What is that foul smell?!?! - Washing derby pads.

Anybody that knows me personally knows how much I hate hate HATE BO. I have 10 sticks of deodorant laying around everywhere, take multiple showers in the summer, am constantly asking my fiance if I stink (he gets annoyed with this question), I hate to stink.

So when I joined derby, I didn't realize just how much I was going to start stinking. Holy crap!!!! My friggin gear smells worse than a landfill. Especially now that not only am I lasting longer in practice (more sweating), our a/c went out at the rink and we're enduring 100+ days until we get it replaced later this month (sh!t tons more sweating). My gear is smelling pretty friggin gross. I was also being pretty lazy and leaving my gear in my car (READ: BIG MISTAKE), even my fiance who knows how self conscious I am about stinking said to me "honey, you smell awful when you put your gear on". Oh crap! For Charlie (derby name: Moonshine) to say something to me about it means it really really really stinks. So I'm taking advantage of this holiday week since we have no practice, and washing these nasty things. But how?....

Good 'ol trusty google, you always come through for me. I came across this great blog post by Short Temper with Hellions of Troy on washing her gear (check out her blog here). Thankfully I have a mesh bag from the padded shorts I bought after I fell and broke my tailbone. Which no longer fit me BTW, whoop whoop! So if any followers need a pair of Triple 8 padded shorts in a size XL, hit me up.

Ok, enough with that crappy sales attempt and on to washing my pads.

So I couldn't find my mesh bag :(

Short says you can soak them in a tub of hot water with some color safe bleach, but I'm gonna go her route and chunk them the the washing machine. If you got a mesh bag, put them in it so they don't get tossed around too bad. and VELCRO your pads, so you don't have a stretched out pad train when you take them out. If you're like me and have the Killer 187 Pro pads, you can actually remove the plastic front of your knee pads (what are those things called anyways?) and put them off to the side.

Pretty neat huh?

Short says you can use your clothes detergent or color safe bleach, but in true crunchy mama fashion (shameless crunchy mama blog plug riiiiiight ... NOW), I decided to go with the cloth diaper detergent I use for my son's dipes and a few drops of tea tree oil (naturally antibacterial). If it cleans pee and poop, it should clean derby stink right? Make sure you wash in hot water and if you have the option for a soak, go for it.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT throw your pads in the dryer (pretty obvious in my opinion). Hang them up to dry, outside if it's warm and sunny. It'll probably take a couple days to dry, so don't do this the day before you need them. I simply placed them on the chest freezer in the sun room in front of a window.

And that's it! Yummy smelling pads so you can stink them up all over again :/

Welp, since I'm a cleaning mood, I figured I could clean my mouthpiece. Especially after seeing the links on Short's blog, yuck!

You could soak it in mouthwash, or just give it a good brushing like I did. No picture, sorry.

How do you clean your gear?

Wait, what? I'm on lap 13?!?! Are you serious?!

So my biggest challenge so far has been skating laps around the track. To pass assessments and be bout eligible, you have a list of skills you need to pass. The techniques, while hard, are doable. I can work on those easy. It's the damn 25 laps in 5 min. Well, last practice, I came one step closer to getting that. I actually completed 25 laps. I've been avoiding this task because I thought I couldn't do it. But they insisted I try and one of the vets skated with me. She was counting my laps and she said "you're on lap 13!" Holy crap! I couldn't believe it. My derby sisters cheered me on till I finished and it felt amazing to finally be able to do that. I did it again at this last practice and they timed me. 10:05. Definitely need to work on it, but now I have a baseline to work from and I'm super excited about it. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

May 1st 2012 Time Trials

Once I get my crossovers down too, I'll shave some minutes off that I'm sure. Any vets out there have any pointers to help bring my time down? Or to do crossovers, lol. I'm a big thighed gal and I feel like I really got swing my leg out there.

"Oh confidence! Where art thou?"

Confidence is one huge thing I'm lacking BIG TIME in this sport. Maybe that's why I can't do my 25 in 5, my crossovers, t-stops, etc. I'm so f*$%@ing scared of myself and think I can't do this. I thought the same thing when I first started.

"What? Derby? Like actually maintaining balance on skates while people hit me and vice versa? Wait... BEING on skates?!?!?!?! Hell no!"

But despite my reluctance at the beginning (and my crap in my pants fear), here I am, actually skating around pretty darn good for someone who never skated before.But yet, I keep holding myself back. WHY?!

I'm so tired of holding myself back, after watching my team mates at our last bout go into it with only 9 skaters against a WFTDA team, I wanna be out there with them, not on the sidelines taking pictures. I got to do some hitting at my last practice and it felt amazing, my Coach (which also happens to be my fiance) said the grin on my face everytime I hit that pad and stayed up was great. Made me feel good and made me want this more.

So look out derby world... I'm coming for it with a vengeance! I wanna be out there with my sisters!

Any other seasoned vets got some good pointers to help me along the way?

Freshmeat

That's what they call noobs like myself, freshmeat. We're the ones who are just starting out and haven't passed our WFTDA assessments. First off, let me introduce myself. My derby name is Flashpoint (or will be since I'm still considered fresh meat), I started skating about 2 months ago. Not just skating derby, skating PERIOD. I've never been on skates until a friend of mine suggested checking this out. I was terrified my first day. Barely inching along, holding on to a shopping cart. Watching the Vets skate around, do 180's and come up on their toestops, give whips, and do all the other tricks of the trade, I thought to myself. "There's no way in hell I'll ever get that good." But, despite my lack of confidence, I decided to come back a second time.

This time around, one of the vets came up to me and took the cart away. Nooooo! Not my precious shopping cart that gave me what little stability I had. I'd grown to love that thing in the 2 short hours I spent with it last practice. I was ready to give it a name for Christssake! But she said I couldn't get attached to it, damn her. I also know that she will likely let out quite the big chuckle when she reads that previous line. So back to falling it was. I got good use out of my borrowed knee pads, but as practice continued, I noticed I was falling less and less. That's when a tiny glimmer of hope started to shine through. I can actually do this! I immediately told my fiance I was ready to get off the borrowed gear.

"What?! I thought you wanted to try it out some first before you made that commitment." he stated.

"Well, I did babe. I tried it out and I know I wanna do it."

"Fiiine." He said grudgingly (he was not pleased). He obviously must've thought I was just gonna throw my hands in the air and say "the hell with this shiz!" Oh my was he ever WRONG.

As soon as our tax return came in, I was online ordering my rookie package. I was so excited when it came in and it's been hard to keep me off them. I've had a few injuries along the way, including a painful tailbone injury. But I'm determined to get better and become a monster! Looking forward to continuing my journey in derby.

Are you wondering about my meanie fiance who was completely against me doing this? Well, he came to one practice with me and got HOOKED. He and my little guy (spark plug) now come to every practice with me, and my fiance was just asked to be our new freshmeat coach (yes, MY coach :-/)

Here they are bossing the girls around on the track.

Family that plays together, stays together

Life, love, & derby,
Flashpoint