Why is it that I train as hard as I do?

I asked myself this question over and over again yesterday and I feel like I couldn’t come up with a decent explanation. I like to think that I am training like an Olympian - I know it’s a stretch but I eat, sleep, and breathe figure skating. I train 6-7 days a week, 4 on ice and 2-3 days of off ice. When I am on the ice I train for 2-4 hours, so on average I am on the ice 10 hours a week.

How I train:

“Ice time is precious time”

My time on the ice is no joking matter. I don’t like to chat with the other skaters, I don’t appreciate when people interrupt my valuable practice time. I go from one skill to the next with short water breaks in between so that my solid 2-4 hours are used efficiently. I have even started using this idea of deliberate practice where I write down everything I need to practice in my skating journal and check it off as I go through.

During practices I challenge myself

I often write down 2-4 skills that are very difficult for me and I try my best to do at least a couple of them during my practice so that I can learn to be fearless. Sometimes I look up a skill or move online and attempt it on the ice, within reason (again, trying not to injure myself here).

I train with a coach!

I train with a coach for an hour and a half each week, 3 out of my 4 practices happen with a coach present. This makes a world of a difference for my skating. When I was on my own for most of my weekly practices I was picking up bad habits and not spending all my time on the ice wisely.

I warm up

I never get on the ice without a proper warm-up, on busy days it is as short as 10 minutes while on free days it sometimes lasts up to an hour. Warm-ups make figure skating more of a “sport” for me. My body has grown accustomed to many of the movements I make on the ice so I feel like I am not burning as much as when I am learning a new jump or skill. As an adult skater, I feel the need to warm up my body before stepping on to the ice. I jog around the ice 2-4 times, run up and down the stairs of the stadium 4-6 times, jump rope,  and  stretch in the ballet/off ice room. My coach recently told me that I have “a pop” in my waltz jump now, so basically more distance and height and I can honestly attribute this to my exercises. Running up and down stairs allows my knees to be more flexible on the ice and gives me the “umph” I need when jumping. Do yourself a favor and warm up before ice!

Why I train:

It’s a dream

I am fulfilling a dream of mine. Every time a land a jump, or finally “get” a new skill I feel like I am one step closer to my dream. I can honestly say that I can see myself standing on the adult nationals podium in a few years. Whether or not I place, I will be satisfied with the progress I’ve made. After all, just five months ago I couldn’t skate around the rink without holding on to the boards with my life.

It makes me happy.

Figure skating gives me a whole new understanding of satisfaction and confidence in myself. Growing up I played sports, but I never considered myself an athlete. Sure, I had coaches who pushed me, but never a coach who truly inspired me to want to do my absolute best (Shout out to the amazing Coach T). Figure skating gives me the opportunity to shine and present my passion to the world. It allows me the freedom of artistry and creativity while honing in on skill, power, and control. Figure skating cannot be easily compared to any other thing that I have experienced in my lifetime, but it has become my life. I want it in every possible way. I want to breathe it, live it, achieve it, and succeed in it. And that ladies and gentlemen is why I train as hard as I do.

All Day at the Rink

Today was incredible, I spent my entire day at the rink...honestly at this point it would be so much easier to just live at the rink...or at least a little closer to one, but I digress. I had three sessions on the ice today and two warm-up/exercise sessions. The first session on the ice was a makeup LTS class with my favorite coach. We worked on BXOs ( I really need to work on holding the cross!), consecutive 3 turns (I still have to learn to step forward on the outsides), spins, waltz  jump from BXOs, and believe it or not the toe loop. When my coach asked me to do one I straight up said no. Again. I have really been working hard to stop saying no and giving her sass on the ice, but it’s difficult when you’re trying not to like die.

Just under one month ago, Coach T introduced me to the toe loop. I was overjoyed. My first big girl jump. We did it together a couple times and then she let me do it on my own (I was so nervous!) and I landed it on my first try then looked up at her and said “there’s no way that was it” and she said,  “no Gina you got it!” Her expression was priceless. Most people don’t just get this on try #1. Since that day I have psyched myself out of that jump, until today. In the makeup class there was one other woman who was just above my level, so we did a lot of similar moves but she basically did them way better than me, haha ( totally cool, she’s been skating for two years). Coach asked us to spin, we spun. Coach asked us to waltz jump, we did. Then coach said to toe loop and I said, woooahhh, please no; but this woman motivated me and told me I could do it. I took a leap of faith, literally, and did it solid. I even jumped on a line (I had been jumping on a curve for the longest time due to a lack of control on the three turn). Victory lap anyone? Of course I did, because I was overjoyed. It was near the end of practice and coach wanted me to run my program in the last couple minutes. It wasn’t a very smooth run, but it definitely improved throughout the day.

