Charlie Brown On Skates

My roller coaster winter continues unabated. As I mentioned in my last post, it’s less than three weeks before Squiggy and I had picked up some kind of sinus infection. I got adjusted at my Chiropractor and he suggested I try collodial silver, which apparently can work as a type of natural antibiotic. I don’t know if it’s the placebo effect or not, but it has seemed to really help. The pressure in my head went away and I felt much better yesterday morning.

But it was not to last.

Slightly after 10 a.m. I got a call on my phone from a name that never shows up on my phone at work, and I knew it was trouble. Sure enough, I became a casualty of “restructuring” and my position was eliminated along with 94 others. I’ve been through this drill 3-4 other times in various forms already, but it is never pleasant. The tech industry is volatile, and this is what you come to expect, especially when we are entering a recession.

I wasn’t really happy with the job, so maybe it was meant to be. Anyway, I packed up and went home, and sent out some e-mails to begin networking right away.

Meanwhile, it was practice night and I was feeling well enough to go. 18 days until Squiggy and as I said, I’m not nearly ready. Tonight was our indoor free skate where we skate for a hour (or a smidge more) around the edge of the rink (essentially long track distance) in pacelines. The idea is to try and stay in skating shape as much as possible. A good hour in the paceline is a good workout.

I have not been able to hang on very well to the pack this winter during these skates. Partly because these skaters are better than me. We generally have a small core group four to six people, which includes a couple of our best skaters like Cale and Herb. Then there is my whole issue with my back. Anyway, I’m usually lucky to get 10 minutes on the pack - maybe a bit more - before I have to drop and skate on my own. Then I will jump on and off as I can. I generally try and pull one song (we skate to music, each puller pulls one song) and skate a couple other songs on the pack.

So last night I show up, still suffering with my sinus problems, even though they are a bit better. We had a larger group of say 10 or so people, which was nice. As practice began, I tried to relax and concentrate on form to stick on as long as possible. I was third in line and skated the first two songs. My turn came up.

Already my back was acting up, but I was doing all I could to mitigate the pain - which means resting on my legs when possible, trying to keep low and load the legs, getting as much as I could out of the glide, etc. I pulled my song and was able to get back into the paceline.

I seemed to catch something of a second wind once getting back in the pack. I felt like I was skating fairly decently and the Ace heat patch I was wearing on my back may have been helping to keep me looser than normal. Turns out I was able to skate a solid 30 minutes on the pack before dropping. I hated to drop but my back was really bothering me and my throat was burning, probably due to my sickness. But 30 minutes felt like a great accomplishment…  easily the best all winter and nearly three times as good as my norm.

I got myself a drink, and soldiered on solo for awhile. Then when I had a short rest, I jumped back on and finished the night on and off the pack as usual. All in all a solid one hour workout - as I said the best of the winter so far.

To top it off, when I got home I had a message from a friend in the business who says he needs help immediately. I will be talking to him today.

Roller coaster, indeed.