completed)