On a cloudy day with rain threatening I met Will and Rob at Broomfield park. Jake and Sean would join later and then Darin much later. Rob and I quickly realized Will is much younger seeing as how he was jumping into grinds right away. Ha ha. It was a nice fun chill warm up though. I was starting to get the sharp cupsole knee pain that always turns me off on cupsoles. But a game of SKATE with Sean and Will helped with pain even though I was the first one out. I was happy to get heelflip, halfcab flip pretty easily. I saw Rob get back 50 quick, front tail, crooks, front nose, solid front boards, halfcab boardslide, a lot of ripping. Will is really good at front nosegrinds. He did like 20 of them on the black box, some where the entire length of the box. He had crooks too, lots of flippers, smith down the escalator ledge. Sean was on a terror pretty quickly. He had b/s flip and back heel and all his ledge tricks quick. Well, except the fakie back 5-0 which took awhile, but that’s understandable. Jake got going pretty quick. Front tail, front tail fakie, crooks, back 50, front 50 to front board. I was really struggling to get on the ledge and the sharp knee pain became too much so I switched to vulcs – NB# 22. They felt weird at first but pretty quickly I was actually able to ollie and get a few 50s. I had tried a run of 180 into the bank, halfcab noseslide, switch boardslide and got kinda close. Jake challenged me to a game of SKATE. We got through quite a few tricks with no letters until I got heelflip and something else. Oh I got a defensive frontside flip and it was funny because Judge Rob admitted to age bias. Rightfully so, Jake is only in his mid-30s. Ha ha. Then we went in on treflips. Will had joined the treflip battle and gotten a few before I landed a bad one worthy of a redo. Then another bad one worthy of a redo. Then a third one in a row that actually counted. I haven’t landed on 3 treflips in a row in a long long time so I was really freakin’ happy about that. Jake was super close but never quite got one and he went double-triple-quad or nothing and that was the game. We chilled for a bit. Darin showed. Everyone but me left so I skated some more with Darin. It started really slow with some rock ‘n rolls and axle stalls for me. He was doing front blunts, back tails. Then we started lining out the little ledge. His line was back blunt then bluntslide the ledge. I had nollie front tail, front disaster, nollie back tail which took way too long. Darin did front blunt. I tried a line for a long time of crooks the taller brown ledge, axle to fakie the qp, switch front nose shove the little ledge. I got one and was hyped and left it at that.

(setup 8.25 nullosaur, jessup pj ultragrip, thunder hollow 148s, bones stf v1 52mm 103a, adidas puig b/w size 12 with fp 3.5mm insoles then NB# 22 maroon size 12 adidas thin insole)
(pain level 4/10 sharp knee pain with the puigs, less pain with the 22s)

Woke up really early.  Whenever I have a terrible time skating I should take the next day or two off.  Instead I got to a mediocre skatepark at 6:30am.  I was pretty stiff, but not too sore.  I credit the Puig’s, they are decent for reducing pain, unfortunately board feel too.  After some total nothing carving around slow and some ‘nollie’ shoves I started with the warm up lines.  First one was switch nose jib, boardslide the rail, ollie to fakie the bank.  Next was ollie onto the little manny pad, front 180 off, fakie flip, switch front nose.  Never quite got that.  One that took a bit was front 50, ollie the bank hip, then front tail the little hip.  Took me a few tries to get a b/s flip on the main bank.  Then did more and followed with a kickflip to fakie near the main hip.  That was the highlight for me, it was downhill after that.  Couldn’t get front 50 shove, back 50 the little ledge or kickflip to fakie the main bank.  Argh.  

(setup 8.25 nullosaur, jessup pj ultragrip, thunder hollow 148s, bones stf v1 52mm 103a, adidas puig b/w size 12 stock insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Went to campus after a nice walk with Liz then dinner.  Missed the old guy session at the curbs, but I wasn’t really feeling like skating curbs again anyway.  It was a nice cool temp.  I had setup an 8.25 with Thunder 148s and put some old Bones wheels on.  Cruising into campus it felt great, lower to the ground and the hard wheels felt great.  I ended up at a spot I haven’t really skated before.  It’s a ledge that looks perfect, but got knobbed right away.  Anyway one of the knobs is missing making for a 4 foot section.  I did some lines to warm up.  Ollie a manhole cover (my first ollie was surprisingly painful), noseslide the ledge, no comply 180.  Then the other way switch noseslide, nollie tail a short downhill section, front 180 the manhole.  Switch 180 the manhole, kickflip on flat, noseslide to fakie, fakie flip.  The kickflip took awhile.  Argh, I could feel the board was lighter, but I still struggled.  I couldn’t crook the ledge, the truck difference was messing with me.  I did have some fun slappy crooks on the uphill section. Too bad it’s knobbed because it would be fun to go all the way up.  I managed a couple incredibly slow front 50s.  For how bad I was feeling that made me a little happy.  Until I tried to line them out with halfcab flip.  That’s when things got depressing.  It took forever to get an incredibly slow one.  Not much went on after that, I tried some treflips, but didn’t land one or even commit.

(setup 8.25 nullosaur, jessup pj ultragrip, thunder hollow 148s, bones stf v1 52mm 103a, adidas puig b/w size 12 stock insoles)
(pain level 4/10 not really that much pain, but I just had no energy or ability to jump)