Confessions of a seriously out of shape teenager

I had my first provincial try-out for ringette out in Montague yesterday.  The second I stepped onto the ice I felt great; it's hard to believe how rejuvenating the taste of cold rink air is, the feel of gliding across ice.  So for the first few minutes before practice started, I was just skating around in circles, shooting some rings in the net, and lost in the nostalgia of how much I'd missed this over the summer.  Well, those happy-go-lucky feelings don't last for long when one hasn't done any real physical activity since soccer season ended and everyone else is apparently in the midst of training for half-marathons, playing field hockey for their school teams, and practicing for national soccer; listening to the new MatchBox 20 CD, reading HG Wells's The Time Machine in French and studying for chemistry tests don't really keep a young athlete in peak physical condition.  Suffice to say, once the real practice started I felt like I was dying on the ice.  After around twenty minutes my head started doing that thing where the edges of my vision go black, I get dizzy, and all voices sound far-away and tinny.  Thankfully, I didn't end up fainting, and after that things got marginally better.  Despite my extreme out-of-shapeness, I did manage to impress the coach with some good dekes and being one of the fastest to skate around the ice after a drill, even though I did miss some very easy passes and it likely looked like I was about to pass out for the majority of the time.  There wasn't too many people there, which was reassuring, but it is Thanksgiving weekend, and players are allowed to miss one try-out and still be eligible for the team.  I know there were quite a few girls who weren't able to make it, so it's still hard for me to gauge my chances.  It'll be tough; this year I'm playing in the Belle division, and while all other age categories are composed of only two years, Belle is three, and making a team whilst competing against first-year university students will definitely be an uphill challenge.  Speaking of uphill, the next try-out is on the 13th, and I'm going to try to jog some hills before that to get in a bit better shape and hopefully prevent an ill-timed collapse.