Monthly skating review: progress and goals adjustment

The thing that I remember the most from the previous "skating month" is feeling tired. That is, my muscles were tired a lot (quads and the gluteus on the side that was hurt), some days I was sore, plus, I felt tied overall after skating. I reviewed again causes for tired muscles and I can definitely improve some aspects. It is said the muscles need rest to recover after a hard work out, and I do have 2 rest days per week. It is also said more sleep is needed when you build muscles, and I actually had few shorter sleeping nights (involved with helping stray cats, but that's a story for another time) and this may well be the only reason I'm tired. Then, maybe my protein intake needs a boost. And also, I've fallen out of the habit of warming up before getting on ice. Other tips for muscle recovery arehydration, more iron rich foods, foam rolling, bath with Epson salts.
Update 3/6/2019. USFSA advice on it, here.

Freestyle: I've had 4 lessons, all towards choreographing my program. I've got very little technical explanation because I have the elements needed for the test, I needed help in the connecting elements and hand movement. I'm very happy of how this is going. I feel I've learned soo much. At this point I'm working on entering the forward one foot spin from an inside 3 turn. The music would ask for a quick entry in the spin so I really really hope I'll get this. We also tried to bring the hand over the head while spinning and that I can do if the spin is nice and centered. Other spin "developments", with my choreographer/coach, we decided that we don't really like the scratch spin from an esthetic point of view. On the other hand I feel the music asks for something fast, so I may be tempted to consider the scratch spin... But, for now, my inside 3-turn entry is wobbly, and if I don't center, I cannot do the scratch spin anyway... Now, while working with my main coach on the back swing rolls, he took me by the board and wanted me to push the hips forward and curl the shoulders back, as for a layback spin. I immediately said that that is my favorite spin and can we to work on it. He said that I need the scratch spin centered and strong first. So now, I have the motivation to work on it. I was avoiding it in order to not put pressure on the hip abductors that were the initial hip injury. And the last spin update, the back spin... it's getting better and better, but I don't work on it diligently anymore. I still have no instruction on the pull exit, I step inside to exit, but I need less and less concentration for the entrance and I usually center it.

I feel I'm using like half of my skating time to work on the program and that is taking away from the Ice Dancing and MITF. And I'm not actually working on Freestyle elements, I'm using what I already know. I don't know how much time is needed to learn a program. We have now 3/4 of the choreography done and it gets harder and harder to run it all, especially on music because of other skaters getting in my way. And I get stuck trying again and again. While for now I'm truthfully excited about working on it, I do hope I'll get better at doing the whole program not just half of it. I was hoping I can test the Freestyle Pre-Bronze program on March 30th in a way to be done with it and get back to the rest of my training. Of course I wanted to keep it trained for hopefully showing it at my rink small competition in June, but I want to take the focus off it. But the March testing session is already full, the next one is beginning of May. So, I'll have to plan my time.

MITF: I occasionally did some of them. I think I have now my hip strong enough to be able to work on them. At this point the biggest obstacle is feeling tired. If I feel tired I'm not totally controlling my body and maybe my attention is less then optimal, so I'm not eager to work on delicate things and risk to fall and hurt myself.

Ice Dancing: I had just 2 lessons with my main coach this month. The Ten-Fox is progressing with the speed of snail. I expected it. My coach seemed disappointed last Thursday with my complacent attitude. Then on Friday the skating session started empty and I thought to work on the Ten-Fox first. Bad idea because that got my legs tired and I wasn't efficient the rest of the session. So, no I cannot have it all. With the pattern dances, I feel that when I work at them, they really take over all my skating. They make my muscle tired because there is a lot of knee bending in Ice Dancing so I cannot really work on the other skating kills after I work on dance. They also need empty ice, many times that is only on the Tuesday session that I now don't take, I use Tuesday as a rest day... Then, my coach thinks that I need 2 lessons a week in order to really progress. But I skate 4 days total! As I said Ice Dancing takes over if I let it. I think I have to let them develop at a slow pace and then push when I decide to test.

Off Ice: I still have 2 weeks from this sessions for both my ballet activities. Then 2 week off and then a new 2 months session starts. The ballet conditioning on Fridays just before my skating I'll let go. It's not interesting enough and I'm not sure we are encouraged enough to hold the correct form, plus it's getting me tired before skating. The beginner ballet on Saturday is not really beginner, and I half love it and half feel frustrated about it, about not knowing what we are doing so not be able to follow along. I am getting better... And I do feel is gonna help a lot with posture, hand movement, choreography and muscle conditioning. And I love ballet as an art form a lot. I just didn't get yet to feel joy or accomplishment.

So the plan for this month? Hopefully I'll be better rested, by sleeping enough, but I cannot really control this. What I can control is to warm up off ice before the skating. And listen to my body and train just as hard as I can so I don't injure myself again.

I've reached out to the test chair to double check if the session is full and she said she'll work on the schedule tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll get to test... Then the Freestyle will be priority. If not, I'll have to push it back and whenever I feel the strongest I should work on the moves and whenever the ice is emptier I should work on Ice Dancing. But I should remember to not start with the Ice Dancing because that kills my legs for the rest of the session...