If I can impart any lesson at all to the people reading this, it would be: "Do not skate tired."
I don't mean, "Waaahh, I had to get up early today and now I want a nappy-nap instead of going to practice." I mean, if you've had only one to two hours of sleep, do not skate. It ain't worth it.
The first time I skated while dead fucking exhausted was a couple of subpool tryouts ago; I was still freelancing and thus had a freelancer's schedule. For the uninitiated, that usually means starting work around 9 or 10...PM. I would then work until about 5 in the morning, fall into bed, and then wake up at 1 or 2 to start the cycle over again. Needless to say, I was not a morning person during that time. As it happened, though, when subpool tryouts rolled around again, I got put into the 9AM group.
"No sweat," I thought. "I'll just go to bed nice and early, and that'll give me plenty of time to fall asleep." As it turned out, it was more like, "plenty of time to toss and turn until my normal bedtime of 5AM, then wake up muzzy-headed at 8 with only a half hour to get to the track."
No, I didn't make subpool. My evaluator told me that I "looked tired," to which I just nodded politely and took the crit on the chin instead of snapping, "No shit?!" like I wanted to, because I was so fucking exhausted and disappointed with my performance I wanted to cry.
You'd think this whole thing would have made a negative impression on me, but we ADHD sufferers tend to be almost immune to things like "learning from experience" and "thinking things through." So the day came when once again I had only gotten about two hours of shut-eye, but I was still bound and determined to skate that night's practice because dammit, derby isn't for quitters. Well, I sure enough had to quit when I fell during a scrimmage, came down crunchingly hard on my left knee, and took a stray skate to the head too for my troubles. "I think I'll sit out the rest of practice," I told Tara after she finished the "how many fingers am I holding up" test. "That's probably a good idea," she said.
I thought sitting out that night would be enough, but over the next few days I realized something was wrong. I can't count the number of times I've taken a hard fall on one or both knees while I'm skating. Less so lately, but while I was learning skills, especially transitions, I fell a whole fuck of a lot. The result was usually swelling and slight bruising (knee pads are your friend). This time, though, bending my left leg more than 45 degrees at the knee resulted in a twang of pain and a hissed swear word. It didn't get any better as the days wore on, either. I went to the track doctor and received only KT tape and the reassurance that I hadn't torn my ACL, MCL, or PCL. To cut a long story short, one X-ray, MRI, and long series of pestering phone calls to my doctor later, the result is..."Nothing."
Yep, the MRI and X-ray showed exactly squat. Mind you, this "nothing" has cost me several weeks of skating, because while my usual knee injuries are nothing more than transitory bruising, the "nothing" has not healed one bit since I hit the track too hard in February. I still get a zing of pain every time I bend that knee. My doctor is calling it a "sprain," but we are currently playing phone tag again and I still don't know if I'm cleared to skate. It has taken away the pain of waiting for my custom 495s somewhat, but god damn it. I've put on weight, not having exercised since the sprain happened for fear of making it worse. I didn't skate any of March Radness, which was a huge disappointment. Also, my least favorite thing on earth is going back to practice after an absence, because that's always a shit show. So yeah, if you're so tired your eyes are crossing...DON'T SKATE. We all get a little tired and sulky sometimes, and when practice rolls around maybe we just "don't wanna," but this is different. If I'd just sat out that one practice instead of trying to be a hardass, I bet I would have skated March Radness, and I certainly wouldn't be two inches fatter. :P
