HP #24 - Strapping on a new engine

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See my first HP post for the full notes on these.

Background: I now had new skates and they were off to the rink for their first outing.

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"I'm now officially a run-of-the-mill, bog standard figure skater," I called across the ice to the Tammasaurus, who was finishing up a lesson with one of her advanced skaters. "I even have a Coronation Ace," I added. This second part was entirely because I didn't want the fact that I'd spent time researching to go unnoticed now that I'd chosen the absolute classic of free skating blades. This tactic is also known as, "BE PROUD OF ME, TAMMASAURUS! BE PROUD!"

"Ooooh let's see your skates!" the Tammasaurus excitedly skated over to visit me at the barrier.

Honestly, I don't really get the whole excitement around looking at new skates, I mean, I like it when people pay my new skates attention, but I don't personally understand what I'm meant to be appreciating when I see other peoples'. They all look basically the same to me, they're either white or black and the material differences are somewhat hard to tell between when you're on the rink. Even the branding from many skate manufacturers is quite subtle, at least at a distance, so I wasn't sure what it was the Tammasaurus was so eager to see. Clearly I'm not yet a skate design aficionado!

After a quick look, she seemed satisfied, so I nervously slipped into them (so comfy!) and stepped onto the ice for the test run. My initial impressions were as follows:

• Everything seems normal while just standing...
• Few gentle strokes, all fine...
• The blades crunch the ice a lot... (one woman remarked how much she liked the sound)
• Time for an outside edge glide... WHAT THE HELL? EDGE WORK IS LIKE BEING ON TURBO!
• No no, it's fine, I'm in control, but everything's so much smoooooooooooooother.

I've never really been much of a car person, but I was starting to appreciate how car people felt when they were put in a car with significantly better handling and a bigger engine than they were used to. It was exciting, but also kinda scary. I didn't feel like anything I could do was instantly better, but everything did seem a lot smoother on the ice. I tried a tentative 3 jump and could feel the boot supporting my ankle a lot better, just hugging it more really. I'd had a few concerns when I bought the blades that maybe I'd encounter the dreaded bigger toe pick issues everyone complains about, a concern the Tammasaurus clearly shared.

"How're you finding the toe pick?" she asked as we started my lesson. It was definitely bigger than the pick on my Graf blade, however I was surprised I was able to admit that it hadn't been an issue as far as I could tell. I was catching my toe pick about as much as was usual for me, which wasn't a lot, so that was the good news.

However, by the end of my lesson I had discovered the bad news: I couldn't feel my heels anymore. Nor the big toe on my right foot. They were totally numb, the big toe was even starting to hurt a bit. This was strange because breaking in pains I could understand, but simple numbness? I didn't know what to think. What I did know was that it made skating harder as putting weight in my heel was not only a weird sensation, but also difficult to do with any precision through the numbness.

I took my skates off after the session and put my now freed heel down on the floor... At least, I thought I put my freed heel on the floor, but I'd lost so much sensation that the feeling of ground was so alien to my foot that I jerked it back up off the floor almost immediately. Somewhat alarmed, I hoped the issue would resolve itself after the boots broke in a bit. Other than that bizarre issue, I didn't have any other breaking in pains, the boots were pretty sweet!