Broken Hearted Wheel Melt

Last night was the 3rd Annual Broken Hearted Skate-a-thon. Its a great event where each skater raises pledges per laps (or simple flat donations) to help the American Heart Association.

This year, I was challenged to skate over 250 laps in the 2 hour skate-a-thon time frame, or as my friend so nicely put it, he wanted to know how many it took to make my "little skate wheels melt". Well, I took that challenge, and was ready right at 6pm to start the wheel melting, dizzying warp speed lap journey.

In 2009, I tried counting my laps to myself as I went.... yea, that was a disaster. I apparently can't count past 5 in my head without forgetting what number I was on. So this year, I had a little hand held clicker that I could click each lap to keep track. I knew I had to do about 125 laps an hour to make the goal.

I started off strong, trying to keep a good pace. About 45 minutes into it, my back was aching pretty good from the left-turn leaning and crouched skater-stance. But check-in at the hour marker had been on course for my wheel melting goal. A quick stretch out, a little truckin' music, and I kicked it into high-gear for the last half of the skate-a-thon.

About 5 minutes left, I finally threw in the towel to seek out a quick back massage for my achy back! I called in my lap count, and waited to hear what my ranking was at the end of the tally.

For the 2010 Skate-a-thon, I skated a total of..........................

::DRUM ROLL PLEASE::

316 LAPS!

Oh yes, not only did my little skate wheels melt, but so did my poor legs and feet. I can hardly walk today, and I have all kinds of blisters on my feet from the aforementioned melting. (ewww, gross!) And although I didn't even need a defibrillator on site or a transplant heart from the American Heart Association, I sure did need an epsom salt bath, a heating pad and some shock therapy when I got done!

The finally tally of how many laps we've done as a league whole and how much we've raised overall for the skate-a-thon will not be released until next week when all the pledges are collected. I'm really excited to see what we raised for the AHA and how many laps we finished as a group. I think I came in 2nd or 3rd in overall laps skated as an individual.... yay! I'll keep you posted!

Big thanks to my supporters this year, whom helped me raise my pledged amount to over $200 for the AHA:

• Steve Barone
• Jennifer Stern
• Will Agee
• Bob Sykes
• Kris Combs aka Hell Razor
• Jimmy Pogue
• Robin Bernstein aka @RollerWomyn
• John Ramspott

Its not too late to help! Chip-in below until the 17th. Its tax deductible, and you're really helping a great cause!