Woke up at 6am on a cloudy January morning with the temperature in the mid 30s. Not bad. I had planned on watching football with Ollie and wanted to skate before, but since I woke up at 6am I had much more time then I thought. I drove to Denver drinking my smoothie which makes me really cold, but I had the heat cranked Jason style. I went to Denver park to get the legs warmed up. There were a few other people at the park when I got there. I literally did nothing for quite some time other then push around and realize that I like Denver park more then most Team Pain parks. Wow. I finally started doing a few kickflips and back 50s on various quarterpipes. Then I skated the rocket bowl. Well, the shallow side. Did a few basics. I ended by ollieing the curb into the thruster part of the “bowl”. Neat. That was all I needed for a warm up and I drove off in hopes of feeling better then I did at the park.

I went to Auroria campus in hopes of skating the long black manny pads, but they were covered in snow and ice. So I pushed on excited to skate something I’ve never skated before. I’ve really only filmed on the campus, not skated it. The spot above was the first spot I skated. There was a mini kicker back to the right. I did a horrible line. Halfcab flip, kickflip up the curb, front 180 down the 3. A cop drove by and didn’t seem to care I was there. I guess when you are skating by yourself at 8:30 in the morning on a cold January morning they cut you some slack.

I ollied off the 2nd level and went for the 3rd and totally bailed. I realized then I was even more sore and tired then I had anticipated. I also tried to ollie a weird ledge near there.

I came upon this next. I’ve been wanting to work on my narrow ledge ollie game. I took a few tries to ollie onto it (from the far side), but it felt really cool. I did it several times and tried to back 180 off, but never really rode away from it.

Then I was stoked to find this spot. I did a line that took awhile of crooks between skate stoppers on the ledge, kickflip on flat, ollie up the really weird two stair, ollie onto one of the weird manual pads, then ollie the 3.5 stair to icy slide out. The whole area was covered in salt, ice and water. It was weird. I had a few flippers on the sidewalk setting up for the ledge that were fun. A 360 flip felt really good. After awhile I started walking back to my car, but realized I should check out this one other building.

But I came upon this and could not pass it up! I just wanted to manual it, but my body was saying no. I literally could not ollie up the curb high side the first few tries. I knew I was in danger of getting hurt because of how stiff I was, but I didn’t see the slam coming when it did. On a manual attempt I hung up and ate shit so hard. The brutal jump to the body slam. I sat around for awhile in disbelief that ollieing up a curb high ledge could cause that much pain. But I didn’t leave because I am too stubborn. I did a few flippers to get the blood flowing then started trying the manuals again and felt better. Got one. Whew. I was so hungry, tired nauseous feeling. Went to my car. Ate some fruit, drank some water. Stared into the clouds for awhile.

I drove to this ledge as it was the one spot I wanted to skate. It’s been awhile, I just wanted to grind some granite and it was all I could think of. I was feeling a bit better after the rest. Crooks on it felt great. But front 50s were another story. I only landed 1 out of like 40 tried before realizing that I should just leave before I get hurt more. The crack in the frontside approach kills me. I’m definitely feeling the effects of skating every day. My body is extremely sore. I’m still happy I explored a new part of downtown though, that campus area is awesome.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)