For my second session on the ice I hopped on to public free skate. There was about a half hour left of adult skate and then there would be about an hour and a half to go of regular public skate. During this time I ran through my program a few times, did both sides of lunges (even though I kept falling on the left side, I didn’t quit), worked on my spins, change of edge, mohawks, and even my toe loop and half flip (but without the actual jump - coach and I haven’t really worked on it yet). It was a very productive session and I still had one more to go.

I had about an hour and a half between public skating and my private lesson so I intentionally scheduled an interview in that time (more about that later) when I had finished my meeting I got dressed, had a quick snack, and began warming up for my final session of the day on the ice with Coach T. We worked on all consecutive edges, spins, the program, crossovers, spirals (in test format), lunges, and the toe loop.  It was a great lesson, but unfortunately it was my last with Coach T for this session because she will be out of town next week. I still get my lesson, but I will be working with another coach, argh :(

I spent about 4 hours on the ice today, training. I didn’t goof off, I tried not to let conversations on the ice take me away from the work that I had to get done. By the end of the day I had also spent an hour exercising to prepare for ice. That’s a total 5 hours of activity in my day, so naturally sleep was calling my name. Seriously incredible day, I hope that I will continue to have such successful practice sessions over the summer!

You Know You're Excited When You Start Counting Down The Hours Until Class

It’s the last day of session two. I have been counting down the hours until class since yesterday evening at 22 hours. I’m down to about 7 hours now. The wait might actually be killing me. I am excited to show my coach the things I’ve been working on outside of class like my 3 turns, mohawks, and lunges. I haven’t done any of them in learn to skate, so this will be quite a surprise for coach C (who I’ve had serious discussions with about coaching me at the club level!)

I cannot accurately describe my excitement to get on the ice today. It cannot be compared to anything. Spring break is coming up and I’ll get to be on the ice everyday. So long as I don’t injure myself, I’ll be on the ice for at least 15 hours in 5 days. I’ll also be doing my own version of boot camp (details to come) when I’m off the ice, so it will be a challenging week physically.

My goal in spring break is to learn my test. I know the skills I need to perform and the only one I haven’t been introduced to is the crossovers in an 8 pattern. I know that if I spend an hour a day on my crossovers, I can have this down. I need some intense practice on ALL of the other skills too, but I know that after 15 hours on the ice I can get them to where they need to be. The test isn’t until one month after spring break anyways so I have time to perfect my moves.

I'm Not Dying From The Pain!

Well ladies and gentlemen, the day has finally come! I was on the ice for three hours yesterday and this morning I didn’t wake up sore. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with my posts, then you probably know that on my three hour ice days I can barely move when I get home and I have trouble getting up on the following day. Last week I had a three hour day and my muscles were sore through the weekend. 

This is a huge accomplishment for me! I did a few things differently yesterday and I believe they greatly impacted my health following a difficult session. I drank a ton of water, I kept my body moving, I ate right after practice, and I went to a yoga class at night. 

A few days ago, I was reading up on figure skating nutrition and I learned a few new things. Not surprisingly, water was at the top of the list. In order for muscles to recover fully after a workout, you have you hydrate, a lot! Yesterday, I drank 64 oz of water in the time between my practice and bedtime. The second thing I did differently was kept my body moving. Usually after these practice sessions all I want to do is sleep and while this was still true yesterday, I kept myself from napping. But mostly because I had to get to my second job. There I walked, jumped, jogged, and stretched with the kids on the playground. Despite my lack of energy I kept it up and felt like I wasn’t dying, so that was a good sign! On the nutrition site, they also mentioned that eating was very important right after a session. So I packed myself a healthy snack and ate on my way home. It consisted of low-fat string cheese (1), almonds (10), triscuit wheat thins (15), and a small bag of carrots. When I got home I was still hungry so I had yogurt and a piece of wheat bread with crunchy peanut butter.  The last thing that I believe made the biggest change for me today was the yoga. 

I attended my first yoga class at my gym. I have never before done yoga in a class like this. Now on to the experience itself, it was meh. I felt lost for a quarter of the time. I was tired. I had to keep looking around to get clues from other people, and it was really humid in the room (on purpose). Following this learning experience, I felt amazing. My body was restored, my muscles felt “fresh” and once again - I didn’t feel like death! 

I went home, ate a salad, and was passed out by 9:45. I slept really well, like really really well and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to take on another day. I am so happy that I made this progress because I feel like my body is ready to get back on the ice for another long session today.

I Need New Skates!!

