Not for the faint of heart

Long boarding and this post are not for the faint of heart.

Tim and I went long boarding yesterday evening before dinner. He decided that it was time to actually go on a ride, instead of just riding around in the Autzen parking lot. So, we started out and rode down one of the bike trails. Tim is much faster than I am, so he boarded ahead while I dallied behind, enjoying myself, but trying to push myself a bit faster beyond my comfort zone so I could keep up. We came to the foot bridge that crosses the Willamette River and stopped halfway across to rest on a bench there. We talked and gazed at the rushing water for a few minutes. Before we took off again, Tim warned me that the bridge had a pretty good slope to it, so I would pick up quite a bit of speed coming down the other side. On top of that, there was a lip at the bottom of the bridge that would require me to lean back and keep my weight on my back foot to keep from crashing. All that I could handle - I thought...

Tim had been a careful teacher - warning me of what was to come but letting me test my limits so that I could get better at boarding.

The problem is, my board is pretty wobbly (it's supposed to lean side to side so that I can turn, but I'm still not stable on it yet). And Tim forgot to mention that when one gets going fairly fast, one can get what is called "speed wobbles" a perfectly descriptive name for what happened to me as I came down the slope of the bridge. I managed to get over the lip at the bottom of the bridge, but the speed wobbles took over and sent my board into the bark dusted shrub area beside the concrete bike path. Naturally, physics took over and as my board slammed to a halt, I flew off the front of it onto the concrete in front of me, doing my best to tuck and roll and avoid serious injury.

I managed not to hurt myself too badly. I hit my hip, tore a button off my pea coat (not a very "skater" thing to wear), and cut up my hand enough to make it bleed. My first long board crash. Hopefully the first of only a few. (I won't kid myself and think that's the only crash in my future.)

So, I learned that long boarding is not for the faint of heart. Last night's crash hurt. And today my calf muscles aren't sure why I'm torturing them so, but it sure is fun riding my Valentine's Day board around with Tim in our recent Eugene SUN!