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Hey everyone, I try to diversify my posts where I can but it's still mainly Splinterlands content, with the coming changes to Splinterlands where I will have less work playing only one account by hand instead of two.

I'm having a lot of fun with the game, but to prepare for all the changes sis months ago I started playing both of my accounts by hand to get as much glint and SPS as possible before the rotation that will change everything but although it's fun this is pretty time consuming and sometimes it feels like work, and since there's more to life and the fact that I'm not getting any younger (I'm in my 40's) the idea of starting to sport again started to grow in my mind..

Easier said than done, because of my hyper flexible joints which was great when I was younger, being super flexible was great for Tae Kwon Do but now I'm older I can't run without any injuries anymore, so Inline Skating it is!

The Netherlands is great for that!

It's kinda boring to look at maybe but in daily life it's very convenient, my country is completely flat, which makes sports like Inline Skating or Biking great, and because there are bicycle routes everywhere, separated from the cars there's a lot of different routes to think off around where I live..

Conditioning and Strength Through Inline Skating

Skating is a smooth motion and therefore up to 50% less stressful on your joints compared to running. Additionally, you use a large number of muscles in both your legs and lower body, helping you get into better shape than when training on a machine, for example.

It's also a lot better than training on machines, I once tried but decided quickly that it wasn't something for me.

It's just like riding a bike!

Starting with Inline Skating isn't something you would think of at the age of 40+ and good for me, I used to skate a lot in my younger years, I even was a member of a skating club. In the last decade I've been teaching my kids how to skate (and how to brake!) and I did little tours with them so it's not that I haven't skated for 10 years but it's the same as riding a bike I guess, you can't unlearn - it's just that the first ten minutes you have to get used to everything again.

With a little bit of searching, I found my old skates on the attic and while I was using my 4-wheel skates for accompanying my kids because you're much more agile on them, the 5-wheel skeelers I haven't used in a long time, maybe they don't look as modern but that's because I estimate them to be around 23 - 25 years old, Bauer makes good quality skates for sure because they're still working perfectly, too bad the fabric on the 5-wheel is starting to degrade but it's only superficial.
For going all by myself when I don't have to turn around all the time, the 5-wheel are my go-to to exercise.

I was primarily using my Fitbit Versa 4 watch as a step tracker and to track my @actifit activity with to be able to post every day, but it has it's own 'start inline-skating exercise' mode, tracking distance and speed.

Back 20 years ago I remember I had a speed-o-meter on my boot, it was tracking a magnet in one of my wheels to see my speed, and later I had a GPS pod on my arm, connected to my Polar watch so I could see how many kilometers my training has been when I got home.
Nowadays it's so much easier, I can see my speed and distance on the go, good thing the fitbit strap is long because my wrist protection was in the way. 😁

Protection is important, but I'm still pretty confident I won't fall so I don't have knee protectors, wrist protection is the bare minimum though because when you break your wrist, it will never be as good as it was before.
When I go on longer distances at higher speeds I also wear a helmet, but not for now because it's mainly about letting my muscles get used to these kind of movements for the first weeks, speed will come later. 😇

Perfect roads

This is maybe 400 meters from my house, I live on the edge of my city, looking out over the fields where this bicycle path is in between, it's pretty smooth and a joy to ride across, with all the flowers and animals to look at.

This path is just over 1km long, it crosses a road and then continues on another separate bicycle path, I guess we Dutch people are spoiled with separate paths like these because I haven't seen them in other countries where cyclist are on the side of the road where cars are driving by at high speeds.

So this is the second part of the path, one straight line for about 2 more kilometers, at the end where the cyclist path isn't separated from the cards anymore, I turned around and went the same way back, the goose have ducklings now, so cute, you can't see them very well hiding in the grass though.

My cruising speed was just over 20 km/h which is about the same speed as cyclists go at, one of my fall pits is that I can't stop and I tend to over exaggerate things, so on purpose I wasn't pushing things, not with speed nor with distance, just over 6km in 25 minutes.

Future plans.

My plans are to do this twice a week and combine Inline Skating with Cycling when the weather conditions aren't too good for skating, it's great fun but there are many times when you can't, not with rain or wet roads, snow or heavy winds, and not in the dark because you have to scan the road closely, stopping takes some distance, especially at high speeds.

For now I own a normal 'citybike' but I'm looking for something in between a mountain bike and a citybike, I can use in daily life to cycle to the city center in my jeans on as well, without getting all dirty.

I have found CUBE bikes but the reviews are not that good, I know @erikklok is a biker as well, can you please give your opinion on somewhat affordable bikes in the €1000 - 1200 range? Thanks in advance!

Well, this is all for this post, and of course, starting something is easy - but keep going every week is hard!

Thanks for stopping by!