I was a nice, crisp day this morning – and dry – so I decided to get the kids shipped off to school and then check out the local part following its refurb.
It’s a nice little park. Plenty of smooth concrete to cruise around on and a nice mix of obstacles and ramps, with some of them arranged to form mini half-pipes too. There is an annoying gutter along one side that, in a few week’s time won’t be an issue but for now, stalls me and I have to cut my lap of the park short. Other than that it was great – and being 8:30 in the morning on a school day, I had the place to myself.
I didn’t set out with a skateboarding-oriented goal in mind but rather I wanted to push myself around for a total of 1 hour, get myself a little out of breath, and get good and sweaty. I wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it, and validate that it might actually be a good way to get some exercise.
So that’s what I did – I shuffled around the park for a grand total of 60 minutes, minus a couple of stops to adjust the tightness of my trucks, and started to get familiarised with the feeling of being on a board again. Over confidence did catch me out a couple of times with a few scary, too-fast pushes and a few optimistic rides up the ramps.
Nevertheless, I stayed on my feet for the most part, had a great time, and did indeed get good and sweaty.
With 10 minutes to go, I decided I would like to set myself a skateboarding goal – to feel comfortable riding up any incline, kick-turning, and coming back down. Pretty simple stuff but a nice little achievement for my first skate in 20 years.
Skateboarding