Slowskating is the New Speedskating

Tessa: On September 12th speedskating started up again. This is the time of year when I get up every Tuesday morning at 6:00 am, I haul my sorry ass to an ice rink where I wear a too tight licra full body leotard which Dave likes to wear and run around in more than I do, then I put on a bunch of gear and some skates and then I get tortured by coach Ariana who for the next hour will scream things like 'your legs are just meat, lower, faster, faster, lower'. You are probably wondering what kind of gladiatorial undertaking this is. Well, it's speedskating, of course. And that person you see on the left there. That is absolutely not me. I started skating about 12 years ago as an adult. An old adult. An old adult who couldn't skate. For the first four years I skated in the kids group, where I stayed much longer than any of the other adults who started and then moved on to the adult group almost immediately. It's the sissy thing. I speedskate but I'm afraid to go fast. When I get to the start line I look at my coach with steely eyes and say daring things like "I'm going to skate as slowly as I possibly can" not to get a reaction but because this really is my plan. Being in the kids group had its drawbacks. No kid wants to be partnered with an adult. Especially a slow adult. So whenever we had to team up it was me and whatever geekie kids were not picked because they were slow, untalented or just not cool. I met Derek this way. He was 12. I was 36. He was overweight. I wobbled on my skates. His ankles caved out. Mine caved in. So we teamed up to do some laps one behind the other and with any luck one of us would pass the other and then the next person would take over the lead. The first time we teamed up I took the lead. After a couple of laps I heard grunting and groaning you know weird human noises you don't want to hear. Uh, ow argghh uh crap...oi ahhh. When I turned and looked Derek had ice chips melting down his cheeks and in his eyes. He was soaking wet. I asked him what happened. He looked at me and said its you...you keep chipping the ice and it's flying in my face. Really. Uh huh. Sorry. Yeah. Really. I am. Does everyone do this. Uh no. Then we started to kill ourselves laughing. We roared. Two sissies killing themselves like SCHOOLGIRLS. The next time Derek showed up for practice he had glasses on. Very cool glasses. The kind the pros wear. He stood beside me. When it was time to pick partners we didn't have to wait around. He was always my partner after that. Anyways, I don't know where Derek is. He quit. But its cool being friends with someone who is 24 years younger than you and who isn't a relative. We had some wicked laughs. I'm in the adult group now (barely). My partner's name is Agatha. She is 75 years old and she's still faster than me. But that's another story. To get more info on this hair-raising sport visit: BC Speedskating Association