I planned to skate today since last weekend. On last Saturday within twenty minutes of my session I broke my deck on a pop shuvit, a very basic trick. Later that day I made a field trip to the well known KCDC skate shop in Williamsburg Brooklyn and got a new deck. That shop has a mini ramp and a way to get a membership which I might consider for the winter. Anyway it rained last Sunday and every night this week I would look at my deck and ponder about it. It’s the Omar Salazar deck by Alien Workshop and I worried if the nose and tail were a little steep compared to what I was used to. Finally today I got to skate it.
I actually set my alarm for ten this morning and after a few punches of the snooze button I woke up. I watched several parts of the Lakai skate DVD and talked with my roommate. Around noon I was out the door and headed to the park, a five minute bus ride. Outside I noticed clouds and hoped that it would not rain. Shortly I was there and other people were skating. The first thing I noticed was that leaves were everywhere. Soon my friend came, and we started skating.
The park has a small mini ramp (about three feet high), a bank, a quarter, a central ramp fun box, and some ledges. My friend and I skated for about three hours. We both skated well for us, and I saw kids skating well. In games of skate these kids were doing pressure flips. I thought that trick deceased in 1992, but it’s cool to see all types of skating going on now. My worries about my new deck were nonsense, I feel I can skate it well. I even wonder if my old deck was cracked for awhile, because this one has better pop to it.
On the mini, which I didn’t skate that much because I find if I do a few runs on it, it’s kind of exhausting. Anyway the coping was slow but eventually I got my little fakie turns to board slides to rock n roll out to the point that I can do it consistently. A few skateboard decks back I cracked a board on a fakie bump pop off the coping to disaster. Today I decided I was going to do the trick anyway, and they feel really good. I’m pretty sure I’m getting good pop off of it instead of just plopping my wheels over the coping. I got a couple of disasters to reverts, but lost my speed completely on all the ones I landed. My friend really likes mini ramps and skates them well, so I hope to skate it with him again at some point.
On the street course I finally got comfortable doing fast 50-50’s on the quarter. The coping and ramp bends so it’s a straight line and then for five feet or so it angles inwards and then goes straight again. So it’s a different grind, and I did slip out a couple of times. On the middle ramp that has a gap and step to go over I got a kickflip, and switch ollie. My friend did really cool rail slides on the bar there. On the bank I made a bet of a dollar with my friend on who could get a kickflip to fakie on it. He did it in a couple of tries. After several tries I got it too. Off and on I was trying a nollie frontside pop shuvit to fakie on the bank. My friend said to pop sooner before you lose your speed. With that advice I got it, and I landed it a couple of times. I ended my skating day with a game of skate with my friend, and it took awhile because we both landed a lot of stuff.
I got back and my roommate ordered pizza, enough for me too, so I ate. After that we hung out for a little bit. Around six I went to the gym. About three weeks ago I got a slight cold and skipped the gym completely. I only started going back this week. I did twenty minutes on the stationary bike, legs, biceps and triceps. The stationary bike really is not challenging, so I’m trying to figure out if simply putting time in is enough. I’ll have a goal of getting thirty minutes of cardio on each gym workout. Eventually getting thirty minutes of intense cardio would be better. For a little bit I did my initial plan of bike/weights/ elliptical but started to notice sometimes after workouts my knee ached.
Today was a good day and what I hope most of my days off will be. And that is being active in some way.
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