Hello! It's been awhile. I really meant to update sooner but I got sick right after Cup of Colorado and it put me on my ass for a bit. Here's how the competition went!
Morning Practice Ice - I felt kinda weird. My skating felt as solid as it could be but my nose was unusually runny and I was pretty tired (which I chalked up to not getting a lot of sleep the night before, but that's typical for me before a competition). It was a 30 minute Practice Ice and Christopher was coaching two of us. Not a problem. We touched on everything and I felt pretty ready.
Since my event wasn't until later in the evening, I went home and had a bite to eat and just generally chilled. I played some Mario Kart and hung out until it was time to get makeup and hair ready. I got to the rink about an hour and a half before my event and did my mental prep, stretching, and floor run throughs. I was exceptionally hot. Like, really hot. I didn't remember being this hot when I was there earlier that morning. Even when I got on the ice for my five minute warmup, I was roasting.
Adult Silver Women Free Skate - My five minute warm up felt good. I landed some solid jumps and my spins felt okay. Footwork was good. I ran the last 30 seconds with the 6 jumps and 1 spin and hit my end pose right in front of one of the judges with a look like "yeah, you saw that? Wait, it gets better!" So yeah, needless to say, I was feeling pretty confident that I would skate a clean program. I was introduced and I took my starting pose feeling pretty good (albeit still really tired and hot). My opening Loop jump was great with arms overhead and my camel spin camel'd. When I started my footwork, I was starting to feel the fatigue. I made eye contact with the same judge I eyed earlier and then promptly missed a step. I got through everything else. The Flip-Euler-Salchow wasn't the best but it got done and I felt really good about the Salchow-Loop combo and the final Flip. Finally, the last spin, the easiest thing in my program, ugh. I just couldn't center it even though I rarely have trouble on this element so it was not the solid, confident ending I wanted. I was awarded Silver with a score of 15.90 (a far cry from my personal best of 19.71).
Afterthoughts - It was not the skate I wanted or planned for but it wasn't the worst case scenario either. Later, on the drive home, I told my husband that my throat was really sore but, even then, I thought maybe it was from cheering on my fellow skaters. The next day, I was dead. Absolutely sick. And for over a week after, I was the sickest I've been in about 5 years. I took a week off of work to recover but during that time I lost my sense of smell and taste and had really bad bouts of dizziness. I took a home Covid test that was negative and even went to get a test done at my doctor's office and that was negative but I swear, this was not a cold. I don't know what it was but it was awful. I slowly got my sense of taste back for savory foods and then a few days after I was able to taste sweet foods. I can even smell things now (yay). I think adrenaline helped me get through my event and then once my brain sent the signal to my body that it can relax, all hell broke loose. I'm thankful I got sick after my event but I'm now realizing that I was probably sick during my event too and that may have contributed to how my program went. I purchased the pictures from the competition and I look so pale and sickly in all of them. Ew.
