So I was hoping to get going on my fitness goals for the year this weekend. To recap from my 1/1/11 blog post, I would like to bike 500 miles, and inline skate at least 100 miles. As of right now getting the bike anywhere to ride will be difficult because I don’t want to put it in the CX-7 and we don’t have a bike rack yet (hopefully soon). So I decided to skate, the first time in quite a while. I went out yesterday to Redwood Shores and skated on the path there near Oracle’s headquarters. I skated 5 miles, just under 29 minutes total, not bad considering I haven’t done anything in quite a while, but not great for my past times. But I wanted to get out and do it, get the pain over and done with so I can skate on a more regular basis.

So I found out that there’s an inline skating marathon in Napa valley coming up on June 6th (my dad’s bday).

I haven’t skated, or done much of anything cardio wise in the past 6 months (cept some running on the treadmill back in January). Wonder if I could get myself together enough to skate 26 miles in the next 3 weeks? I obviously wouldn’t be trying to do the marathon for time, just to do it.

I think I might give it a go, though if I am going to I need to get out on my skates this weekend! I’m gonna have to dust them off and charge up my Forerunner 305. Anyone else in the Bay Area up for some skating? I might be a big guy, but I tell you I love to skate, I’ve got four pairs of inline skates :) These are the ones I use for fitness now K2 Radical Pro In-Line Skates.

I will need to get myself a helmet and likely some pads and such before the marathon as I don’t think my hockey pads/helmet will do for that event :)

So a few weeks ago (6/26) I skated 10 miles, I would have gone 11 miles but my skates broke! I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this, but at the same time I wasn’t all that distraught. My skates had been hurting my feet, pretty bad actually, but I didn’t want to spend the money on new ones. My skates were K2 Radical 100s that I had purchased in May of 2007. I’ve had experience dealing with K2’s customer service in the past (circa 1995) so I shot them an email to see if they could do anything about them.

K2 took a few days to get back to me, confirming that the skates were indeed outside of the year warranty (I knew this) but suggesting that I send them in through my dealer so that they could look at them and see if they might be able to do something, even outside of warranty. So I called my dealer, an online shoe retailer, who I will fail to mention as I really don’t want to get anyone there in trouble. They couldn’t figure out why I wanted to return my skates as they were outside of the 365 day return policy, but they said they would call me back nonetheless. Well 24 hour later I got an email asking me to call in. I called, and to my surprise the dealer told me they were going to give me my money back on the skates.

Twenty-five months after purchase I had the full purchase price refunded to my credit card! Holy crap, that was cool. So this was last week some time. I knew which skates I wanted, the 2009 K2 Radical Pros, but the cheapest price I could find for them was $399, and that price wasn't from Amazon. So I decided I would just wait. Well, fast forward to this past Saturday night (after midnight), I was surfing Amazon's website and came across the 2008 K2 Radical Pro skates, not what I was hoping for, but I figured they would be way better than having a broken pair of skates. I also noticed that Size 13 was going for $269, just days earlier they were $399, so I jumped on them, even with overnight shipping (due to Amazon Prime) they were only $273.

The next day when I checked the website the skates were back up to $399, so I wondered, what if the skates were simply showing the picture for 2008, but really they would be 2009 skates, perhaps after my order someone realized that and corrected the price. Come Tuesday when I got the box at work I was rather excited, I tore into them, and sure enough, brand new 2009 K2 Radical Pros!!!! Here’s a photo

I didn’t get a chance to use them yesterday because I had made plans with Natalie to scrub down the horse trailer out a the barn. Well tonight after work I took them for a spin on Grant’s Trail, 6.38 miles in just under 40 minutes. I think I could have done it in around 35-37 minutes had I not gotten stopped by stop lights, stop signs, and a minor spill. I haven’t fallen on a pair of skates (inline hockey doesn’t count) in YEARS, probably 6 or more. Oh well, a few minor scrapes on the knees are all I have to show for the spill, fortunately I was at a stop when I ended up falling down, though it was right in front of a Suburban, thankfully she was also stopped.

I didn’t reach my goal of 50 miles in 30 days, as I was without skates for most of three weeks, though I did do roughly 30 miles in that time frame (3 sessions on Grant’s trail and the one session on the bike path down by the arch)

Once we get settled into Colorado I’ll attempt the 50 miles in 30 days goal again, though maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get it done in the next 30 days, even with the move.

So I need a goal in my skating, here it is 50 miles in 30 days. I started yesterday, 6/15, so I’ve got until 7/15 to reach the goal. Why 50 miles? Well in the past year (after yesterday’s skate) I had done just around 50 miles on my K2’s. 50 miles in thirty days shouldn’t be too hard to do, but the key will be to actually continue to keep skating. As of right now I’m at about 12.6 miles, skating 6.3 yesterday and today both. Yesterday’s account is posted on Connect.garmin.com, but today’s isn’t, apparently my Forerunner didn’t charge last night, so it didn’t last at all today.

I skated the same route as yesterday, Grant’s Trailer, today hurt though. I had to stop and rest for a while, whereas yesterday I felt fine the whole way. I don’t know if it was the heat, 90+, the fact that I slept 4.5 hours last night (was up late reskinning www.dnnvoice.com) or that I had two granola bars and a smoothie to eat all day.

Lesson learned, sleep more, eat better, and move somewhere cooler!

I likely won’t skate again until Sunday, at least not outside. I’m hoping to play inline hockey tomorrow night with the old gang. We’ll see how I adjust back to hockey skates, it’s been a year or so since I last played.

So it is getting to be that time, the weather is beautiful (well, minus the rain today) and I need to get outside and start exercising more. Last year I bought a pair of K2 Radical 100s, but after a while they started rubbing the bone on my ankle something fierce, to the point I couldn't skate a half mile without pain. Well it's 2008, and I'm considering selling my Radical 100s and upgrading to the 2008 K2 Radical Pro. IMHO the Pro has a better looking boot, and also has a different wheel setup than the 100s. The two rear wheels are 110mm and the fronts 100mm, for a hi-lo setup. I'll probably put my 2007 Radical 100s on Craigslist this week to see if there is any local interest, and if not I'll put them up on Ebay this coming weekend.

So I finally got my lazy ass back out and exercising again! I also got up to 20.8mph! Unfortunately that wasn't running, I was on my inline skates (K2 Radical 100s). I've had some problems with my Radical 100s which has caused me to not skate on them but I tried to come up with a fix for the issue today. The issue is the way the right boot strap presses against my ankle bone, it's one of the most excruciating pains ever, but other than that I love the skates!