Feeling really weird and out of it I tried to warm up for a bit on the crappy curb across the street. I had new shoes on (Lakai Flaco) as they were a little longer, but at the same time narrower. I didn’t get much going before Nolan showed up and we ended up at Red Hawk meeting Fuzz, Rob, Kevin and eventually Dave. Upon arriving I felt terrible. Kevin went right to ripping. He had way too much energy. Ha ha. I tried to get things going, but it didn’t happen. Got a line of kickflip up the curb, front 50 front 180 out, switch noseslide on the ledge and a crooks or two on the ledge. But then I basically resigned to filmer Glen. Rob got a couple cool lines with no complys, manuals, wallie nollies, boardslides and crooks. Fuzz got a rad one with fakie ollie, switch board and front 50 back 180 out. Dave got a good one with manual and front 50 body varial. Nolan almost got a crooks nollie varial flip out or however he decided to try and flip it out at the moment. Kevin was shredding some tech moves and got a line of switch flip up the curb, halfcab manual, front 5-0 and nollie front nosegrind. So good. He also did tricks like kick back tail, front noseblunt, front blunt, back 5-0 front shove out. We set Hosercam up and skated the longer ledge for awhile. Fuzz got a new trick of fakie 50 f/s bigspin out. I did a very slow kick back 50 tic tac. I was hurting so bad. Kind of a bummer of a day because I was skating one of my favorite spots with some of my favorite people and skated like complete dookie.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, cream lakai flacos no orthotics)

Breck park with @fullertrron

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 12, 2016 at 2:25pm PDT

@boredzinejp 's challenge was frontside flip revert so I took full advantage of the term revert. I told you I'd lower the bar Josh! @fullertrron and I learned new ones for the next challenge yesterday. Front smith to front rock. My first transition challenge! You got it! (It helps if you do it on a huge vert wall like us) #theglenandjosholdfartlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge #ithelpsifyouwearadinosaurjrshirt #thestreetstuffatbreckparkblows

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 13, 2016 at 6:39am PDT

After running some boards to The Grind in Silverthorne, Dave and I went to Breck to check out the newish park. It was a beautiful day up there, sunny and warm, but not hot like it is down on the front range. The park was not crowded and in fact another older crew was up from our area too. It was cool seeing them. Dave and I weren’t all that impressed with the street area. Ok, we were pretty much totally bummed on it. They might as well call Team Pain street sections prefab parks now. It had your standard Team Pain bump to this, bump to that, no regular ledges, no idea how to build a street section. We got warmed up on the tiny qp in the back of the park as I had an idea to try and learn front smith stall to front rock. It took us about 30 tries and we got them! We were hyped! Then we tried to skate the park. I sucked miserably. I was only able to front 50 the pier 7 ledge slowly and I got a rock kickflip to fakie on the bank under the giant ledge that maybe 1 person a year skates. Dave got a sick line of frontside boardslide the top pool coping qp, nollie into the bank, axle stall, back tail on this little bank over a weird little pool coping section. Sick! He also did a bunch of other tricks on the qp like backside boneless, back tail, many more. My feet were starting to kill me. I guess without wearing my orthotics my foot sits flatter in the shoe and my toes were smashed into the front of the shoe. It hurt. I tried to at least carve around some stuff, but even that hurt too much after awhile. Dave and I agreed there is no need to go back to that park again. Come on Team Pain, step up your street game already.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum no orthotics)

Right after work I went out to the melted asphalt for a real quick one. Did a couple slide around 360s, nollie shoves, then a line with ollie, nollie, no comply 180, fakie shove and called it a session.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum no orthotics!)

@fullertrron pulling out some ultra rare ones last night while I worked on coming up short.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 11, 2016 at 6:16am PDT

Went to Longmont park later in the evening and met Dave. The park was not too crowded, the scene was typical for Longmont park crowd. I’m writing this way to long after it happened, so I wont remember much. I know we played a game of SKATE on the mellow bank. It was a close one SKAT-SKAT for awhile. We had both done sex changes which was rad. Dave won it with a backside front shove. Ha, does that make any sense? Backside ollie with a front shove. Then we both tried switch flips on the bank for awhile. Both god close. I gave up and started trying cab flips, but Dave kept at the switch flips and got one! So sick. I kind of got some cab flips too, but as you can see they weren’t quite far enough around. Dave also got a backside bigspin over the hip. We both tried frontside bigspins over the hip, well, Dave’s was switch. Both got remotely close. I took off then. This was the first session in awhile where I felt good on my board at times.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum no orthotics!)

It’s hard to skate right after work. Especially now that I’ve been doing these weird barefoot exercises all day to try and kill off my plantar fasciitis (it seems to be working!). Skating without my orthotics is so weird. I’ve skated with them for 15 years, so not having the arch support feels so bizarre and made for another really slow warm up that made me want to focus my big board. But after getting a couple heelflips and close to nollie tres I started to feel alright. I still struggled, but I should kind of expect this considering I just started skating a big board AND I stopped skating with orthotic insoles for the first time in 15 years. I didn’t get anything rare. Came close to halfcab heel, somewhat close to switch f/s flip, not very close to cab flip (screen shot above). Then the wind kicked in fierce and killed my desire to keep skating.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum no orthotics!)

