Fresh Meat

So a few months back, you may remember me talking about trying out for the Rose City Roller's Fresh Meat program. Basically if you want to play competitive roller derby in Portland, OR you try out and if you make it they put you on Fresh Meat which is a group of girls they teach how to play derby and if you make it through their training program, eventually you'll get on one of their 4 local teams.

I tried out back in December and didn't make it but I've been working hard and when try outs came back around this month, I was ready. What I wasn't ready for was how much they would change the format for try-outs.

This time they decided to up the ante and instead of a slow pace line and some basic knee falls we did the equivalent of a full, two hour Fresh meat practice. They started us out with the 50 Lap killer. That's a 50 lap pace line around the outside of the track in usually about 15 minutes or less and we each had to sprint one lap. I have asthma and sprinting is not my friend but I hung in until the very end.

After the 50LK I was exhausted and realizing we weren't even half way done was a little scary. They followed up the 50LK with holding derby stance for 30 seconds (basically a squat on skates) then sprinting 3 laps, then another 30 seconds of derby stance followed by 4 sprint laps and so on. I believe the next thing we did was falls. one whistle, left knee fall, 2 whistles, right knee fall, 3 whistles, both knees.

It doesn't sound hard but falling and getting back up and falling and getting back up over and over again is possibly even more exhausting than the 50lk. It some point the fall drill had gone on for so long and I was so tired I just thought to myself, you know I don't even care if I make it to FM or not anymore but I'm going to make it to the end of this if it kills me.

Next we did different stopping drills. Then we did some really fast weaving pace line drills. I actually had to stop and use my inhaler for those. After that we lined up for our last set of drills and I looked around and realized that of the 28 girls that started only 12 of us were left.

We did a jump, weave and stop drill and then a bunch of pack drills where we speed up fast as a pack, weave and then slow down. and stop on a dime together.

That was the last drill. They told us they would be calling us shortly to let us know if we made it or not. A bunch of the girls were going to Buffalo Gap to wait for their calls but I'd done that last time and I didn't want to do it again. I planned to just go home and wait for my call and cry all by myself if the news were bad.

Before I could even get out of the parking lot Nori called me to tell me I'd made it. Nori Spekt aka Kara would have been my derby wife but Cherry purposed to her before I had a chance. So now I just like to say she's my derby soulmate. I jumped out of my car and ran to give her a big happy, tearful hug. I made it. I can't believe it but it's true.

Tonight will be my 9th FM practice. It's hard. Really hard and exhausting and challenging and well, just about the most amazing thing I've ever done.