skate journal: 300 day skateathon! (Dec 9, 2010)
Posted in Skate Journal on December 11th, 2010 by corpoWhat a weird day. I worked from home as we needed to take the Hyundai in to get the power steering fixed. So at any point I could have technically ran out of the house and done a few kickflips to start the 300 session. But I waited. Right before dark I was finally off work. I watched the OG PJ Ladd video then skated in the street for a bit waiting for Ollie to join me and Jason to show up. Liz was stoked for me and cheered for a few minutes as day 300 was under way and official. It felt pretty cool honestly. I had some new 52mm superthanes as the old wheels were flat spotted and they felt good. I did quite a few kickflips, 180s and felt like fun was going to be had. Ollie finally came out and we went behind the school where I ran into rocks and fell down for 5 minutes straight. It bummed me out. It felt so anticlimatic and it reminded me that although I’ve skated 300 days this year, I really haven’t gotten any better at skateboarding. In fact it seemed like half the time I was too sore and tired to skate up to my norm. Oh well, I don’t have to skate every single day any more! Ollie did some cool slashes in the mini ditch, some ollies, etc. His board is shot though because him and his friends think it’s cool to throw boards around. Stupid skate video influence! Jason showed up after awhile and Ollie would not let us leave until it was totally dark.Jason drove and we headed over to Carleigh’s to meet Carleigh (duh), Chad and Neil. For whatever reason on the way there I was feeling really down. That changed quickly when we got to Carleigh’s though:So rad. Thanks so much Carleigh and Chad. They had even put my Off The Couch part on, but queued it to Eye Of The Tiger. Pretty funny. Then Jason put it on A-B loop and everytime it started he would say “Hey look, it’s Glen’s part!” Cracked me up. You guys all rule. Read more at Carleigh’s blog.And then we were off. Carleigh was on her bike initially as her foot was still hurting and she didn’t want to start things off by pushing for 8 blocks. Poser. Ha. We started performing stunts around the bus station on the little manny pad. After I heard Neil yell real loud I figured we’d get booted quick so I headed over to a different manny pad with the two stair ledge nearby. Everyone else stayed there for a bit so I don’t know what went down. It’s insanely crazy how much faster the superthane is. It kept throwing me off. I got kinda used to it by the end of the night, but wow. I had a couple manuals, nose manuals and squeeked out a little boardslide on the ledge above the two. Neil was trying wallies. Jason was manualling and having an off day. Chad was killing it with huge flat gap ollies, fast as hell manuals and kickflipping at high speeds. So sick. Carleigh shot a few photos, but wasn’t really able to skate since she felt weird about her foot. Bummer, I really wish she could have skated full tilt with us.Jason without the BroomMe nose mannyNeil 180 nose manny.Shortly we ended up at the brick area and started a game of SKATE between Neil, Chad and I. It was cut short by the police so we moved on towards St Julien since Jason was already there with his broom. Yes, did I mention he carried a broom all the way with us? So funny, it hasn’t snowed yes so there really wasn’t much need. But I guess we were prepared at least. On the way we hit the ledge banks things. Chad ruled it with quick up ollie to fakie. Neil and I were just hyped to drop in.Chadman quick up ollie to fakie with some dumbass BGPsPretty dumb.We saw the police lurking so we headed once again toward St Julien only to get distracted by some wood benches we’ve never really skated before. At this point Carleigh tried to skate, but instead decided to jump over the bench into the bush. Her foot was not good. Ugh. Neil ollied on to one which was way sick. Chad manualled it. I did nothing but boardslide it.On to St Julien. Jason kinda disappeared as soon as we got there. I wasn’t sure why, maybe the lurking police? Anyways Neil skated for a bit, did a sick crooks shove, some manual on the narrow sidewalk against the rock and some wallrides. Then he was done for the night. I was struggling with crooks because it was too dark. Plus I’m used to doing them down big rails, not tiny ledges. I pieced together a line of suck with a manual on the narrow sidewalk, sketchy 3 flip then a silly boardslide on the ledge to avoid it from being a Zero line. Chad went on a nose bonking spree on the black posts. He tried a bunch while Carleigh tried to shoot photos, but the timing never worked out. Still so sick though. Next we hit the ledge Jason and I have been looking at for awhile. Jason and I both took way too long to get back 50s. We did front 50s too. I did one with a kickflip beforehand. I tired to do the kickflip fast enough to still have speed for a front 50. That’s my goal next year. Learn how to skate faster. That and learn how to ollie, but I’ve been trying that for awhile and I’m pretty sure I never will have pop.Chad ollied this a bunch of times and even nose bonked it a few times. The nollie heel at speed for setup was dope sauce.Next years goal, learn how to ollie now that I’m almost 40.Ultra tech back 50The highlight of the evening was next though. I saw Chad ollie a little flat gap then bomb into the St Julien parking garage. I tried it too. The first time though a car was coming up as I started to pick up speed so I bailed out. Next time I went for it. It was way faster then I remembered from a year ago and I almost pulled the bail trigger but I stuck it out and made it around the gates. So f’ing fun. As I was coming up Chad was bombing it switch. Ridiculous.Next up the taller slide ledge along 9th/Pearl. I was kinda sucking and everyone else but Chad was done, but Chad hiked up 9th to bomb the hill. I got a crappy run of switch front 180 up the curb, front board the ledge (executed horribly) then a kickflip off the curb. Also got kickflip up the curb and took a long time to get a silly boardslide popout. On the way to Petes we went by the white ledge building and found a new little ledge out front. I tried a couple kickflip back tails. Got one to suski on accident, then did one to back T. Chad did a mach 10 hardflip on flat for fun. Jason was still having an off night, but got a good back noseslide on the white ledge. I got a crooks. Chad manualled the downhill ledge. Chad and I dropped in on the A structure and powerslid into the wall. Well, I slid into the wall, Chad gracefully slid before it. I guess the 80 pounds I have on him came through for me. An ollie up the two, front 180 off later and we were at Petes to celebrate. Best burritos in town and we had a few drinks to celebrate. Then it was off to Carleigh’s to watch Sasquatch once again. Thank you guys for ruling it.Cory Kennedy did what?Wow that’s crazyPlease go to Carleigh’s blog for more photos, words and hit and runs. Thanks again!