Our health club just put in an additional parking lot. I’m not good at determining sizes, but I’d say it’s about half the size of a football field. It’s all smooth blacktop too. Which is an inline skater’s dream. Particularly mine.
So this morning, despite temperatures in the forties, I headed over to the health club with my Rollerblades® in tow, hoping to christen the parking lot. It’s really an overflow lot, so there weren’t a lot of cars to impede my plan.
I pulled into one of the spaces and put on my skates. It had been almost three years since they’d been out of the bag, but nothing had changed. They felt as snug and comfortable on my feet, and the only reason I’d not had them on more recently is that there are very few surfaces around St. Joe that lend themselves to inline skating.
I put on my wrist guards, but didn’t bother with a helmet. Wore my Tahiti baseball cap instead in the hope that such a cap would make me think the weather was warmer. Then I started skating up and down the lot, skirting around the half dozen cars, turning right and then left, building speed and letting it go. I was tentative for the first few minutes, but after that it felt like old times.
Years ago, long before I became interested in physical fitness, Earl told me, “Find an activity you love and pursue it.” I found inline skating and did it regularly until I broke my leg in a race. It was slow going after that, as “tentative” became a by-word. But now that I’ve become more interested in fitness, I notice I’m also more willing to take a risk, lose that tentativeness. The new parking lot at the health club is wonderful for that.
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