Second

I faced off against one of my best skater friends in competition for the first time this weekend. We had been greatly anticipating this for some time. She's been one of my biggest supporters since we started skating together and still hasn't stopped accusing me of sandbagging at my last competition, when I skated pre-bronze. But when I passed my bronze test, we knew that we would have a face-off sooner or later.

We've made jokes about sabotaging one another but verbally agreed several weeks ago that nothing would change between us no matter the outcome. We've cheered each other on as we prepared our programs. We've now even decided to hold our own personal Grand Prix where we accumulate points. But Saturday came the real test, the first event in our competitive series.

She came out on top.

I skated first in our group of three. Since I botched my spins in my competition in June, my primary goal was to nail those. I wouldn't say I nailed them, but they definitely took a step in the right direction. I'm not too upset about it since I've struggled severely with consistency in my spins, especially the camel, and I managed to pull off a recognizable camel-sit, even if it wasn't as strong as I would have liked. But I also had my first competition fall. I fell between the loop and toe loop in my flip-loop-toe combo. I have no idea what happened. In fact, I didn't even know when I had fallen until I watched the video. My final spin was not as strong as it could be, but I finished with the music, after picking up after my fall. Despite the fall, I felt better about the performance than my June one.

My friend skated a lovely debut of her new program. She said I must have lent her my jump combo for the day, as her flip-toe loop-loop came out much better than it normally does. She was a joy to watch and skated a clean program.  At the end of her program, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that she would take first place.

We took a funny picture of me trying to push her off the top of the podium when we got our medals, but besides having wanted to win, I'm pleased with the outcome. I think, at least for this competition, that had I won, the joy of it would have been spoiled by my disappointment for her. Maybe it's because I think I only could have won if she had made a serious error or two and nobody wants their friend to skate that way. But I did get one first place ordinal in the event, and I am very, very proud of that.

And so ends the first event in our Grand Prix. And I'm already behind! Train, train train! Because next time, I plan to put up a better fight for first ;)