...Oops.

[memnus]

Got braver, tried riding the skateboard down to Seaver to paint the Dance Concert banner. I got across Twelth Street and past Scripps with various degrees of success, but as I approached CMC I found myself acceletarting out of control, and my weight didn't seem to want to go to the proper places to turn, bleed off speed. My feet started to jitter on the board, and before I knew it there was nothign underneath me. My feet scraped the ground once, but only managed to slow themselves down. I landed mostly on my right elbow and left hand, with my right knee taking a bit of a hit through my pants. I took a moment to mentally inspect myself, deciding nothing critical was damaged, and gingerly picked myself up, trying to brush off passerby's stares (including a CampSec officer). I spared a little attention to my bag... good, it seemed like the three jars of paint I was hauling were indeed still self-contained.

"You alright there, guy?"
"Yeah, I'll be ok; think I'll walk the rest of the way though."

I collected the board and walked on across CMC, sucking on my palm. As I got to the parking lot below Collins, I checked the slope to make sure I wasn't asking for more trouble, then got back on the board, letting it drift at its sane pace while I tried to clean up my elbow a pit, but to no avail. I took to my feet to cross the street and head down the steps behind the football field; from there, the path past the Wash to Seaver was deserted, so I got back on the board. Either that slope wasn't as bad, or I managed to turn enough this time, but I made it the rest of the way down to the theatre safely. Five minutes late by now, I dashed up the stairs, threw down my bag and made an apology, then busied myself at the sink with cold water and paper towels. Finally, clean squares of paper towel clumsily masking-taped to my elbow and hand, I rejoined my group, sheepishly.

The way back up, I realized I was very much no shape to consistently skate uphill. I made a few stretches, but it was mostly walking. Now I have a much less clumsy bandage, and Polysporin to boot; I think there's still some asphalt embedded in me though.

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Comments

[partly-cloudy.livejournal.com]

One way to slow down a rapid downhill acceleration is to weave (transforming some of that energy into side to side motion instead of straight motion). Watch the hill in front of Atwood that leads down to Mills around class time to see some people demonstrating it. Unfortunately, it does require some space to maneuver.

[memnus.livejournal.com]

That's also the technique when one is skiing, and it took me a while to learn then, too. I had many similar incidents to this one on the slopes as I was learning. Unfortunately, warmly-wrapped elbows take much less damage from snow than bare ones do from asphalt, not to mention that a six-year-old body repairs itself a lot faster than one three times that age.