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.

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.