>I spend an average 8 - 12 weeks per year on the west side, rollerblading in Riverside park etc etc.
c'mon, riverside park?! LOL
everyone knows, serious bladers do the loop in central park!
and i mean the whole loop, including the big hill at the north end (ostensibly called the Great Hill on all the maps).
from 1994-1999, i did hardcore fitness skating. i usually started training in late march and i would skate til the end of dec. i'm a speed freak, so i loved skating fast...the problem was the chronic lower back pain which lasted ~6-8 weeks...it would take that long before the muscles really became acclimated to skating bent over in the 'tuck'.
then in the summer of 1999 i suffered a serious accident in the park. i got side-swiped by a cyclist as we were both coming down the north hill; i suffered a 3" laceration to the side of my head (i was not wearing a helmet!), ripped the skin from wrist to elbow on both forearms, hairline-fractured 2 ribs, and got a mild concussion.
i was back on skates (this time w/a helmet) in the park within a week! ironically, skating was the only cardio workout i could for the remainder of the summer because the ribs made it too painful to jog.
that accident and a change of jobs kinda killed my enthusiam for distance skating. i still skate once in a while (really just as a change of pace to alleviate the boredom of running) but nothing like what i used to.
well, enough of my rambling...
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