Went to Valmont around 10am to get some skating in before heading to Gunbarrel to meet Riley, Scotty and Bernie. I started trying a few airwalks to fakie on the bank that weren’t close. Then slowly worked up the stall game on the low part before feeling good enough to try real tricks. Got a front tail that slid a tiny bit, front smith stall that may have grinded a bit, crooks, noseslides, front 50 on the medium part, back 50, halfcab noseslide. Tried a bunch of kickflip crooks, but couldn’t get it. Had a few treflips on flat. Tried airwalks on flat and landed a few and they felt pretty darn rad. Ended the session with a front crooks on the low part of the ledge. It didn’t really grind, but I popped out forward and it felt really cool. Then I met up with the dudes at this loading dock spot in Gunbarrel. I didn’t do much other then try to ollie a yellow pole and I failed. Riley put down a hammer. We moved on to a spot in Broomfield where I did a couple flippers with Bernie before getting the camera out. Then off to the paint store manny pad where we got kicked out after my stiff legs finally got the courage to ollie up the curb. Then to the steep bank spot where I did a few kick turns before sitting and almost filming Bernie get a banger.

After food and chilling with Fuzz we went to Broomfield park. Everyone was super exhausted. We skated the quartapotty and manual pad the whole time basically. Bernie and Riley followed a fox around for quite awhile and Scotty and I had a fun time. We did a bunch of tranny tricks. He did a bunch of rad plant variations, laybacks and other tricks that Scotty is becoming known for. I went in pretty deep on my list. Struggled with the ledge on the way back, but managed a back 5-0 shove. Couldn’t get fakie nosegrind or fakie 50 b/s halfcab out. Riley did some cool back 180 fakie manuals. scotty powerslid the blue box. Bernie learned front 180 fakie manual fakie front 360 shove out. So rad! What a long, hot and exhausting day.

(setup 8.1 null venture lows thunder bushings 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 cream (these shoes could last forever))

After driving down from Buena Vista and having dinner with my brothers family I snuck away for a few minutes to the curb. I ended up having a blast. Dorking on curbs is the best. I went through the basic stalls. Got to front tail shove, kickflip 50, accidental kick back smith, several back smith stalls (tried a front shove out which felt impossible), took awhile to get front crook stall, front 50 kickflip out. Then I thought to huck kickflip crook. To my surprise I got one in a couple tries. I was super hyped. I ended up doing a few more, even trying to shove out. So hyped.

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Had some time in the morning before we left for my moms. I thought I was feeling better. Drove to Southern Hills, but they were repainting the four square things and other stuff. Drove over to research ledge and quickly jumped on some noseslides. My right leg was feeling weird and hard to lift, but I skated anyways. Next was boardslide pop out. Crooks took awhile and some waxing. Got a bad back 50 and hc noseslide. Started hucking . Close to back 180 nosegrind, super close to kick back 50, tried back smiths. Would do flip tricks on the way back up. Well, try them anyway. Didn’t land much and was so close to many treflips. Ended on a good feeling crooks and went home a sweaty mess. Happy to be able to somewhat skate again.

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Feeling slightly better and itching to skate a ledge I went to the research ledge. There was a lady sitting on the ledge when I got there so I went to the long stairs and there were kids playing on them. Ugh. Went to the back and did a few Slappy grinds then waxed up the bottom stair. I’ve wanted to do that for awhile. It has good potential. I did 50s both ways and hucked a few different grinds like back 180 fakie 50, fakie nosegrind and front 180 switch crooks. Went back to the ledge and the lady was still sitting there reading. Argh. I asked if she was going to be there much longer and she said no. So I skated the hill for awhile. Didn’t do very good. Hit my knee pretty bad on a really close switch flip going up the hill. That compiled with the lady still sitting there made me want out of there.

So I went to old Valmont ledge. I was tired and sore and was just gonna skate the low part. It ended up being fun. I just skated slowly and hucked tricks. Got a couple rare front tails, one to fakie. First try sloppy halfcab noseslide. Tried kickflip noseslides for awhile and heelflips on flat. Got a few of both! Ha, well the kf noseslides were really bad. Two weren’t upright at all. The last one is probably the best one I’ve done (not saying much). It actually slid, but I put my hand on the ledge to keep from falling. Oh well, it felt cool.

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After work then running boards to MRKT I remembered this little park on the way back to Boulder. I was still feeling very arthritic and pretty run down so I didn’t want to skate much. This was perfect. When I first arrived there was a guy holding a barking dog on the deck of the ramp as his buddy kick turned on the ramp. Luckily they left right away. The ramp sucks. It’s super mellow with tiny coping that doesn’t grind and the metal is super slippery if you are running out of tricks. I didn’t get very far in my trick list. Ended with a run that had a back smith stall and a little front smith in it. I’m glad I got a brief session in.

