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I just want to write this bit down, because it scares me a little: I voluntarily ran today. And not just for the bus! Oh no. I ran for fitness. I think we should pause now while I resuscitate anyone who has known me any time at all. Because - I have always hated running. I've hated it ever since I was made to run around and around endlessly for the sick amusement of teachers at the primary school cross country event. And I hated it when I was playing Danish rounders or Kiwi Cricket on the field. And then, at secondary school, I hated it when we were made to participate in the Beep Test. Consider this litany of hatred merely "Ginger Hates Running: The Early Years", because many years of hating running followed. Suffice to say: I HATE RUNNING.

And yet today, there I was! Running to the Waterfront in a perky little hoodie, a woolly hat on my head and listening to Joan Jett/The Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Peaches. Woo! Go lady type! With your Athleticism! Athlete! Woo! Yeah! and such like.

what is the difference? The difference, esteemed and beloved reader mine, is LOVE. I fucking LOVE DERBY. Since I have been Loving Derby, I have seen the point of fitness and improving strength and building core mass. For the first time in my life, I get all of that stuff. I'm the fittest I've ever been and I want to be stronger, faster, have better balance and flexibility, hit harder. I've gone from a standing start and it's taken so much work and I'm so proud of myself for how far I've come in such a short amount of time. It was worth making a dick of myself and hurting myself repeatedly, and I'm stoked I stuck with it though there has been periods where I was feeling unbelievably frustrated at my (lack of) progress.

so it's halfway through the afternoon and i have a bad case of the Meh (see http://forum.londonrollergirls.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=9516 ) it's four hours till team training. three weeks out from the season decider bout between Smash Malice and us. Somewhere in the back of my mind i am shitting myself and amping to gogogogogogo!! but for some reason my biggest impulse today is to go back to bed and read about the Ocktober 17 revolution. Or anything that involves being back under the duvet.

< insert break to make hot cup of milo here >

but if i can just manage to throw my gear in the car and head down into the city to meet the girls, somehow, magically, everything changes and i'll emerge like some "Stars in their Eyes" contestant smiling, laughing, full of energy and optimism about life, the universe and just about everything!

SO, the people are asking "how was it?" PEOPLE: it was AWESOME. Of course, it would have been more awesome if Brutal Pageant had won but: c'est la vie! Also it means that the final will be a decider and that will be super extra fun to skate in. Oh, and also super extra nerve wracking and super extra good for PR.

A rundown: basically, Smash Malice dominated for the whole game. Coming out of the first half we were close enough in points that we could have made up the gap but we didn't - Malice were really tactical with their speed and control of the pack and we ended up chasing them in an attempt to play their game when we should have played our own. What else... there were some really big hits and I know that members of our team were a bit shaken at the end of the first half. I ended up in multiple pile ups and did one quite spectacular leap over/into a three or four person crash right near the benches (Jed Soane got a good picture of it). I think that it's fair to say that in the end we were simply outclassed by Smash Malice who had a heap less people skating than us and used their resources really, really well (don't kill me for writing that, Pag).

I wrote a little something about Skate of Emergency, our first bout of the season, on my own blog... this is the link:

http://www.selfconsciousposturing.com/2009/09/skate-of-emergency.html

I've literally just plastered the site with this, so there is NO ESCAPING. I'm just absolutely blown away with how awesome it is! And we look as incredible in the video as we do in real life...

Otherwise, I've been mostly training. Tonight was great fun, Suffer Jet had some great drills lined up for us and it was great to do fitness and endurance - I love to scrimmage, but it's great to get on skates and just fly around the track at the indoor raceway and NOT hit people.

My costume for the bout is almost entirely finished, can't hardly wait to get on the rink and go nuts. I mean, I'm shitting myself too but I think it's going to be so FUCKING AWESOME. Yay!

Last League training before Screampuff heads off to London, and a few of us went to Denny's afterwards and ate ice cream and pancakes and chilli fries. Speaking for myself, I'm feeling rather rather ill. And I didn't eat as much as Wax or as much maple flavoured syrup as Delilah von Doom.

Food of champions. An athletes diet. Good thing all those sit ups made room for extra food.

So, quite exhausted but also super enthusiastic after a derby packed Sunday. The excitement is good as the week ahead is completely full of training sessions! I can't speak on behalf of Smash Malice, but I can tell you now that Brutal Pageant is going to be Crazy Good'n Ready when it comes to the bout on September 19th. We're going to wipe the rink with their arses. Hah!

Sad news that our beloved Sneaky Darkie has left the league. All the best Sneaky! We'll miss you long time - and come back whenever you're ready xxx

I (personally) haven't heard from Goregasm since Tuesday last, but given that she was heaving one of those enormous temporary casts around she was in remarkably good spirits... truly, you can break the bones of the Derby Girl but you cannot break her Spirit. I think it would be 10,000 times awesome to have a Recovery Blog kept by Gaz... it's defo something we should look into bullying her into doing.

Finally and perhaps most excitingly, Skate of Emergency tickets are on sale from today (Monday 17th) at Under The Radar (http://bit.ly/ol0HG). The poster is in it's final stages of approval and I'm super looking forward to revealing it in it's all it's glory as soon as I can. I had a sneak peak and I'm rather in love with it.

Righto, must fly and eat something so I can train like a maniac tonight.

xxx Ginger

It rather looks as though I've cracked this part at least! Phew!

Now, I plan to pack up all this computer stuff and head outside and into the sunshine. It's such a super amazing day and I think there are plans to skate along the waterfront! Team training is well underway and I'm planning to get as fit and as strong as I possibly can so I can wipe the rink with some Smash Malice faces.

Also I need to shop for my costume... I'm so going to wear a pink tutu. Oh yes I am.

xxGinger

I've been doing some admin type stuff... updating the Facebook pages. I've set up a fan page so if you're super keen you could have a look.

Really I'm just still trying to muddle through this whole blog set up thing on this here site. Very. Easily. Confused. Perhaps if you are local and a Drupal-knowledgable person you could be so kind as to drop me a line and help me out?