When Time Slows Down

Last night at practice I decided it was finally time to step up and be the Jammer. The Jammer has the pressure of the crowd on them; she wears the star on her helmet and makes the points. It is her job to get through the pack before the other Jammer to establish herself as lead and then she must lap the pack and score points by passing the opposing skaters. What people don’t always realize is if your blockers stink it doesn’t matter how fast or slinky your Jammer is she can’t fight a whole pack on her own. On the other end if your blockers are great than anyone on your team can jam as long as she has the endurance. Most teams, like ours, fall somewhere in-between.

I lined up on the second line and waited for the second whistle. It’s this few seconds waiting for the whistle that I always feel like I have to pee. The fact is I always just went. It’s my fear that I fall in a giant hog pile of women and then I accidentally pee on someone, so I always go just in between suiting up and hitting the rink and then again sometimes in between jams, sometimes so often I joke that my number should’ve been PP, but I'm well hydrated so what can I say.

After two excruciating, leg crossing, pee filled seconds of waiting for the whistle, he finally blows those two short bursts all Jammers live for. I take off running on my stoppers, the pee sensation long gone right along with the opposing Jammer. When I reach the pack I slide past the opposing and surprised black blocker and to my delight the rest of the opposing blockers are entangled with my team, I skim past the middle blockers on the inside of the track and get knocked out of bounds by their last line of defense their Pivot. I am free and clear of the pack now and my legs are working hard to get me around the track but I am not “Lead Jammer” because I was out of bounds briefly thanks to their Pivot. My new wheels carry me around the track with the utmost efficiency.

By the end of the jam we’ve skated the full two minutes, I sprinted the whole time and my lungs are on fire, sweat is pouring off me and I plop down on the folding chair at the side of the track and wait two minutes for my turn again. I have no idea how many points I actually made, I know I lapped the pack three times but I'm not sure how many fowls I incurred not keeping my elbows to myself or going out of bounds. Tonight the track is just a series of cones instead of actual rope lights, so it's hard to tell.

Next jam I’ll block while my team mate Acid Rain jams and then we’ll rest again, you just can't jam back to back two in a row even with the brake in the middle, it's too much. It's two minutes of sheer energy pouring out of your legs while the rest of your body dodges and wiggles out of the way and your brain is screaming "Watch OUT!" To say it's exhausting hardly seems to cover it. Two minutes on and two minutes off, that’s how it goes with twenty seconds to shuffle around in-between jams. On the track two minutes stretches out into eons and when I watch the bout back on DVD I can barely make out split second hits that seemed to take place in slow motion when they happened.