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The vacations and weddings are over so the #theglenandjosholdfartlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge #andnate game is back on! Up first is my first 'real' back lip ever as challenged by @the_neviathan. Next trick is a no comply big spin on a bank. Or @boredzinejp if you want to do it on vert that's cool. The fall was pretty funny because I fell and then my board nailed @fullertrron. The old guy struggle was real today.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 9, 2015 at 4:30pm PDT

A few more from today's junk jam struggle fest. @fullertrron

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 9, 2015 at 7:02pm PDT

I got to the spot first. My arthritis was still kicking something fierce, so I started with just pumping the bank. Then manualling the bank. Then doing the little wallie to manual which was way too fun. I did it a bunch of times and that’s what I was doing when Dave showed up. Dave brought a new manny pad/PVC coping manny pad! I had some fun lines doing ollie over the wallie thing on the bank then nose manny on the manny pad. Back 50s and 5-0s were fun on it too. Dave was trying to front smith it for awhile. He did a really good front 5-0 once, had an awkward fall during the roll away and somehow kicked the ground hard enough to likely break his toe. No! Somehow he skated through it though. Unbelievable! We arranged things in different ways for awhile. We had a wallride going for awhile. I actually beat Dave to landing it, but I think it was because it had slid down a little and wasn’t as vertical. I was still hyped though. I tried kickflips to fakie for awhile. I wanted to get 3 in a row, but it didn’t happen. Argh. Dave got a really good one and a switch front shove. I did a front shove while turning backside. I’m not sure what you would call it. Then I started trying hardflips which were kind of a kickflip to fakie body varial, but they felt really cool. I never got both feet on it. Then we put the manny pad on top of the bank. I took a long time to just wallride and come off of it (both f/s and b/s). Dave did those easy, felt out front 5-0 and back 50 then settled for the back scratcher above. That was the end of the session. Both of us had frustrating sessions, but we skated and tried stuff so it was still fun.

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Picked up Jack and met Riley, Garret and Scotty at Crisis. Did some business, hung out for a bit then went to Broomfield park. My arthritis was still kicking fierce. I didn’t do anything I was hyped on and I flailed at a lot of tricks I normally do first try (like front feeble on the quartapotty). Everyone else ripped it though. Jack had some cool unique tricks, Riley slays everything in there, Scotty mixes nollie noseslides in with eggplant attempts (does it get any radder then that combo?) and Garret gets better every time he skates. Then we went to the Broomfield hubba. While Riley was warming up I tried some slappies and didn’t do so well. Riley got his trick. So sick! Then we went to a school out in Arvada. It has a rainbow ledge that you can ride on to. You can go either way, but regular foot backside doesn’t have much runway and it’s pretty much impossible to grind the whole thing. Garret had some rad slappy crooks to fakie. Jack went as far backside as you can. I tried to go over it frontside, but just couldn’t commit to going fast enough. Riley couldn’t ride backside into it. So funny. Then I filmed Riley for awhile on the other stuff there. He killed it super hard. After that Garret and Scotty skated the ledge while I skated some flatground. I was hyped my legs were kind of working. The session ended after Scotty did an absolutely perfect hardflip late flip. So rad!

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Feeling really arthritic. Not sure why. Probably the crappy food I was eating in NYC catching up to me, but who knows. I didn’t want to ollie at all and it was too nice out for Rampy. So I went across the street again and skated the little curb. I started with all 4 tip stalls that didn’t involve an ollie. The f/s halfcab nose stall first try kind of surprised me. Then I did all 4 rock ‘n rolls. Then a no ollie front tail to body varial. A halfcab nosestall body varial. This is all dumb stuff right? Gotta have sessions like this to make 300 days. Last was a slappy crook stall then a switch slappy crook.

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Headed to campus trying to find a median with sharp edges to try and learn back lips on for the Instagram game of OLDFART. This wasn’t the one I thought of originally, but worked out just fine. I really like how low it is! Ha ha. I put a few up into it. Then waxed it. Then spent awhile trying to slide a little and got out of it. I landed one! It wasn’t great though so I sent it off to Judge Fullerton for review.

I was happy to have made progress regardless and decided to skate some other stuff for awhile. This was the first time I really street skated again with low trucks on. I loved it! I started with a line of switch front 180 off the sidewalk on the right, ollied up onto the pink ledge and front 180d off then added a fakie flip in for fun. I was already hyped. Going the other way I wallied up. I had two more lines from the far side that really hyped me up. 360 flip on flat, ollie up the ledge, kickflip off (first try kickflip!). I had one 360 flip that bummed me out. I hit the board with my hand somehow mid flip and pulled away as a reaction and punched myself in the forehead. Wow. It bummed me out at the time, but man I wish I had that on video. The 360 flip I got in the line had a hand down, but another one felt incredible. Another line was fakie bigflip, ollie up, front shove off. Going the other way I did front 180 up then switch front 180 off. At this point I was totally stoked on my setup. I’ve proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a bigger (or smaller) setup doesn’t make me skate better. It’s just up to me. So I might as well skate something that hypes me up when I look at it. Hooray for Venture Lows! Then I went back to work on back lips and got one that felt way better. Nice. Turns out Dave wouldn’t count the first one anyway. I was super hyped. Then I went to skate the long ledge. I tried to film a front 50 kickflip out for awhile and got really close. Then Collin and Craig showed up and I picked up my camera and just skated with them. Collin killed some switch crooks, mad flippers, switch back tail, etc, etc etc. Craig had some rad wallies, ollies, cab over a manhole, etc. I didn’t get much more. An accidental front 5-0, maybe a crooks and couldn’t do back 50. Oh well, fun day.

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Didn’t feel much like skating and didn’t have a whole lot of time as Liz and Ollie wanted to watch a movie. So I went across the street and went back to the little curb that I have fun messing around on. I wish the asphalt wasn’t so bad in the front area so I could wax up a section of yellow curb. Oh well. I had an alright time. Did a few basic stall tricks including kickflip axle stall. Couldn’t get kick back tail or kick pivot. Ended up having more fun doing tricks off the curb. Kickflip, front shove, back shove, slappy b/s flip.

Then I went to the 5 stair which I have said “I should ollie that once a day to get used to stairs again”. I had trouble committing though and once I finally did I splatted pretty hard. It’s hard to get enough speed. Rather then clean it up I went home and we watched War Games. Pretty fun.

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