We went ice skating this afternoon. The ice skating rink is set up in the gardens outside the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel.
I have not been ice skating in at least 12 years. Usually I am too afraid to go ice skating, because I am afraid of falling and hurting myself.
We have been to the Choo Choo a few times since the rink was set up, and we learned that it is $10 per person to skate for 80 minutes, which we thought was an excellent deal. They also offer “ice buddies” for those who are not as surefooted on skates.
On a Monday at 2 p.m., the rink was mostly empty. There were actually three older adults, me included, using the ice buddies. This made me feel a little less embarrassed. I think using one was great, because I was able to have a better time, not having a fear of hurting myself.
Newsflash: I ended up hurting myself at the end! But more about that later.
In the middle of our skating session, we got a crepe and hot drinks at the Adelle’s Creperie food stall. Adelle’s has been set up specially for the rink, which was a nice addition to our afternoon.
I enjoyed starting out skating with a buddy, because I got comfortable with knowing how to move my feet. Eventually, I tried pushing the buddy a little bit ahead of me and skating toward it, and then skating while holding on with just one hand.
Toward the end, I skated a few times around the rink without the buddy at all. I even managed to go one whole time around the rink without needing to grab onto the edge. I’m proud of myself!
Derek did end up falling twice himself. The first fall wasn’t so bad, but on the second fall he went down on his knee, which he said hurt pretty badly.
After the fall on his knee, Derek went to sit down outside the rink. I said I wanted to go around one more time before we left. I went around about 95 percent of the entire rink when I fell backwards! I was close enough to the edge that I grabbed the wall, but the force of me falling down was so great that I think I pulled a lot of muscles in my arm and shoulder area. It hurt badly! But I was able to pull myself back up and get over to Derek.
It’s laughable now, that I was SO CLOSE to finishing without falling at all. Oh well. My arm is still pretty sore, and it’s hard to move it in some directions, but I took some aspirin and a hot water bottle is helping.
Even thought we both took some spills, we had a great time doing something new.
