Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Day 3 – So Hard

August 28, 2011 by Beth

I’ve played 17 hours of hockey since 8 am on Friday and I’m now in a 4 hour break between my sessions. Most of our breaks are 8 hours but twice during the 10 days we get just 4 hours and these breaks are dreaded because it’s really not much time between 4 hour sessions of hockey. I’ve decided that four hours is not enough to really go to sleep – I mean, after you get off the ice, you have to get all your gear off and shower, which takes about half an hour. And I need about an hour to get ready before my next session –  on a normal day, it doesn’t take me an hour to get ready, but in this gameI have to put Second Skin on whatever parts of my body feel like they are getting blisters, put on all my gear, do some stretching – plus I’m slow moving because I’m so sore and tired.

My last session was from midnight to 4 am and I’m not going to lie – it was hard. My back was super sore right from the get go, despite having taken an Advil before I started. Also, despite my best efforts at trying to take it “one shift at a time,” all I could think of was the fact that I was only going to have a four hour break after the session and it really sucked the life out of me. I didn’t score a single goal in the last four hours – I’m pretty much just a body on the ice who once in a while touches the puck at this point. I’m too tired to chase any pucks. I was on the verge of tears at least a dozen times in the four hours and I don’t even know why ((The thing that kept me from actually crying was that every time I felt like I was going to cry , I imagined Dan saying, “Grow a pair, Gillis!” and that made me laugh)).

Anyway, my brain isn’t really working enough to write any more coherent paragraphs, so here’s some random thoughts:

• I should have invested in the company that makes Second Skin. ‘cuz we are going through that stuff like nobody’s business.
• Music makes a really big difference. In my last session there was a lot of slow music and I had no energy. Then a girl started DJing for the last hour and the music was rocking and it was So. Much. Better. At one point while we were waiting for the horn that signals that the break is over and it’s time to drop the puck, all the players on the ice – plus the referees – were dancing! It was awesome.
• Tiger balm is my friend.
• Lace bite sucks.
• My mouth is getting raw from having my mouth guard in for so many hours in a row.
• A 10 minute break is long enough to either go pee while wearing hockey gear or eat a granola bar. But not both. Related: playing hockey with a mouth guard full of granola is very weird.
• We’ve lost all concept of time since this game started. I generally have no idea what day of the week it is and I haven’t seen the news since I’ve been here, so I have also no idea what’s going on in the world. All we really have time to do is eat, sleep, play. And repeat.

Oh yeah, and in case you are interested, the score in the game now stands at 219  to 131 for the White Team..

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