but not often, actually.

It was, as I predicted, my endurance, or, rather, lack thereof, that freaking killed me in assessments on Tuesday. My everything hurts. Really, everything. All of the “muscles” in my thighs are on fire and strangely my lower back on my right side. I strained some muscles in my right arm in that bout where I busted open my face so I refrained from giving/taking hits on my right side. I took a bajillion on my left though and have a nice bruise forming. It was assessments, and we derby folk encourage each other so I kept telling my assessment partner that she wasn’t hitting me hard enough . . . yeah, but she really wasn’t and I wanted her to do well. I was okay with being the punching bag because she hit the floor at least 8 times. (Unfortunately it wasn’t from my power hits, but I’m still going to take partial credit for it – for being a little sneaky and unsteady and tripping people without officially tripping them. But I never fell. I took dozens of hits and never once fell down, stay low, my friends.). Anyway, I avoided taking hits on that side (and, ok, I did throw a few shoulders in with my hip checks), but I did still really irritate my right arm injury. And, no, it wasn’t with contact, it was flinging my arms in the air after I jumped my first obstacle. A tiny tiny, uber-low-to-the-ground obstacle, but an obstacle none the less. I realized I can’t jump things without throwing my arms up in the air. I found this out when on the next lap while cradling my right arm like it was in a sling I attempted the jump and knocked the tiny, almost-flat, cones askew and fell on my face. Yep.

I also managed at some point to do that thing where your feet fly up in the air and you land on your tailbone. Ow. It’s funny, because you think, oh, skating, I’m going to fall on my butt, but I very rarely fall on my butt. I fall everywhere else. Thank god for 187 Killer Pads – they’re like clouds. I’m team Pro-Knee all the way.

I know this is an uber-derby post, but my week has been uber derby. I also did about 1000 hours of transcription for a focus group on the usability of our new library catalog search, but that’s less exciting.

One of my colleagues sent me this link, this article is amazing. I don’t know how many people live in both academia and roller derby, but this article is absolutely right on. I want to hang out with this author and practice tomahawks together.

Academia vs. Roller Derby, By Minerva Cheevy
http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/researchcentered/2011/12/05/academia-vs-roller-derby/