Pretty hyped on this.

Pretty hyped on skating all day after PJ won BATB5. Kinda wanted a solo session and went to Southern Hills. I did all the things I normally do throughout the day to feel good. Rode the bike at work for a bit, stretched, walked for awhile, etc. But when I got on my board it felt horrible. I’m still getting used to the new shoes, but clearly it was more then that. My knees were stiff and it felt like I had ankle weights on. Ugh, arthritis sucks. I tried to skate hard, but multiple bails while setting up for tricks is tough on the confidence. I stuck with it and did a few things I should be somewhat proud of in hindsight. But everything was done poorly and even slower than normal for me. Noseslides and crooks were the only decent tricks with speed. The crooks hyped me up because I wasn’t just doing the end of the ledge, I was getting on at the start. Granted I wasn’t grinding all the way, but it was cool. Other tricks I got on the ledge, front 50, front nose, front nose fakie, front board, front 50 180 out, noseslide 180 out (so bad) and a weird crooks to fakie. Flatground was bad too. In total I got a bunch, but it took a long time and they were slow as hell. Kickflip, heelflip, varial flip, fakie big flip, fakie heelflip, 360 flip, f/s halfcab heelflip (PJ inspired minus a half) halfcab flips both ways. I left feeling pretty old. My body is not working so well. The arthritis seems pretty bad in my shoulders and knees right now. I can’t even throw a ball to Ollie without it hurting too much. Ugh.

Not as hot. Kinda breezy. Ollie said he was down to skate. Rad. We went to the Mikes Camera manny pad to start with which isn’t Ollie’s type of spot. He did a couple 180s then went and sat in the car reading Fox Trot. Jake and I plugged away at some tricks. He ended up with a line of manny then kickflip a crack as well as manual then f/s flip. Not too bad for just getting off a rolled ankle. He also did manual front 180 out. I took awhile to get nose manual shove, then tried nose manny bigspin, but never got close. Got a kickflip manual. Heelflip, front shove, fakie bigspin up the curb. Neil and Carleigh showed up as we were ready to move on. But not after Neil and I did a few manual/nose manual “combos”. I think the record was switching four times. Pretty fun

Then we went to the school out on Arapahoe. Neil killed the quick ollies up the curb, nose mannied the main manny pad, had some good pop shoves and bailed ollieing the ledge to drop. Carleigh bailed that as well. Both could get it. Ollie had fun with some little drop down mannies and a line of halfcab off one curb, ollie the next, back 180 the last. Jake ollied up the tall ledge and chilled. I didn’t skate great but managed to ollie the main manny pad, ollied up the tall ledge and at the end landed one of the best feeling front shoves I’ve ever done off the ledge. Fun times.

On the hottest day of the year Tyler and a few Denver Shop heads showed up so Tyler could get a photo for Four. The crew was Tyler, Nathan Fantasia, Steven Gritz, Justin Greer and Deano. I kinda dorked around at the warm up spot (Arapahoe school), but for the most part it was chill/dork/film mode. And it was fun. And it was productive. And I should skate more, but my arthritis aint doing so good lately.