S.E.D.J. Day 31 - A Multi-Story Finale

OK I'll admit it. I didn't quite realise how hard Skating Every Day in January would be.  The Planning, the skating, the blogging, the editing, the pain, the late nights and it's general all consuming grip on my brain.  Having said that it could have been worse.  The weather for January was pretty dry and I only really had two spanners in the works out of a total of 31 skates.  I managed to get through all them on the same board, that still has a little life in it, that I'm swapping it out and keeping it as a memento of what has just happened.

The hardest working board in showbiz.

The last skate of S.E.D.J. was back at the Kingston car park that has served as the dry, late night refuge through this challenge.  It's got a couple of manual pads, some grindable curbs and that's about it.  It's just like all those car parks all over this country that have sustained UK skateboarders through winters and wet summers for more than 3 generations.  For that reason I'm perfectly happy to finish off S.E.D.J. here.

Sam and Dave were up for a skate despite the cold.  The conditions were nice and dry and we had the place fully lit for the first half an hour so we got warmed up just in time for the majority of the place to be thrown into darkness. It still left the main two curbs in enough light to skate and we all concentrated having a fun roll late on a Tuesday night.  If you were stood still for more than a couple of seconds you instantly felt the cold getting at you, which kept up our motivation.

Gradually we all started to slow down and I started to allow myself to think about the fact that I could stop skating and consider my challenge of Skating Every Day in January accomplished.  Eventually we all drifted over toward the car and started chatting and I mentioned that I was done for the night an Sam produced a bottle off Stella from his bag for me to celebrate with, a nice touch I thought. Thanks for that Sam.

Cheers!

So that was it. From about 2-3 skates a month before Christmas to 7 skates a week for the month of January.  It's got me out on my board more that's for sure.  By skating has got a bit better in some ways but the constant fatigue in my legs did hold me back in some ways, my pop definitely suffered because of the tired legs.  I learned a couple of tricks, re-instated some others and skated quite a few places that I had yet to make a trip to.  I got skate with my mates on all but about three occasions which was unexpected.  The response to this has been amazing and I can't thank people enough for their words of encouragement and diagnoses of insanity.

I really want to thank the following people for coming out and Skating, Johnners from Day 1, Martyn Thomas, Sam Noble, Phil Proctor, David Line, Matt Gold, Jim Thompson, Dave Reading, Marcus Adams, Kev McKeon, Jeremy Donaldson, Jamie Harrison, Alex Irvine, French, James Hall, Jotham, Adrian Downie, James Mclean, Jack T. Moore, Stu Kolakovic, Justin Gates, Martin Smith, Alan Christensen, Reuben Goodyear, Howie Kearey, Will Kraemer, Awadh, Ivan Rodriguez, Steve Crawford and of course anyone else I may have forgotten at this point in time.  You lot made a potentially nightmarish challenge a fucking good laugh.

I reserve the most important thank-you to one Rachel Madill, my wife. In the same way that I didn't know what this was going to be like, neither did she but she supported me completely through the whole thing and has never made me feel like I shouldn't or couldn't do it.  I couldn't have done it with out her, it's that simple.

Would I do it again? Not fucking likely. Once is enough and it has shown me that the dream of skating every day can become a bit much and letting ankles and backs have a rest for a couple of days is never a bad thing.

I hope you've enjoyed reading these ramblings and come back when I've figured out what the fuck I'm going to write about now.

I'll see you out there.

[LIALC]