u/Patient-Finding-1966

Started skating again at 43 after seeing a guy in his 50s absolutely cruising around on free skates in America. Then I got back to the UK and noticed a few people around my age skating too, so I thought why not? I used to skate as a teenager and dabbled on and off until I had a nasty wipeout at 28 that knocked my confidence.

So far I’ve been out three times, all at skateparks.

First session: rained off (Did get a feel for it and was fun until the rain).

Second session: slammed and hurt my elbow (Though this session was really fun).

Third session: finally got pads and went to the skatepark near work.

I can still roll around okay, though I’m a bit wobbly. Can do tictacs, pivots, and a tiny ollie with basically no air. I was really looking forward to trying some mellow transition, just slowly riding up and down a bank.

I’ve got a helmet and pads too, although I still feel a bit self conscious wearing it, which is ridiculous at my age because I definitely need it more now than I did at 16.

Today was a bit of a washout mentally though. Turned up and there were loads of kids hogging the banks and quarter and half pipes on scooters plus a couple of lads in all black smoking weed, one did have a skateboard though so they were there to skate, still made me a bit paranoid though as I'm a shit skater. Tried warming up awkwardly and then it suddenly started hailing. My deck shoes have holes in them so I got completely drenched. Then later at at a public Square I only got a tiny bit of skating in before getting aggressively begged at near the bus station, which just killed the mood completely. My elbow still aches a bit too.

So yeah... I’m discovering skateboarding again comes with a few more mental and physical barriers in your 40s. Confidence, injuries, awkwardness, weather, feeling out of place, all of it.