GET IN LINE!

In my quest to take on more activities that I genuinely enjoy, I have been thinking of little Champagne and the activities SHE enjoyed. In addition to bike riding, little Champagne loved to roller skate. Roller skating? What's that? Is that how the pilgrims got around? Did the frontier folk roller, what was it?, skate?

Needless to say, it is an archaic activity that you can only do indoors. In order to tap into this former love and bring it into 2010, I was going to have to learn how to inline skate.

And don't call it rollerblading.

Most people my age learned how to inline skate at a very young age. I totally missed this window as inline skating was just becoming popular as I was hanging up my roller skates for good. This presents a very interesting dilemma: where can a 31 year old beginner get a lesson so she doesn't break a hip?

After an exhaustive Google search using every combination of terms at my disposal, I came across the following verbiage on the Xtreme Wheels website: "We offer instruction for inline skating and skateboarding. The cost is $20 for a 2 hour session, membership card is required. May stay at the park after lesson is finished at no extra cost. Leave your number at the service desk and we will call you to set up an appointment."

SUCCESS! I call and leave my info. Virginia, the park owner, calls me back to set up an XTREME! Inline skating lesson for, gulp, my kid. I assure her that the lesson is for me. She is taken aback but SUPER accommodating ("you know we're a trick park, right? We specialize in the Xtreme style of skating you see on TV"). We iron out my goals (to not kill myself or anyone else on the bike path) and Chris, one of her instructors, will teach me on Sunday.

Now that I know I'm heading into skate punk land with my bike path goals, I feel like a total ahole. I'm DREADING the lesson but am determined to not let my vanity prevent me from learning from a professional. I enter the skate park on Sunday and it is just as I feared: ramps, skate punks, graffiti, smells like a school's gym, and no one over the age of 25. My tote, Vera Bradley Bag and bike helmet could not be MORE out of place.

Chris skates over, (instinctively doing some kind of XTREME! trick on some kind of rail in the process) introduces himself, and tells me to go get ready. He sits with me on the bench and is SHOCKED that I've never put skates on. I come clean and tell him (1) this situation is completely mortifying for me, (2) I feel completely out of place and (3) we are going to have to take this lesson very lightly or I will never make it through. Now that the air is clear, we take my skates off (since I've NEVER skated) and walk them outside.

After about 10 minutes we have learned two things: I'm a quick learner and my skates SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In spite of all this, I'm having a blast and can't wait to get better skates. At the end of my lesson (I only needed one of the two hours to get all the essential skills), Chris tells me that when I buy new skates he'll take me out for another lesson so I can get used to the speed. I'm really taking to the sport so he recommends aggressive skates as opposed to recreational skates.

Aggressive...I like it.

I go home, wake up my husband and BEG him to go back to the park with me IMMEDIATELY and get the skates. He is totally on board. We go back, get the skates, I have another 10 minute lesson (I told you, this girl is a quick learner), and at this moment my skates and gear are in my car ready for my first lap around Delaware Park. XTREME FITNESS SKATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so hard core.