Back on the Icehorse

The ice rink opened for the winter last Sunday, and yesterday I strapped on my skates. For the first twenty minutes or so, I was the only one on the ice. I was steady from the moment I stepped onto the rink. It was blissful.

It was also a bit of a relief. Over the summer, something happened while I was ice skating that hadn’t happened in, maybe, twenty years. I fell.

Seriously, I don’t fall. It’s not because I’m good at skating. I’m not. I can go forward, pretty quickly for someone who’s not attempting to be good at skating. I can barely cross over on the curves; in fact, I often don’t attempt it. I can’t skate backward. I just skate.

So the main reason I don’t fall is that I’m really not taking any risks. I’m just out there to mix up the workouts a bit and because skating is fun.

The rink holds a short summer session each year for summer camps with a daily public skate. I showed up the last day of June, skated, and left my skates to be sharpened. Just after the holiday weekend, I went back to pick them up. The rink was filled with little kids. Part of it was cordoned off for a minihockey game. I thought twice about getting on that ice. But I had run into a couple of neighbors who were also going to skate that day, and I thought it would be fun to be there at the same time.

Because it was allegedly a public skate, I asked if when the hockey kids were leaving. I was told any minute. I asked if they were sure. They decided to lower my admission rate, just in case they were wrong.

Against my better judgment, I decided to try it.

It was tough. My skates were newly sharpened. I was dodging kids and rogue hockey pucks left and right. The rink was shorter because of that stupid hockey camp. I thought I’d try to make it to a half hour.

And of course, a kid skated right in front of me, and so as to not hit her, I did a belly flop on the ice.

I’m not kidding. A belly flop. I think maybe a knee hit first, but barely. I took the brunt of the fall on my torso. And then I slid. It hurt. A lot.

I got up and left. I was totally embarrassed (I know, unnecessary) and pissed off (mostly at myself for staying—the kid apologized—it wasn’t really her fault). And I was sore.

Still, I went home and did a half hour on the NordicTrack, in part to actually get my cardio in for the day and in part to be sure everything still worked.

Oddly, I never got black and blue (well, the knee did, a little). I went to my regularly scheduled chiropractor appointment the next day, and she assured me that if I had gotten through my workout, my ribs were in good shape.

The worst part was getting in and out of bed. It was excruciating for quite a few days.

Maybe the second worst part was realizing (and it’s not like I didn’t know already) that there’s no way I could play roller derby at my age (even with the protective gear).

A couple of weeks later, after I felt better and before the rink closed, I made myself get back on the ice. I had a decent workout, but the ice was rough, so it was just OK, not really fun.

But yesterday . . . I took my iPod just in case. They were playing some godawful country music. Instead of being high maintenance and asking them to change it (you can do that if you’re the only one on the ice), I earbudded up and skated forty-five minutes to Cake, a group that never fails to make me ridiculously happy. The ice was smooth, untouched by other blades. The music was great. And because I started alone, I got to skate clockwise.

And then, it snowed.