A Dollar A Second!

This afternoon I had a great time hanging at PCAS and watching some really great skating.  It always challenges and inspires me to see the better skaters.

At one point we were watching some Gold ladies skate and there were some unsupervised small children being very noisy in the bleachers... jumping up and down, banging their feet, etc.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore, so as the little boy was noisily running toward me on the bleachers I stepped in front of him and said firmly, "Stop!  Stop running!"; then made a shushing gesture and told him to be quiet... and he did!  He went back next to his sister and was quiet.  Meanwhile a number of people in the  bleachers quietly said "thank you!".  It was kind of amusing.  I was glad I said something; it was really rude to be making so much noise while people who had worked so hard were trying to do their programs.

I had the pleasure of meeting blog reader Susan today.  It was nice to meet my other reader (lol!) besides skate buddy Melissa. :-)  In the course of our conversation we were discussing competition, why we do it, what we get out of it, etc., and Susan mentioned that we pay a dollar a second for the privilege of competing!

My initial reaction was -- that can't be right.  But then I did the math, and she's right.  I paid roughly $200 to do this competition (just the entry fee -- doesn't include practice ice, goodies, travel, costumes, etc., etc., etc.).   That $200 buys me two programs each 1:40 long, or 100 seconds each, so times two is 200 seconds of competition skating.  A dollar a second!  Eeeep!  Definitely a new perspective on this thing we call competitive skating.