Mitigated success

[mousme]

So rollerblading so far has been a mitigated success. It is not nearly as close to ice skating as I would have liked. Who knew that wheels on concrete don't react at all like sharp blades on ice? :P There was also considerably more pain involved than I had anticipated, given that I hadn't anticipated any. Turns out my shins are not fans of rollerblading.

I am, as a result, going to take this slowly. Today I spent about twenty minutes just rolling around in very wobbly circles. I have not at all got the hang of braking (I think the fact that there's a lot of grit on the sidewalk near my place may have interfered a bit with the brake), and so have been using convenient trees and fences. I look like an idiot, but that's rarely stopped me in the past.

The plan is to go around in wobbly circles for about twenty minutes each day until I get the hang of things. Then I'll venture maybe to the end of the block and back. I refused to go further until I'm sure I can apply the brakes properly, because otherwise I'll be plunging directly into oncoming traffic, which would very much not be a good thing.

Mostly I am annoyed by the leg pain thing. Falling over/colliding with the cover is one thing, but being actively in pain while not doing anything drastically wrong? That's just insulting. I'm hoping it'll go away with practice.

Cross-posted to team_ankh_2008.

Comments

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Knowing when to stop isn't so much the problem: it's mastering that heel motion that makes the brake connect with the ground in an effective manner that's the tricky part, so far.

Ah well. At least I have trees and fences to use in the meantime. I'm trying not to be afraid of falling over: after all, I have a helmet and all sorts of protective pads, so in theory even if I do faceplant, the damage should be minimal.