It's been a terrible spring for surf. Nothing but short period (9 sec) windswell and onshore winds. There has been the occasional, short lived south swell, but they've all been small and not du I dering times when I could surf. Earlier this week there looked to be a break in the wind and a bump in the south swell on a day I had off. I drove to Ano and without much forethought suited up and paddled out. After about 45 min I paddled back in. There weren't any ridable waves, and the top half of m setsuit wasn't even wet. I looked at Wadle which had mixed up windswell with some junk. It was surfable, but grovelly. Naturals had one ridable wave in 20min of watching, Stockton something nearly ridable on a bigger board. Blah all around. Surfing once a week (or less) isn't really enough to get better at it.
I started thinking about skateboarding because there are a few parks around. When I searched the web I found there are MANY skate parks around, two within bikeing distance of home. I decided to go for it and got myself geared up with a board and helmet. The first day I took it easy at the Alameda park, learning how important it is to read the transition shape of the banks. I relearned kickturns and got the feel of things. Two weeks later and I've been to 4 different parks (could easily be more if I wanted) and I'm getting 3-4 feet up the walls, near grinding on the lowest bank, and olliing better than when I was a kid. Each session at the park doesn't last too long since my left knee gets tired and starts getting weak. What happens is the muscles stop working and I can feel tendons moving around in places they shouldn't. When that happens I take it easy and do low effort things like try to ride fakie (backwards.) I also noticed a pain at the back of my heel near the Achillies tendon. I did some web-searching and it looks like I have tendonitis, small tears in the tendon. There isn't really any treatment except let it rest, stretch your legs and back, and take it easy old man. So I'm taking a break from the skating and stretching each day. Now would be a great time for the waves to pick back up! But if not, maybe I'll go to the rock gym.
