Sunday Skate - back on the ice

This afternoon I went down the Ice Arena to get reacquainted with the ice.  Yesterday's realisation, of how rusty I am, made it a fairly easy decision to not go down to Noarlunga for a shinny.  Afterall, I haven't been on the ice for a month (!) so it wouldn't be surprising if I was not only out of condition, but also very vague on technique.  That's just asking for confidence-sapping mistakes and injuries if one doesn't use one's head.  But to pass on Noarlunga meant that I'd have to do something worthwhile with the time.  Hence a simple session at the Arena.  No major objectives except to find my ice legs again.

And so it worked out.  In no particular order I concentrated on particular elements of style and skill one after another, the general format being to do skill X a nominated number of times or distance on a lap, glide the remainder of the lap to recover, do it again until I'd done it a few times.  Then, work on skill Y.  And so on and so forth for about 70 minutes.  Forwards, backwards, transitions, power strides, swizzles, one leg balance, outside edges, inside edges, three turns, stops, pivots, speed, grace, acceleration.  Probably the major surprise was my ability to 'hop/glide' around on only my right leg for an entire lap on more than one occasion (my left leg was lucky to carry me in bunnyhops across the ice before giving in).  In this at least I could certainly feel the effect of my off ice work, the muscle still had quite a bit left in it.

Later this afternoon, depending on my energy levels, I might put on the inlines for a bit of a skate around the neighborhood.

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This morning, I started my day as I often do at the moment, with some strength work.  Today, Lower body.  I worked up three circuits, each consisting of eleven ankle lifts on each ankle, 16 lunges and eleven squats.  It doesn't sound like a lot but it seems to work all the major muscle groups in my legs.  Will keep it up through this coming week leading into the Wheeler's grand final game, then will look at changing the routines.