#day221

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Aug 8, 2016 at 8:02pm PDT

After a fun time at the Lucky’s Market grand opening I got out for a bit in front of the house. There was one big change though, no orthotic insoles! I have been researching plantar fasciitis and read about the evils of orthotics so I pulled the plug. It felt really weird at first. It ended up being alright. I landed a few basics, a couple crappy treflips, but couldn’t get a b/s flip. I was worried about hurting my back the whole time (the reason I was told to start wearing orthotics (seems like I wish they would have told me to strengthen my arch instead)). Not digging the big board.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum no orthotics!)

I thought I was loving the bigger setup so I set up a new deck. I was out of 8.38s so I set up an 8.5 which is basically the same. Or so I thought. I had a long day of doing chores and hanging with the girls. I didn’t have a lot of time so I went with the default of the research ledge. I did not skate well at all. I don’t really know why. I tried my new rule at that spot of having to do 50s and a treflip before crooks. The back 50 and treflip came somewhat easy, but I kept either not getting onto or sticking the front 50. It sucked. I am starting to hate this ledge. Maybe I should just go back to not skating it frontside. Other filp tricks went ok, but that board felt rather huge. I stuck with it for awhile, got one line I liked. Front shove, front 180 up a curb, fakie flip on flat, switch front nose the ledge. I gave up on front 50s after getting into several and sticking then did a slow line, with tricks that mostly felt good coming down the hill. B/s flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, ollie up the curb, crooks. Got a couple more crooks. Did a quick and terrible halfcab noseslide. I may never really learn that trick. It was a really frustrating session. Made me question the bigger setup already. Doh.

(setup: 8.5 null message deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum, spenco orthotic thinsoles with footprints heel pad)

I woke up with a lot of plantar fasciitis pain, did a bunch of exercises for it, did some other stuff around the house then met Rob at Safeway ledge at 2. It was a cloudy morning that looked like rain, but right when I showed up the rain cleared and it was rather hot. Rob was already sweating and ripping. His patented long back 50s, back 180 fakie 50, really sick nollie front lips, was trying halfcab noseslide shoves and got close a couple of times, kickflips, cabs and more. For all of the pain in my feet earlier, it all went away when I started skating. I hucked a lot, but didn’t seem to land much, although I had a rare back 5-0.

A @nolancormier trick and a few @siouxer666 tricks from the @andalebearings #wheeliedope contest yesterday put on by the fine folks at @metaskateboards and @crisis_skateboards

A video posted by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Aug 7, 2016 at 8:07am PDT

Then we went to Broomfield and watched the fun little manual contest they had going. It was mostly Meta and Crisis dudes, so it was awesome. I skated around for some of it, but not very seriously. Riley and Nolan ripped it as did everyone else. After the contest I chilled for awhile, then started skating the quartapotty with Riley and Nolan. We played a game of SKATE. No surprise, but I was the first one out. At least I lasted longer then 5 tricks. I even ended up landing a couple of the tricks Nolan got me with. Front pivot to front rock, and front pivot to back rock. I was hyped to land a new trick even if it’s just a dork trick for Nolan. I skated flatground pretty good. Halfcab flip, fakie bigfilp, first try 360 flip, heelflip, etc.

Then I decided to try Josh’s trick on the only real bank at the park. I got one! Then I got Riley to film me do it again and I got another. Both were terrible compared to Josh’s. I definitely “revert” rather then pivot all the way around. Oh well, I was hyped. Fun day, fun people.

(setup: 8.38 old bottom of the well null deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum, spenco orthotic thinsoles with footprints heel pad)

Feeling much much better I went to the dog park before work. There were more puddles then I anticipated. I found a section to work with though and had fun. After a quick warm up period with ollies, 180s, shoves off the nose, etc I settled in on switch flips for awhile. Then switch flips or 360 flips. Never got too close to switch flip. Took awhile to commit to 360 flip on the bigger board. Then started trying in a line with a flip trick I can normally do it like heelflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip. I would get several treflips, but none of them were without a hand down. they were whipping around really well though. Also came close to nollie tre, got a halfcab heel and was amazed at how good they were popping. Ended trying fakie and nollie bigflips. Got the fakie one, close to the nollie one. I left feeling good.

(setup: 8.38 old bottom of the well null deck, venture 5.8s, thunder bushings, 52mm reed wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, nb# quincy 254 blue/gum, spenco orthotic thinsoles with footprints heel pad)

Worked from home as I was feeling pretty sick. It allowed me to rest up and get feeling better. It also allowed me to assemble a new big complete from old parts in my garage. The rule was not to touch my existing setup at all. I found a really old 8.38 deck, some partially used Venture 5.8s and some wheels/bearings. When I was done with work I still felt pretty lousy, but I figured some exercise and fresh air would help. It did. I didn’t skate great, but I had fun. I had the trucks way too tight, so that didn’t help. I did the basic 50s above, which were both harder then normal. The frontside one is so much harder then it looks having to dodge the handrail. I played with some flippers too. That really old board didn’t have much pop. I tried a line for awhile of front 50 the narrow ledge (in the clip), kickflip into the second “bank”, cruise around the bike racks then backside flip up the slanted curb. Got so close. Then just did the b/s flip by itself. That was about it. I felt a lot better when I was done skating. I went home knowing I would want to keep skating the bigger setup so put my new wheels/bearings/good bushings in it.

(setup 8.38 null bottom of the well deck, venture 5.8, thunder bushings, some old STFs, 2 washers on the inside of each wheel, NB# quincy 254s blue/gum, spenco orthotic thinsoles with FP heel pad)