There is a First for Everything

Over the next two weeks, I kept practicing with the team, and could actually skate with them if they were doing slow stuff. But, I had greatly improved since that first dreadful day on the ice. Matt timed my one lap time earlier in the week and I ran a 33.7. This was much better than my first day on the ice, where I was probably running somewhere in the low to mid 40s! A few days later, I completed my first full drill, which was somewhat hard for my teammates. We did 8 laps 5 times at about 37 second laps. I was pretty content with the way I skated that day, and I’m pretty sure Matt was also. By that time, I had started touching my outside edge on my left skate, which was a big feat for me. A couple days after the 8 lappers, Matt got my one lap time again; this time it was a 32.4. I had lowered my time by a second and a half in 3 days. Yesterday, I had a one-lap time and a two-lap time to skate. My one lap time was a 31.0. Once again, I had lowered my time by another second and a half. In the two lapper I had two things happen to me for the first time. The first lap, I ran a 30.08 (so I ran a 30 for the first time), the second lap, I was coming down the back straightaway and went into the corner too early. I felt it coming, my left skate started doing something crazy, and next thing I know, I hit the ice and I start sliding really fast toward the pads. One thing you should know, when you fall on ice, you start going faster! So I’m sliding toward the impending cushion, and I remembered just in time to lift my feet up. I hit the pads with my right side, and to my surprise, I wasn’t in any pain. A lot different than an inline fall! After I got up, I went up to Matt, and he seemed really happy that I ran a 30.08. He said that I was hitting my left edge really well, and that my corners didn’t look too bad either.
Now that this is up to date, I can tell you that I can actually skate decently on the ice, and I think that I’m starting to lose the title of “that JO kid.” I will update this once or twice a week with new, hopefully faster times, and other hilarities that happen to me as I make my transition from inline to ice.