It has become more apparent to me with every skating session that I need new skates. My recreational skates do not have good toe picks and the blades just don’t assist in spinning. I came off the ice yesterday with deep indents in my lower calf and pain in my knees and ankles from the lack of support in the boots.

Before learning to skate I had no idea there were different skates for different levels of skaters...and I had no idea how expensive they were! An “okay” beginner pair runs about $140 and a decent beginner pair is closer to $200. Nice skates for the mid-advanced skater run about $500-$2000, bet you didn’t see that one coming! I’ve dropped more than $70 in these last two days alone between paying for part of my L2S class, a private lesson, open skate, and my first sharpening. For skaters, this probably seems cheap, but for a beginner with an entry level job it’s a lot to drop in two days.

So naturally I’ve decided to pick up a part-time (temporary) job to cover the costs of skating. I’ve caught up to women in my L2S class who have been in it for 4 sessions (6 months). I’ve been able to do this because I’ve put in the extra time and effort on and off the ice. In order to continue doing so at an even faster pace I need the extra money to handle more classes, buy new skates, private lessons/ice time, and to join the skate club at my rink.

I’m coming at this skating thing with full speed!

__

So my coach just sent me a list of skates that I should consider buying for my level, they are way more expensive than I thought they would be. Any skaters out there have suggestions about models and or brands?

Riedell-
Motion 255 $315
Edge 229 $269
Flair 910 $410

**Shout out to my friend Rachel (changed for anonymity) who helped me come up with a clever name for this blog! Figuring (figure) Skating Out & Breaking the Ice **

Sleep & Two-a-Days

I never thought I would actually spend time writing about sleep, but I also didn’t realize how much it would be affected in this process. Simply stated, skating takes it all out of you, it sucks up your energy. Just yesterday I skated for an hour. One hour. I went home, spent some time with my family and got dressed to hit the gym for a two a day (explained later). I never made it to the gym. I hit the sack at 8:15 pm. How do I know exactly when I slept? Well, I woke up to a handful of texts all time stamped around 8:30 that I never saw/responded to. I also have a fitbit that tracks my sleeping patterns. And I never plugged my phone into the charger, a daily routine for me.

When I took classes on Saturday I would often stay for the open skate afterwards, on these days I would go home and rest or nap for hours. If you know me well you know that I have difficulty sleeping during the day. I only nap if my body is 100% exhausted.

I think it’s important to note that I don’t feel exhaustion on the ice. That’s what confuses me about this. Ice time in my mind is glorified, I feel like I’m in my happy place. I smile when I succeed at something that I’ve been working on. It doesn’t hit me until about 10 minutes after I’ve been in my house. Nowadays, I don’t even let myself sit when I get home. I literally have trouble getting up every time. So I figure if I avoid sitting I can make myself a quick/light dinner and head to the gym for the two a day. Rarely the case.

Two-a-days are intense. They are the days when I do two complete (1 hr +)  workouts. I know it sounds crazy, but it makes sense to me. As I’ve mentioned before, I am really committed to my plan and my goals in figure skating. If I am going to start jumping I need to be in good shape. Second, I am paying for a membership at a really nice gym. If I’m paying for it I better be going every day, sometimes twice a day. These two-a-days occur on very specific occasions, they occur on skating days because I can only do a workout after skating (otherwise I’ll be too tired for ice time), and skating is a complete workout in itself. They also occur on friend gym days. Luckily my gym is right next to my place of work, and because I end at 2pm (and literally have nothing else to do until 6) I hit the gym for an hour knowing that I’ll be heading there again at night with my girls. Surely this changes my workout, I usually go hard on my magic machine in the afternoon so that in the evening I can walk on the treadmill while my friends are on the ones next to me (they hate my machine and I hate running on the treadmill, so I take it easy at night).

Two-a-days are my favorite. I feel my best on those days and I sleep really well too. I come home, shower up, and hit the sack. At first I used to wake up feeling sore, but as this goes on it doesn’t feel as bad in the morning, some days I even wake up refreshed.

Diet and Exercise

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I re-started my Lifetime Gym Membership. Figure Skating has become my motivation for the gym. I am also really lucky to have my best friend right by my side, pushing me to do my absolute best.

A few years ago I lost a ton of weight and dropped 3 dress sizes, I was comfortable wearing a bikini on the beach and I felt great. My motivation back then? To impress and feel my best. Unfortunately, in the last couple years I’ve gained the weight back. Between school and work I had little time to exercise and frankly I lost my motivation. As soon as I began skating I knew that if I wanted to get better (and do jumps) I had to get in shape. Slowly I began making changes in my diet and I restarted my gym membership. In the early stages, I had many cheat days: pizza, soda, and chocolate! Who knew I’d join the “chocolate club” as soon as I started to care? I hated chocolate before and now it’s like a delicacy. When I learned the waltz jump I knew that I couldn’t cheat anymore. I didn’t think that I would start jumping on the ice for at least another year so I had time to get in shape, little did I know that it was go time. Things got serious quickly.

