On a cold night I went to Frederick around 7.  There weren’t a whole lot of people when I arrived and it would thin out quickly.  But to my surprise Skelly was there!  I haven’t seen him in forever and it was great seeing him.  Also Fuller, Big Mike and after a while Garrett and a surprise Derek Yale sighting!  That was awesome too.  Warming up wasn’t so easy in the cold.  Dave was going in on the yellow curb.  I was kind of all over initially.  I really like how you can push at this park.  I had some okay stuff somewhat quickly.  Noseslide the bump to box, kickflip over the hump frontside, kickflip on the bank, b/s flip the upper hip.  Mike had a cool boardslide around the yellow curb.  Skelly with steezy ollies and halfcab board transfer.  Dave did a first try slappy front crooks to fakie and then switch slappy crooks too!  Wowsers.  I got a weak slappy front crook.  I was riding the 8.3, the bushings in it quickly froze making for a weird skate.  I hucked tricks over the hump, but didn’t land much.  At one point I was going near the qp and someone yelled Glen!  I recognized the voice immediately, but didn’t see who it was and turned around and it was Derek!  So stoked.  Caught up with him then we fought off the cold by skating.  He still has his quick light footed manual style and it was great to see.  I would get a fun line for me.  Front 180 into the bank by the yellow curb, switch front 180 fly out, noseslide the narrow ledge, finally ollie up the euro (can’t believe it took me so many tries because it was so easy when I finally committed).  After that I didn’t really land much.  Garrett made some hard tricks look really easy, but he didn’t get the front nose.  Ha.  Front smith on the box was sick.  Garrett and I played a frozen game of SKATE to end it.  I would only land front shove, kickflip, fakie flip, heel flip and fakie big flip.  At least I got one letter on him with fakie bigflip.  He get me with nollie flip, janoski flip, switch flip, halfcab flip and ended me with switch heel.  I was close though!  Fun night.  I didn’t get as tech as I wanted, but I did at least do a few new things and it was a really fun crew.

(setup 8.38 null plant life deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 titanium hanger with cast baseplate, venom 90a bushings no boardside washer, 52mm bones stf 103a v1, new balance numeric 306 navy size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Went out to the garage with the goal of doing 10 treflips.  I did some warming up and was really hyped on how some warm up kickflips felt.  The goal was to rotate treflip then a different trick until I got to 10.  I went about 0-40 on treflips and wasn’t doing much better with other tricks.  My 8.3 setup was sitting in the garage.  I grabbed it and got closer, then landed one a few tries later.  So I stuck with it.  I would get other tricks that felt good too.  Fakie heel in particular.  I got another treflip pretty quick.  One more after awhile.  B/s flip felt good.  Switch flip and nollie flips didn’t feel too far off.  The bigger board did seem to feel heavy.  I was getting tired, but wanted to get to at least 5 which I did.  It took a long time.  I somehow stayed positive and kept going.  Although I’m not too hyped on the fact that the 8.3 felt better because that probably means I’ll change again.  

(setups: 8 & 8.38 nulls with 8 and 8.5 venture highs with 306 foys)
(pain level: 2/10 hooray!)

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Feeling a little better, but still sore and arthritic I wanted some alone time.  It’s kind of incredible after flare ups like this I lose all confidence and I don’t really like skating around anyone.  So I went to this ledge spot in Niwot before Nullers were meeting up.  I skated for a good hour before anyone else showed up.  I didn’t really intend it to be the spot of the day, but it seemed to work out for the best.  But before anyone else showed I skated slow and worked my way up.  Starting with noseslides and 180s.  Working in some crooks and kickflips.  Ended up getting 50s both ways, kind of close to manual the pad, front 5-0, took awhile for halfcab noseslide.  Got kinda close to getting front crook.  Had a few of the basic flippers like halfcab flip, heelflip, b/s flip.  My board felt good for flippers, but small for ledge tricks.  I was close to kickflip 50s so setup the phone to do a quick huck and see if I could get one.  A few tries in I got a kick 5-0.  It wasn’t perfect, but man it felt pretty awesome.  And it kind of took my momentum away as I was already getting sore again and kind of wanted to stop.  But shortly after that Rob and Jack would show.  And then Sean, Garrett, Hayden, Joe, Bo, Kyle, Donnie, Dan.  It was packed.  I didn’t really do much more after that except a slappy crook, sketchy nollie front tail and a f/s halfcab nose jib.  Rob got into the groove.  Back 50s, crooks, halfcab noseslides.  Hucked some bigspin front nose, back 180 fakie 50s.  Jack was trying back 180 nosegrind variations.  It was crazy how quickly Sean linked together nose manuals and grinds/slides.  It ruled seeing Dan skate.  He does tricks with such a strong style.  The front tail then nose manual combo was hot.  Hayden boardslide the pole jam, pole jammed it, got a good line.  Garrett with the nose manny shove then shove 50 radness.  Donnie had an epic roll in to grass on his monster truck setup.  Joe ollied the pole. Kyle did a sick bluntslide.  Bo was quick on the filming tip.  

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Then everyone started hopping over this bike rack.  I’m lame and didn’t even try to get over it once.  Rob had left.  Everyone else was jumping over it or in Jack’s case through it.  Joe wins the award for best trick in my opinion with switch ollie.  So crazy.  Dan had a stalefish over it.  Sean kickflipped it.  Lots of 180s went down.  Donnie tried to hurt himself on a trash bin.  

We went to Niwon high for the rail.  I briefly tried some nose stalls on a bench and took way too long before filming.  My board felt tiny and I can’t deny the obsession with a bigger board coming on.  Anyway, Bo didn’t commit to the rail.  Jack did and manualled out of a boardslide first try and basically out of 50 too.  So crazy.  I didn’t like how cold I felt at that point.  Stupid winter.  We ended it with some quality entertainment as Donnie skated a grass hill with his monster truck.  He’s crazy.

(setup null 8″ archway deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollow highs on red cast baseplate, venom 88a bushings no boardside washer, old bones stf v2 51mm, new balance numeric 306 foy navy/white size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 4/10)