Rollerblading

Well, I decided it's been long since I learned something new. So I took on rollerblading.
Actually, the proper name is inline skating. Rollerblade is a trademark for a company that makes inline skates. The term has however come to be used to refer to inline skates in general, just like Kleenex is to tissue and hoover is to vacuum cleaners.

Anyway, I got a pair of those, some elbow, knee, and wrist pads for protection and went with my friend George to give it a go at Alki beach.

Alki avenue in Seattle is a really nice place, specially for summer activities. I'd been there before on a couple sunny days and the place is always full of people when the weather is good enough. You see beach volley, people biking and rollerblading, flying kites, or just having a walk enjoying the weather.

Back to the skating, having put on the skates I realized that even standing in them is a challenge which is not really surprising. If moving around on wheels was a good idea we would have been born with them in our feet.
Surprisingly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I'd thought for my first time I'd get 15 or 20 minutes max of falling down and getting back up till I call it quits. I'm glad I was wrong, for my first time ever in rollerblades I skated (well in my own way of course) for around 4 miles. Took a little more than an hour and was so much fun.
And not only did George help me how to do it but he also shooted a video and a few pictures to go with it. So there goes my very first steps in a rollerblade (divx 3.6MB, right click and save target as). Don't laugh I was doing good to still be on my feet!

I was hooked and today we had a sunny day so I went for a quick run around one of the parking lots on MS campus with Steve (another friend who learned how to skate when he was 5). I dunno if I'll ever get to be as good as him (divx 2.36MB) but you can judge for yourselves and see if I'm getting better (divx 3.93MB).

It's a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that learning inline skating is gonna help later when I tackle ice skating. Wish me luck!

Cheers