Hi, I’m Paula. I’m 52 and have been inline skating for fun for a couple of years. In 2018 I’ve set myself a challenge to improve my skating and my fitness – I’ve signed up to do the Berlin inline marathon – 26.2 miles – on 15th September 2018. That will be double my longest distance so far and I’d also like to do it on faster, 3-wheel skates, if I feel sufficiently in control by then.
I’m going to follow Asha’s Online Training Programme “How to Skate for Fitness” and post updates to keep myself motivated and honest in my practice. I’ve checked it out this week.
There are 10 lessons in the beginners programme, with little videos and key points to focus on. I aim to practice 2-3 exercises each week and see how I go. I’ve got a video of me at the start and I’ll video myself monthly to see if I’m improving.
I started today. I looked at each exercise on my phone in the park, then focused on the key points. I did the Scooting with high numbers, which was familiar but doing the 10-15 scoots on each leg gave me time to really work on getting the weight bearing knew bent so the knee is over the toe, which I struggle with – not supple or fit enough!
The Lunge and roll exercise was good because I found out that I am uneven with my weight bearing capabilities on each leg. I noticed I was scissored a bit in the Lunge position (as Asha pointed out in the problems section), so the ways to fix the problem were handy.
I liked doing the Toe roll with my arms out a bit – felt relaxing and fun after the other two exercises. Same problem appeared with the weight bearing right leg, so I’m going to have to work on that.
After about 30 minutes practice I just had a relaxed skate around and felt really good because I figured I’d done something to help myself. Think I’ll practice everything one more time before I move up the exercises.