I had been doing exercises at home, but I wanted to get on my magic machine [basically what I refer to as an elliptical on steroids (Precor: Adaptive Motion Trainer with Open Stride)]. I call it the magic machine because it’s a cardio workout I can do without feeling like crap, I can get my heart rate up where I need it to be comfortably and for long periods of time for maximum gain. In addition there’s a good amount of resistance that I can add which makes the movements more strenuous. When I am at the gym I usually start out by doing 15 minutes of cardio, as I continue going to the gym this time usually increases in increments of five. After Cardio, I move on to weights. I work on my arms (100 reps total, between 40-50 pounds to start), then my quads (25 reps x 2), abs (100 reps total, 50 at 60 lbs, 50 at home), then I get back to legs (100 reps total on 3 different machines).  If I have extra time I work on my calves and glutes, then to arms again). After weights I head back to cardio on my magic machine, 10 minutes to start, then as I continue going I usually bump up the time in increments of five. Finally, I stretch. Sometimes I’ll throw in a couple 30 second planks and yoga, it really depends on time.

As far as my diet goes, it is really difficult. Like I said, now that I’m in the early stages of jumping I feel like I need to lose weight and get stronger very quickly. I can’t make the jumps I want to be doing...like flips and loops until I lose some weight. This means that soda needs to be completely eliminated from my diet… for good. Soda has been my most difficult challenge in this endeavor. It is like the outlier in my life, I try to eat foods that aren’t processed often, I tend to overcome pain and the common cold using natural remedies like elderberry and essential oils...but then I drink soda? I know it is by far one of the very worst things you can put in your body, I am aware, yet it continues to challenge me.

The diet itself isn’t anything specific, motto “don’t put crap in your body”. I am eating lots of protein, mostly grilled chicken. Less carbs. More vegetables (aka lovely salads). Lucky for me I don’t like cheese very much and I don’t eat red meat more than once every two weeks, so they aren’t really a problem for me. I definately make choices that others might avoid on a diet, such as butter and real sugar. I’d rather have the “real” thing in both cases rather than the processed alternatives.

I don’t eat late at night and I try to have a light dinner (heavier lunch). If I eat most of my protein during lunch I have more energy later in the day and I have time to burn it off while exercising. Lighter dinners are great for nighttime workouts and good sleep. I hate snacking, but sometimes when I am dieting I make myself snack so that my meals are more frequent. I choose to either have yogurt or vegetables (usually carrots & celery).

I’ve posted the specifics of my diet and exercise plan for a few reasons. First and foremost I need it as a reference. In a few months I’ll update it and get to see my progress. Second, those who want to use it as a reference can! I’ve had a lot of success with this plan in the past, I know that it works for my body, hopefully it will for you too - should you choose to take this step.

Makeup Sessions - Thank God!

Well sure enough I was still sore from the strain on Saturday and didn’t make it to class, but I called the rink and they said I could make up both classes! The only other day that works in my schedule is the Wednesday evening class. I was a bit apprehensive about going since my favorite coach isn’t going to be there, but I have to make up those days somehow. The good thing here? I get to skate on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings for two weeks in a row, horah!

Today I also re-started my membership at Lifetime fitness! I am overjoyed about this, it’s been on hold for like a year. It’s so freaking expensive, but will ultimately be worth it. I know that getting shape at the gym is really going to impact my ability to skate. My goal is to be at the gym every single day. I know everyone says this and doesn’t follow through, but I am headstrong. If that membership is costing me $70 a month that means I am going to be there every single day. Or else (I’ll come up with a punishment soon).

Missed Class

I missed class last Saturday, because unfortunately I was sick. I had to rest up at home, I knew that if I decided to use my energy (or lack thereof) on the ice I’d probably end up in bed for another week. Thankfully I did get better, so I decided to also get back working out at home. I found some “awesome” off the ice workouts online and combined them with my usual for a superhuman workout. I call it superhuman because well it will practically destroy anyone who attempts it. I’ll post a picture of it soon! So, I attempted this new workout and while doing the superman move (which I’ve never attempted before) I strained two muscles in my thighs. Just lovely. I doubt I’ll be on the ice this Saturday. Again.

Learn to Skate

Today I called the Onyx and registered for my very first learn to skate session. I am very excited to start on Saturday, but I haven’t been on the ice since mid last week. Since I have jobs set every day this week I probably won’t be back on the ice until the morning of practice. Sounds to me like I need to start off ice training.