Monday, April 7, 2014

Skating Erratically...and being OK with it!

Hello, friends!

It's been quite a while since I posted a blog about my skating...or for that matter, any blog at all!  I've started numerous posts over the last two months, but ultimately none of  them coalesced into a complete entry online.

What's that about?  I guess it's easier for me to write when things are humming along.  I skate, ideas come to me, I sit down to write, and voila--a complete blog just falls into place.  Somehow, the last few months my skating has been more erratic.  I've gone less often and taken longer breaks in between.  And even when I did skate, I just wasn’t coming up with anything that seemed worth writing about.  I just felt blah.


It's not that I'm reluctant to share my struggles skating (or about my life in general, for that matter).  I think my difficulty in writing my blog has been more that I haven't known how I feel or what it means that I have slowed down my skating over the fall and winter.  I was trying to get a handle on it myself.


At the beginning of 2013, I had set an intention that I would skate 200 times by the end of 2013.  I was humming along on that pace until about October.  Then I took a nasty fall on the street in preparing for a 15-mile event.  I managed to complete the event, but the shoulder injury from the fall nagged at me.  At the same time I loaded way too many commitments on my plate and at times felt resentful about some of my responsibilities, all the while knowing that I myself had created the situation.

Long story short, I "only" made it to 165 skates during 2013.  I put the quotation marks around the word "only" because part of me realizes that 165 skates is a significant achievement, while on another level I was somehow disappointed in myself for falling short of my goal of 200.

For 2014, I set a different intention for my skating.  I decided it has to be okay to wax and wane in the frequency of my skating workouts.  It's okay to take a break if I'm feeling sick, or tired, or just overwhelmed with all that's on my plate.   If my body needed to slow it down for the last 6 months, that is okay.  My main goal is to keep the enjoyment alive.  The important thing is to listen to my body.

I find myself now with a renewed sense of excitement about skating.  The weather has been at times sunny and warm and at other times rainy.  When it's sunny, I'm hot to skate.  When it rains, I feel sad that I can't go skating.  That's a good feeling--to be missing exercise and to be anxious to get back to it.
The is a church parking lot next to my trail in Alamo.  This is a great spot to practice turns and stops.  It's also a good place to get back on your skates if you haven't skated for awhile.  Anyone want to meet me there to try skating?

Now I’m enjoying skating only when I want to skate and not feeling guilty if I don't want to skate.  If I’ve got time and the inclination, I’ll skate for 6 miles or more.  If I don’t have much time or much energy, I’ll skate for 2 miles.  If I don’t feel like skating at all, then I’ll skate 0 miles.  It's all good.


I’d like to get some more voices besides mine here on this blog.  Have any of you trained for a long event or recently decided to get back in shape?  Are there any among you that would like to write a bit about your own trials, tribulations, successes, insights learned through exercise?  Tricia?  Kristine? Irline?  Liz?  Elaine?  Cynthia?  Brian?  Anyone else?  If any of you answer “Yes!” or even “…um, maybe?” then send me an email!
My Next Blog: Trying out my new toy that arrived today--Skorpion skates...they're a whole 'nother thing!


Hugs,
Nancie 

My last skate:
4/7/14
Skate #28 of ?
2.22 miles
Lafayette Moraga Trail
Lafayette, CA

Nancie Zimmerman
NamiZuni Jewelry Design
Expressing Your Inner Goddess

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