It’s just like ice skating, right?”
The 20-something sales clerk at Gart Sports stared back at me, incredulous. “Um, sure,” she responded, grinning.
“‘Cause I grew up ice skating on a pond in western Massachusetts, and can even go backward,” I offered, trying to impress her with my athletic skill.
“Of course, I haven’t been in 30 years, but you know what they say about riding horses, don’t you?”
“Um, yeah,” she replied, a slight sneer and arched eyebrows revealing her disbelief at my obvious lack of self-awareness and apparent willingness to throw myself, willy-nilly, into Rollerblading and onto the path of certain hospitalization.
“Do you sell those body pads?” I asked her. “You know, the elbow-wrist-knee-buttocks ones?”
Before she could respond, I added: “Oh, and I’ll also need one of those hinged knee braces, as well as some heavy-duty ankle supports. And a helmet, of course.
“Do you sell Ben-Gay too?”
It took me a while to take up Rollerblading. The sport was all the rage a decade or so ago, but I resisted. It was dangerous, after all, especially for someone who was unlikely to decribe herself as coordinated.
But settled, perhaps too safely, into middle age, I had my reasons:
1. A few friends my age or older were doing it, and were in great shape. One even had multiple knee problems and still raved about what a great workout it was. (The surgeries, she insisted, were not directly related.)
I put the stories about Rollerbladers suffering protruding clavicles and misshapen elbows and shattered kneecaps flat out of my mind, as any driven athlete would.
2. It was something I could do outdoors with my 8-year-old daughter besides bicycling, which isn’t much of a workout when you have to stop for every butterfly, squirrel or pretty rock.
3. My sedentary job and poor eating habits had caught up with me. I needed a way to combat middle-aged spread. One look at the firm bottoms and curvy waists of the Spandexed speed skaters in Washington Park served as a convincing advertisement for the activity. I wanted in.
4. The treadmill in my basement had gotten boring enough that I was willing to risk life and limb, in full view of strangers, instead of sweating in my basement while watching “Survivor.”
Once the bug bit, there was no talking me out of it. And plenty of my pals tried. “You can’t be doing that stuff,” said a co-worker. “Our old bodies can’t take it. You should just take steroids or something.” She was kidding. I’m almost certain of that.
Another recommended checking into long-term disability. I was undeterred.
I asked a friend to show me the ropes on my first venture out – really, I intended to learn how to Rollerblade the right way – but he was running late and my daughter, Lexi, and her friend, Abby, were impatient and whiny. So I strapped on my shiny new skates, velcroed all the plastic and nylon guards to the appropriate appendages, and headed toward concrete. Into our newly paved alley.
One entire block. No traffic. No hills. No bumps. No problem.
I wish.
Rollerblading looks much easier than it is. The girls held me up, one on each arm, until I found my balance and could inch along without their help, not skating at all really but sort of scooting. Knees stiff, butt protruding, arms full out to balance. Baby steps.
After the third fall, I gave up. Until the next day.
Each time I tried it, I got a little bit better, a little bit bolder. Within a few days, I didn’t need to hold on to the kids just to stand up.
I was ready to step it up. “Let’s go down to Seventh Avenue Parkway,” I suggested, where there is a paved bike trail. We’d have to traverse three blocks of alleys and cross a few streets, but so what? I was standing up.
Lexi, her friend, Maya, and I zoomed down the alleys, waking napping dogs, urging each other to keep going, laughing, having fun, resting when necessary. The streets were a bit hairy; bumps made balance difficult, and curbs were impossible. At least it was all flat ground or slight inclines.
And – surprise – I didn’t fall once.
Within minutes, I noticed people on foot or in cars pointing at us, smiling, as we made our way along the parkway. “How nice,” I thought. “They think we’re cute and are encouraging us.” The truth was revealed a little later when I caught a glimpse of myself in someone’s car window. I looked ridiculous: bright blue bike helmet, baggy jeans, big jacket, padding everywhere, and a huge, bright yellow backpack in which we had loaded extra jackets, water, snacks and sneakers.
I looked like a Sherpa.
On the way home, the girls’ energy flagged. Down the last alley, home in sight, Lexi went down – hard. She was on a slope. I leaned to get her, got off balance and started heading downhill. Much too fast. The only advice I had received about going downhill was not to. And that “grass is your friend.”
The only thing in that alley to stop me was a trash can. The alternative was the street, and cars were whizzing by. I went for it.
Bam.
Later, a friend confirmed the worst. I had likely broken my finger. Honestly though, at the time I was more concerned about the homeowner coming out and finding a sherpa in her trash can.
The next trip was to Wash Park, with another adult who knew what he was doing.
All those slim men and women cruising around on blades make it look so effortless. They zoomed by, weaving around those pokey walkers, slower bicyclists and novice Rollerbladers like me.
I struggled to keep up with my friend, who patiently kept pulling over – or pulling me. One pair of racers lapped me at least six times. An elderly man and woman in the walking path noticed my struggle to stay upright and shouted encouragement.
They lapped me, too.
I did pretty well – until I agreed to Rollerblade across Downing Street and down Kentucky Avenue. It really is a stupid place to put a curb, but a great place for the maximum number of people to witness the spectacular collapse of a 6-foot woman on Rollerblades trying to feebly leap up the way she’d seen teenage boys wearing backward caps do at skate parks.
A week or so later, I tried again. And, based on my raves about how much fun it is – and that I could finally button those too-tight jeans again – talked my pal LeAnna into going with me. “Wait until you see the great glutes on these people,” I told her, describing the yards of Spandex and latex and Gore-Tex moving around the park and the muscle-y people underneath them. (I didn’t tell her that there were more often people like me there, hiding their imperfections under loose jeans or baggy sweats.)
I only fell once, while just standing near a car. And LeAnna laughed crazily when I crawled, on all fours, down a small hill near the playground. (It was the only thing I could do; I was too exhausted, and had visions of knocking a group of tots into the duck pond.) By the end of the afternoon, we were both a little bit smoother, more confident – and willing to come back again another day.
Maya’s mom, Joanne, called the other day. “Want to go Rollerblading with us? It’s your fault we’re going; now you have to teach me how to do this again.” Apparently Maya had such fun with us that she talked her mom into digging out her old skates, the ones she hadn’t used since before the kids were born.
And they were asking me for instruction.
“Whatever you do, stay away from hills. Leaning back is certain disaster. And grass is your friend.”
Thus, an old trend is reborn.
The next time you’re in Wash Park, look for me. I’ll be the one in the baggy pants. Or maybe – just maybe – the Spandex.
