I have a new hero.

Feeling a bit better. After picking up India from ballet and then dinner with the family I headed out on a solo mission. Was kinda thinking Arvada skatepark, but it was sleeting a tiny bit so I opted to stay in Boulder. I drove by a couple potential spots I haven’t skated much, but ended up at the ol’ staple, Valmont. Warming up didn’t take as long as normal. I tried to slide some back noseslides as far as I could. Without being able to get much speed backside for the ledge it’s hard, but I got a few I was hyped on. My new board was feeling pretty big. It’s funny how 8 -> 8.125 doesn’t feel much different, but 8.125 -> 8.25 does. I did quite a few flippers throughout. I finally missed a heelflip, but was still like 5-6 or something which is really good for me. I started trying some lines. Kickfilp up the curb behind the loading dock, ollie off the loading dock then crooks the ledge. Got that a couple times, but the crooks were really quick jibs. Doh. Got a couple good ones on their own, but not in the line. On the way back to the start of the line I would do tricks down the little hill like kickflips, back 180’s and fakie ollie into the final curb cut which were really fun. I started to realize that my body wasn’t in much pain and I was skating harder/better then I have in awhile. I’m not sure whether to credit not eating/drinking any gluten in a few days or the fact that I was drinking a protein drink. I also had way more energy then I have had in a few weeks so I’m leaning towards the lack of gluten helping me out. I tried another line of kickflip up the curb, front 180 off the loading dock then halfcab noseslide on the ledge. But after slamming the first 180 I couldn’t commit to it again. Tried another line of ollie over the box (which wasn’t easy for me), tiny frontside ollie on the red bank (and I mean TINY), then front 50 the middle/taller section of the ledge. Don’t think I ever got the 50 in the line. That’s tall for me anymore. I got a few without the line at least. One of the reason I wanted to setup an 8.25 this time was for a bigger tail because I’ve been thinking of front tails lately. It appears to help as I got a couple just a few tries. I struggled with nollie and regular 3 flips. Got a couple regular ones, but they were hard and bad. Even kickflips up the curb were harder with the bigger board. I forced myself to do a back 50. Tried a few fakie nosegrinds to forward, but never got too close. I was having lots of fun. My phone was on shuffle and the tunes sounded nice. Sometimes solo sessions are the best. I got tired after a couple hours and ended with a few flip tricks. Oh yeah, there were all these little centipede critters crawling around and I would do my best to pick them up and move them out of the way. But near the end my board got one and it kind of weirded me out so I left. Pretty pathetic eh? This isn’t because I’m an animal lover freak, but I rolled my ankle once after a praying mantis kept getting in my way and ever since then I’ve been weirded out by bugs. Really fun night. The skating was fun and all, but even more so I was happy to have energy and that my quads weren’t super sore after 20 minutes of skating. I’ll be finding out this week if I have an actual gluten allergy/disease, but either way I think I’m sold on it. Bye bye cheap beer/pizza/lots of other things I love.