The skating year of 2011 has been a busy one for me. After being disappointed that the Santa Skate had been snowed off, I was pleased to get out on the streets again for the first Sunday Stroll of the year to Camden. With a crisp blue sky, the promise of sunshine and one of my favourite routes it was the perfect opening skate.
My aims for this year were to be able to master some transitions, learn how to skate backwards and have some other stops up my sleeve so that I can lose my heel-brake dependency. The year looked like it was hotting up even more when I heard about the Le Mans 24 hour skate.
I loved attending the fitness mash-up classes in preparation for Le Mans. Every second of knee-bending and hill-climbing was satisfyingly effective in increasing my speed and efficiency in subsequent skates. Sadly, life and work got in the way of things and I was unable to attend Le Mans.
Work seems to have got in the way of a lot of things this season so I have not been able to skate nearly as much as I would have liked. I have made very little progress indeed on transitions, different stops or skating backwards. I flash green-eyed, yet deeply admiring glances whenever I see Min-Zaw speeding along backwards. However, I have become skilled in intubating premature babies, prescribing blood products and understanding the significance of tension pneumothorax in electromechanical dissociation. None of these things have come in useful on a street skate so far.
Next month, the smooth tarmac and significant hills of Sydney beckon. I am definitely going to get better at the things I aimed to do this year, and I am excited to learn the things I don’t even know that I want to be able to do yet. I will miss the lovely people I have met through Skatefresh and look forward to telling them about my adventures on my return.